Developing an application for the UK Pre-Doctoral Clinical and Practitioner Academic Fellowship (PCAF): the collective experience of a community of physiotherapists

Abstract

For physiotherapists and other healthcare professionals, developing capability and expertise in research can be challenging. However, involvement in research is beneficial at organisational and individual levels, both for clinicians and patients. One way to embark on research is to apply for a personal fellowship such as the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Pre-Doctoral Clinical Academic Fellowship (PCAF). While the NIHR has guidance on how to complete the application form, it can be difficult to implement this guidance and understand what a competitive application looks like. As a group of physiotherapists and academic supervisors, who have applied for NIHR PCAFs, what follows is a supportive resource, to inform others who might be thinking of applying. Contribution of paper: • This is the first paper to report a collective reflection on the experience of a community of physiotherapists and their academic supervisors of applying for NIHR PCAFs • A description of the process is provided which will be beneficial to other physiotherapists aspiring to develop their application for an NIHR PCAF