Dear Sir,
We would like to draw the attention of your readers to 'INSPIRE', a new five-year UK-wide initiative set up by the Academy of Medical Sciences and funded by the Welcome Trust, with the principal aim of engaging medical students with research. Each medical school was invited to apply for a £10 000 grant in November 2012 and set up new events within the school that would stimulate, inform and excite students about the benefits and potential of a research career. Many universities are collaborating to maximise the benefit to students offering research expertise in most medical fields, which will allow invaluable sharing of experiences and networking with senior academics across UK universities.
INSPIRE aims to encourage medical students of all years, to consider a research career and also to build student interest in research through innovative and exciting new ideas. One of the main objectives is to forge stronger links between students and senior academics with the hope of producing high quality research outputs for the students, which will benefit them in their medical or surgical careers. The INSPIRE programme is aware that not all students entering will undertake careers in academic medicine, but with planned activities the group hopes to foster a new research culture in all clinicians within the NHS. Nottingham University Medical School has successfully been awarded one of the INSPIRE Grants, and planned activities over the next two years include student research summerships, medical science fairs, and CV and Academic Foundation Programme workshops, and has set the inaugural Annual East Midlands Medical School Research Meeting in collaboration with the Universities of Leicester and Norwich. We will keep you informed of the progress of the new scheme.
Mr Thomas Kurien MSc, BMBS, BMedSci (Hons), MRCS , NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship ST4 Trauma and Orthopaedics, INSPIRE Lead for the University of Nottingham Medical School, Nottingham, UK
Editor-in-Chief's comment
It is reassuring in these times of economic and academic austerity to see such an encouraging project aimed at capturing the imagination of the next generation of academics. Here at 360 we wish you well with your endeavour.
