NW England: NIHR Health & Care Professional (HCP) Internship Programme 2026

Dear CHAIN member,

We would like to draw your attention to the following opportunity. Please pass on as appropriate. Thank you.

NIHR Health & Care Professional (HCP) Internship Programme 2026

Are you a Nurse, Midwife, Allied Health Professional, Pharmacist, Healthcare Scientist or working in Social Care, Social Work, looking to embark on a practitioner research career and make a difference through undertaking high quality research?

Do you have the drive and ambition to be a future research leader?

NHS R&D North West is pleased to announce that alongside its regional partners from NHS Trusts, Professional Networks and HEIs it will be delivering the NIHR Health and Care Professional Internship Programme across the North West Region of England in 2026.

There are 23 places available on this highly prestigious 12-month programme providing predoctoral tailored and bespoke learning and development to the full range of health and care professions (not including doctors and dentists) across the full range of research related career aspirations i.e. from a desire to increase research awareness within clinical practice up to and including providing individuals with a strong foundation on which to build a research related career.

The internship provides a funded opportunity for early career health and care researchers with dedicated time away from their substantive role to engage in research-based activities.

Closing date for online applications, 5pm 19th December 2025.

For more details please see:
https://research.northwest.nhs.uk/our-work/nihr-health-care-professional-hcp-internship-programme/

Regards,

Irina Johnston

CHAIN Administrative Assistant

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Free online mindfulness programme & ¥3800 (≈ £20) reward - research study

Dear all,

My name is Francesco Saldarini. I am a postdoctoral fellow at Waseda University (Japan) and a visiting researcher at the University of Surrey. My research focuses on investigating the (potential) effects of mind-body practices (e.g., mindfulness and martial arts) on psychology.

I am running a longitudinal intervention study investigating the effects of a digital mindfulness-based programme on a variety of health and cognitive outcomes and I would like to invite you to participate.

The study takes place entirely online and will require you to participate in two or three main experimental sessions, when you will be asked to complete a task and answer some questions. Each session will take approximately 40 minutes to complete. Moreover, you will get to participate in an online NHS-approved mindfulness-based programme! The programme is pre-recorded and you can flexibly choose when to attend a session. I will also reward you ¥3800 (≈ £20) for your participation.

This study was approved by the Waseda University research ethics committee (REF : 2024 - 314).

If you are interested in participating in the study and wish to know more about it, please contact me at:
w.iac23317 AT kurenai.waseda.jp.

Basic inclusion criteria:

- Currently feeling stressed
- Between 18 and 65 years of age
- Willing to complete a screening questionnaire
- No previous mindfulness experience
- Willing to practice mindfulness for minimum 2 hours per week for 4 weeks

Thank you,

Francesco Saldarini

My source: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=VIRTUAL-METHODS