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NEWS: Susan Mayor England's new research funding system leaves some fields of psychiatry out in cold BMJ 2007; 334: 821 [Full text]

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NIHR Will Make Clinical Academics Redundant

Jeremy W Coid   (25 May 2007)

NIHR Will Make Clinical Academics Redundant 25 May 2007
Jeremy W Coid, Professor of Forensic Psychiatry St Bartholomew's Hosp, William Harvey House, 61 Bartholomew Close, London EC1A 7BE Send response to journal: Re: NIHR Will Make Clinical Academics Redundant	The lack of response to Susan Mayor’s article (BMJ, 2007 - 21 April England's new research funding system leaves some fields of psychiatry out in cold) is surprising in view of the worrying implications for the future of medical research in the UK. It is possible that many clinical academics still do not understand, or find it hard to believe that a DoH reorganisation intended to promote research for the benefit of patient care will remove the funding for their jobs and destroy the future career prospects of many previously engaged in clinical research. From April 2008, NIHR will top slice the entire R&D budget from NHS Trusts. This includes the salaries of all clinical academics, supporting administrative staff, and technical staff. NIHR advice on the use of the already reduced “transitional” funding for 2007/8 is that this can be used for their redundancies. All Trusts have recently been circulated with a letter from the Director of NIHR instructing them to make a return of all academic sessions currently paid for from within service budgets. This will be “ring-fenced” for the benefit of applied research within NIHR by 2008/9. As Trusts will no longer receive funding for academics’ salaries or supporting staff, several have already started the process of change by making R&D staff redundant. All clinical academics now face an uncertain future. They can accept redundancy paid from transitional funding, change their contracts to full-time clinical (if their Trusts have sufficient funds to pay for extra sessions), or reapply for their jobs for the rest of their careers through the process of obtaining new research grants. Unfortunately, the chance of obtaining a grant from NIHR appears slim – especially for certain medical sub specialities, those outside of large scale research centres, and those whose research is not deemed sufficiently “applied” by NIHR. Doubts have even been cast on the integrity of the procedures for awarding the first round of NIHR programme grants (see article). A more recent invitation to prominent and promising academics to put themselves forward to join a “faculty” and have part of their salaries paid by NIHR reveals within the small print that this is only open to those fortunate enough to obtain a NIHR grant. The messages from this latest DoH reorganisation are simple. If you have a university contract funded by an NHS Trust consult your British Medical Association representative as soon as possible to consider your career options. If you are an academic funded by a university, this reorganisation represents a potential windfall of funding, if you can make your research applied. But you may have to take over the teaching and supervision duties of your colleagues who will have left your department by next year. If you are a lecturer or clinical research fellow in one of the new posts aimed to revitalise and reverse the decline in UK clinical research, think again. NIHR has probably chopped the rungs from the top of your career ladder. Jeremy Coid MD, FRCPsych Professor of Forensic Psychiatry Queen Mary College/East London and City Mental Health NHS Trust email: j.w.coid@qmul.ac.uk Competing interests: Competing interests: all applications for programme grants from the field of forensic mental health, including Professor Coid, were rejected by NIHR. NIHR have closed the DoH funding stream “National Programme In Forensic Mental Health”.