SafetyNet / Open opportunities

Open opportunities

Explore some of the opportunities currently available for engaging with the NIHR PSRCs

 

NIHR Short Placement Award for Research Collaboration (SPARC)

 

The NIHR SPARC award provides an opportunity to design and undertake a short placement in a part of the NIHR to enhance your research career, skills and networks.

You can apply for up to £15,000 to undertake a bespoke short placement designed to optimise and enhance your research training experience, CV and academic career.

Eligibility: NIHR Academy members only. See the full eligibility criteria here.

Opportunity status: Opening soon (16 September 2026)

 

 

 

Webinar – 3 September

NIHR is hosting a webinar on 3 September 2026 for those interested to learn more about the NIHR Short Placement Award for Research Collaboration (SPARC) and the NIHR Local Authority Short Placement Award for Research Collaboration (LA SPARC). Both schemes will open 16 September 2026.

This 55-min webinar will:

  • Introduce the schemes and benefits
  • Cover the schemes’ aims and the application process
  • Share top tips and guidance on what the funding committee are looking for

Register via this link

SPARC placement opportunities within the NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaborations (PSRCs):

Explore the placement opportunities currently available across the NIHR PSRCs. If you are interested in applying for a placement, we recommend discussing your plans with your Academic Career Development Lead before submitting an application.

 

NIHR PSRC: Greater Manchester

Project: GRIPES speak-up tool evaluation

Description: Within the NIHR PSRC: Greater Manchester Enhancing Cultures of Safety theme, researchers investigate ways to empower staff to speak up for patient safety in cultures where speaking up may not feel psychologically safe for all staff. Resident doctors can often struggle to speak up due to professional hierarchies and norms of medical training. In 2019, researchers developed the GRIPES reporting tool to facilitate resident doctors’ speak-up at University Hospitals Leicester. In this SPARC project, the candidate will follow up to understand the contemporary use of GRIPES within UHL and other regional hospitals, using qualitative methods, and help design strategies for broader roll-out.

This project would suit candidates interested in learning more about qualitative research, safety voice, and/or implementation science. The placement will offer training and network development in qualitative methodologies, implementation science frameworks, and speak-up/voice scholarship, tailored to the candidate’s individual needs and interests.

Contact details: Dr Jennifer Creese, jlc60@leicester.ac.uk

NIHR PSRC: North West London

Project: Medication Safety

Description: The NIHR PSRC: North West London offers placement opportunities across a range of projects on medication safety, depending on the candidate’s training needs. The projects currently open for applications are:

  • Second person checking of medication dispensing, preparation and administration in hospitals: what works, for whom, in what contexts, and why? The CHECKMED realist evaluation study
  • Managing adverse drug reactions
  • Increasing barcode medication scanning
  • Impact of electronic prescribing

Contact details: Prof Bryony Dean Franklin, bryony.franklin@nhs.net

NIHR PSRC: Yorkshire and Humber

Project: Improving Patient Safety in Home Care: Understanding, Preventing and Reducing Risks, Errors and Harm

Description: As more healthcare is delivered in people’s homes, patients and unpaid carers are taking on increasingly complex healthcare tasks. There are a series of projects in this programme, which aims to understand how errors, adverse events and safety risks arise in home care, identify factors that contribute to harm, and develop practical solutions to support safer care at home. The work forms part of an ongoing programme of patient safety research focused on improving the safety and quality of healthcare delivered outside traditional healthcare settings.

During the placement, the awardee will gain experience in health research and patient safety. Opportunities for involvement include reviewing research evidence, analysing data, working with patients and carers, co-design activities and supporting research dissemination activities. They will develop valuable skills in critical thinking, research methods, academic writing, stakeholder engagement, and translating research into practice while working alongside researchers in the NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaboration: Yorkshire and Humber.

Contact details: Raabia Sattar, Raabia.Sattar@bthft.nhs.uk

Project: Decluttering for safety research theme

Description: The awardee would join a research team exploring the identification of low value care (healthcare ‘clutter’, or practices that do not benefit patients) and develop skills and knowledge around ‘de-implementation’, learning how to apply behavioural science principles to reduce or remove low value care.

There would be an opportunity to contribute to qualitative data analysis within ongoing projects – for example, qualitative work exploring the feasibility of an intervention to de-implement double-checking of medicines in acute hospitals (the Safe Administration of Medicines Intervention, or SAM-I) and/or an examination of how recommendations in critical incident reports might contribute to low value care or ‘clutter’. 

Contact details:Alison Bravington (Decluttering), alison.bravington@bthft.nhs.uk & Lynn McVey (SAM-I), Lynn.McVey@bthft.nhs.uk


Reflections from a SPARC Award holder:

Fatima Sabir: Why I applied for a SPARC Award, and why I’d encourage others to do the same

One of the greatest benefits of being an NIHR-funded PhD student working with the NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaboration (PSRC): Yorkshire & Humber is the opportunity to learn from researchers beyond your own institution. When I came across the SPARC Award, I saw it as a chance to do exactly that-to step outside my usual research environment, broaden my perspective and learn from experts whose work complemented my own.

Through the award, I spent time at the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing at UCL, working alongside researchers with expertise in pharmacoepidemiology and the analysis of large-scale electronic health records. During my placement, I contributed to a study exploring ethnic disparities in the safety and effectiveness of atorvastatin using CPRD Aurum. Although the methods were familiar, the conversations around the analyses often weren’t. I found myself thinking more carefully about how research questions are framed, why particular analytical approaches are chosen and, ultimately, how findings can be translated into something useful for clinicians and patients. What I probably hadn’t appreciated before the placement was how valuable it is simply to spend time talking to people outside your usual research environment. Some of the most useful discussions happened away from formal meetings, whether over coffee or while working through a problem together. Those conversations challenged my assumptions, introduced me to different ways of thinking and reminded me that good research is rarely developed in isolation.

The SPARC Award also supported my own development in a very practical way. Alongside the placement, the funding enabled me to undertake advanced statistical training that would otherwise have been difficult to access within my PhD budget. As my research becomes increasingly methodologically complex, having the opportunity to develop these skills has been invaluable. It has given me greater confidence in my current work and provided a stronger foundation for the transition into postdoctoral research.

Looking back, what I will take away most is a different perspective. The placement reinforced the importance of being open to new ideas, seeking collaboration and continuing to learn throughout your research career. For any NIHR PhD student thinking about applying for a SPARC Award, I would genuinely recommend it. It is an opportunity to step outside your day-to-day research, learn from people with different expertise and invest in your own development. The experience has broadened my thinking, strengthened my research skills and introduced me to collaborations that I hope will continue well beyond my PhD.

I am grateful to the NIHR PSRC: Yorkshire & Humber for making the placement possible and to everyone at the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing at UCL for making me feel so welcome. It is an experience that I know will continue to influence both my research and my career.