These new awards are offered jointly between The Royal College of Ophthalmologists and Fight for Sight. Fight for Sight’s mission is to stop sight loss by funding the highest quality medical research. The RCOphth recognises that research is the basis of high-quality evidence-based clinical care, services, and policies. They are named to honour the late Miss Zakarian who generously left Fight for Sight a legacy to help the charity support pioneering researchers.
Three awards of £25,000 will be offered to ophthalmologists who are members of RCOphth, to gain experience and undertake ophthalmic and vision research. Each award is tenable for one year.
The Zakarian Awards are designed to support three categories of researchers.
- Academic Clinical Fellow (NIHR IATS ACF) Ophthalmology trainees seeking to prepare preliminary/pilot data to develop their proposed PhD projects and/or doctoral research training funding applications. Support can be sought for consumables, equipment and open access dissemination.
- Ophthalmology trainees not in the IATS or other research training posts seeking to undertake research. Support can be sought for consumables, equipment and open-access dissemination and for salary support to buy ‘time out’ from a training programme to undertake research
- Consultants or SAS ophthalmologists holding NHS substantive contracts and without dedicated research time (PAs in job plan). Those holding academic posts/contracts are ineligible. Support can be sought for buying out time in the job plan for research, or for consumables or equipment to establish a research project
Successful applicants are expected to gain experience in and exposure to a research environment to increase their skills and knowledge base. For full information and the application process please visit https://www.fightforsight.org.uk/apply-for-funding/current-funding-opportunities/the-royal-college-of-ophthalmologists-zakarian-awards/
The deadline for applications is 22 July 2022. The interview will be at the beginning of September. Successful applicants will be notified by the end of September 2022 with the award expected to start by the end of October 2022.