51³Ô¹ÏÍø

Here at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø, we have a strong track record of supporting our Academic Clinical Fellows (ACFs) to progress to the next stage of clinical academic training. Many former ACFs have successfully secured competitive research fellowships, including NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowships and externally funded PhD opportunities, enabling them to continue developing their clinical academic careers. For more information, please see  and 

Recruitment to the 2027 NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowships (ACF’s) will open from October 2026.

Please see a timeline for recruitment activity below:

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• All posts are advertised via 
•  is responsible for the application and interview process.
• For enquiries about the application process you can contact London NHS England directly via the 

• See the table below for a list of the 2027 ICL ACFs

Funding and bursaries

There are currently three sources of funding available to 51³Ô¹ÏÍø NIHR academic clinical fellows to support their research. Each fund has a distinct purpose, eligibility criteria and application process - and all three are coordinated through the CATO Team. Academic trainees are advised to consider their academic training, research consumables and skills development needs early on in their programmes in order to achieve maximum benefit from the funding available. See our funding webpage for further information. 

The three funding sources for ACFs are listed below: 

• National Institute of Health Research Bursary for Academic Trainees
• 51³Ô¹ÏÍø Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) funding
• Research Training Programme Award (RTPA)

Events