Supporting our Researchers

Research Staff Forum

A Warwick Research Staff Forum provides a focus for gathering staff views on issues such as induction, training and development. With a representative on the University Research Committee, the Forum helps inform Warwick's policy and practice, improving the experience of being a researcher at Warwick. Find out more.

Early Career Research Group

Our WMS Early Career Researcher group meets monthly to discuss WMS, University and external research opportunities and challenges. This discussion forum of non-clinical and clinical scientists facilitates the sharing of ideas, experience and knowledge across disciplines, encouraging post-doctoral researchers to stay at WMS.

Clinical Academics

Joint University and NHS Academic Strategy Committees agree new clinical academic appointments and developments in partnership with WMS. Joint appraisals are carried out for all NHS/WMS appointments. We have an integrated approach to providing clinical and international public health academic training.

A particular feature of our work is that we are very active in studies of rehabilitation involving non-medical clinical academics (e.g. nurses, physiotherapists and health psychologists). The support programme for these clinical academics is integrated with that of the medical clinical academics.

Facilities and Laboratories

We have laboratories at two locations; a biomedical interface at the University's Gibbet Hill Campus and a clinical interface at CSRL (adjacent to UHCW Hospital). Our research environment and culture is distinctive in its interdisciplinarity, with a particular emphasis on cross-campus collaborations involving:

• Systems Biology
• Life Sciences
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Chemistry
• Warwick Manufacturing Group
• Warwick Business School

An ongoing programme of refurbishment ensures our laboratories remain state-of-the-art as we expand our research.

Where appropriate we share specialist facilities with others at Warwick; for example our statisticians using powerful computing services elsewhere in the University for simulations or the orthopaedic surgeons using stress-testing equipment housed in the engineering department.

Gibbet Hill Campus

Facilities based at Gibbet Hill include our Mechanochemical Cell Biology Building, the Warwick Clinical Trials Unit and a range of laboratories adjacent to the School of Life Sciences, which allows for easy collaboration between the two schools. In 2021 we opened a new state-of-the-art Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Building, bringing together up to 300 biomedical researchers from across the School of Life Sciences and Warwick Medical School to fight human diseases.

Clinical Sciences Research Laboratory (at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire)

Facilities at CSRL include well-equipped patient research interface suites for clinical research, as well as the Human Metabolism Research Unit (HMRU) and the Warwickshire Institute for the Study of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism (WISDEM). The laboratories at CSRL/UHCW were awarded NIHR experimental medicine status in 2010. A recently installed PET-CT and three MRI scanners are also available for clinical research.

HMRU

The Human Metabolism Research Unit was commissioned in 2010 following a £2M investment from UoW, UHCW and SCRA. It houses some of the most advanced whole-body calorimeters in Europe as well as a bodpod for air displacement plethysmography, magnetic resonance imaging for brown adipose tissue and facilities for cardio-pulmonary exercise testing. The unit supports research into the determinants of human obesity and its metabolic sequelae and enables the study of metabolic profiles associated with other endocrine conditions. The HMRU is affiliated to the WISDEM Centre and uses laboratory facilities at CSRL.

BRU-RH

In 2012, WMS and UHCW invested £500k in an independent Biomedical Research Unit in Reproductive Health (BRU-RH) for systematic sample collection (biobank), deep clinical phenotyping (database), advanced ultrasound imaging, and laboratory analyses.

Training and Development

Learning and Development Centre

All staff have an individual learning account that accesses a personalised training portfolio supported through the University’s Learning and Development Centre (LDC) (LDC). Programmes are delivered against the Vitae Researcher Development Framework. Staff supervising research students attend an Introduction to Research Supervision workshop.

The LDC supports researcher development, identifying and developing a comprehensive training programme targeted at research-active staff needs. The LDC offers one-to-one support and a variety of workshops on such topics as:

• Managing and leading research teams
• Core personal effectiveness skills
• Teaching and learning
• Research project management
• Academic writing
• Statistics and data analysis
• Technologies for research
• Enterprise and entrepreneurship
• Equality and Diversity

There are also a variety of longer-term programmes available such as the Warwick Mentoring Scheme and The Warwick Leadership Programme, which support staff development over a prolonged period of time. Find out more.

Institute of Advanced Study

The Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) offers personal development support to researchers, including its Academic Careers and Employability (ACE) Programme, which is focused on preparation for academic employment. There are also targeted IAS fellowship programmes for early career researchers.

Study Leave

We provide opportunities for prolonged study leave for academic staff to develop their research ideas.