Endocrine Abstracts

A series of reports have highlighted the lack of career structure and incentive for both clinical and non-clinical scientists wishing to pursue an academic career. For non-clinical personnel this is particularly critical as Endocrinology risks losing some of its identity to newer disciplines such as cell biology and signalling. The current inability to train clinical academics and basic scientists in Endocrinology represents a major threat to the discipline as a whole and must be reversed.

Several measures have been put into place to reverse this situation. Clinical Fellowship schemes are provided by research councils, major charities and Department of Health and their allocation has been maintained through ring-fencing of funds during recent cut-backs in other sectors. An expansion of schemes beyond post-doctoral training (Intermediate Fellowships, Clinician Scientist posts) have provided a career path through to Senior Lectureship/ Senior Research Fellowship that is benefitting many UK Endocrinologists. Parallel non-clinical fellowships are fewer in number and highly competitive, but the recent Roberts review will deliver 1000 new research posts to post-doctoral fellows within the UK over the next 5 years; in each case the employing Institute must offer ongoing support after the 5 year RCUK funded fellowship.

This presentation will review the sources of these career fellowships and provide guidance on how to succeed in any application process.