Academic Clinical Fellowships (ACF)
These are run by the NIHR but applied for through Oriel. There are 278 ACF jobs in the UK in 2024/25. The posts lasts for 3 years (up to 4 years for GP).
You spend approximately 25% of your time in research or education training alongside your specialty training post.
The primary purpose of these posts is to nurture doctors within the early stages of their specialty training to prepare an application for a Training Fellowship leading to a PhD or a postdoctoral fellowship.
Applicants can only apply to 3 ACF vacancies and additional vacancies will be withdrawn.
Applicants for ACF posts will need to apply for the ACF post and the specialty associated with the post e.g. Paediatrics ACF post and Paediatric Training.
Person Specification for ACF roles
Shortlisting criteria:
These are the criteria used by the recruiter’s to mark applications, a number of the points are quite vague but it can help you direct your work whilst at medical school or in your early career stages if you are considering applying for an academic clinical fellowship. The maximum score is 28. If you are shortlisted you are likely to be selected for interview.
ACF Interviews:
The ACF interview is approximately 30 minutes long and is used to deem candidates appointable or not. The interview panel should have clinical, academic and lay (non-medically qualified) representatives. It is not the same as clinical benchmarking. It roughly covers the following areas:
Understanding of data
Ability to explain a dataset concisely to a scientific audience
Ability to explain the result to a lay audience
Evidence of academic achievements to date
Knowledge of science/academic medicine related to the advertised ACF post
Experience of research
Balancing your clinical and academic responsibilities
