Scientific Foundation Board

The RCGP Scientific Foundation Board (SFB) was first established in 1976 as a charitable funding body of the College. It supports high quality primary care research studies and awards grants for research with direct relevance to the care of patients in the general practice setting.

Research grants

Any GP, primary healthcare professional, or university-based health services researcher may apply for an SFB grant. Research must be relevant to primary care, and to be undertaken in the UK.

The SFB offers two avenues for funding:

  • Annual Research Grants
  • Practitioner's Allowance Grants (PAGs)

Annual Research Grants

The Annual Research Grant, worth up to £30,000, funds UK-based general practice and primary care research projects which tend to span more than 12 months. The college awards three Annual Research Grants per year.

The application portal is now closed for this year’s Annual Grants. The portal will open again towards the end of 2026.

Practitioner's Allowance Grants (PAGs)

Our Practitioner’s Allowance Grants of up to £2,000, are available to support GPs who face challenges in covering the direct costs of a specific research activity within their practice or institution.

Applications for our Practitioner Allowance Grant are open twice a year. The window is currently open and will close on 19 January 2026.

Apply for a grant

To apply for the SFB Research Grant please visit our Grant Management Platform, and select which type of grant you would like to apply for.

Please use the application guidance document for more information on eligibility and to support your application.

RCGP Scientific Foundation Board Funding Application Guidance 2025 (PDF file, 598 KB)

For more information contact us by email at SFB@rcgp.org.uk.

SFB impacts

Between 2015 – 2025:

  • Awarded 30 annual grants and 36 practitioner's allowance grants
  • Allocated over £500,000 to support academic projects and career development in GPs
  • 100% of completed annual grants published in academic journals
  • SFB funded research is regularly presented at UK and International academic conferences and is frequently published in the British Journal of General practice
  • Grant-funded projects have covered a range of health inequalities focus areas such as earlier cancer diagnosis, severe mental illness, chronic respiratory disease and initiatives linked to CORE20Plus population groups including as Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities and ethnic minority communities.
  • PAG and annual grant research findings have also supported the colleges strategic priorities to tackle the workforce crisis – notably via studies on workload, GP retention and medical education.
  • SFB grant holders have employed a wide range of quantitative and qualitative methodologies including systematic reviews, focus groups, feasibility studies, semi-structured interviews, GP surveys and mixed method approaches.

Listen to our GP+ Careers podcast to hear how the SFB programme supported a GPs route into academia.

GP+ Academic with Dr Tom Purchase

  • Dr Ben Bowers, Are non-injectable anticipatory medications a viable end-of-life intervention in the community? A systematic review and narrative synthesis of the published evidence
  • Dr Marianne McCallum, Developing equity-focused multimorbidity interventions for socioeconomically deprived communities through participatory co-design (DEMIST-PC)
  • Dr Richard Ma, How should general practice respond to the healthcare needs of older people living with HIV (OPLWH)? A focus group and interview study of PLWH and healthcare professionals in three English cities
  • Dr Hamish Foster, Exploring the work of healthy living: developing a taxonomy of prevention burden through secondary analysis of qualitative data
  • Dr Peter Hanlon, Patient, public and professional perceptions of the concept of frailty
  • Dr Qizhi Huang, Co-producing a primary care-led intervention to reduce the risk of osteoporotic fractures in men living with prostate cancer receiving androgen deprivation therapy.
  • Dr Keiran Sweeney, Validation of an English-language version of the Multimorbidity Questionnaire in Primary Care
  • Dr Tom Purchase, Understanding the role of parents in paediatric safety incidents in general practice: mixed methods study to develop harm reduction strategies.
  • Dr Josphine Reynolds, Dementia and ethnicity – exploring cultural understandings, access to diagnosis and uptake of services through Photovoice and co-production

  • Dr Gianni Dongo, Maximising the Impact of the Care Pathway Analysis of Oesophageal and Gastric Cancer Diagnoses in the UK through Excellence in Patient and Public Collaboration
  • Dr Sarah Jayne Bunnewell, Women and health care professional’s experiences of access to intrauterine systems (IUS) for non-contraceptive purposes
  • Dr Stephen Woolford, The hidden workload study: a mixed methods analysis of local demographics and primary care workload
  • Dr Hyun Woo Yu, A qualitative feasibility study exploring the view of general practitioners in England (UK), on the meanings and values of understanding dying as a normal, ordinary, or natural process in primary palliative care
  • Dr Kathryn Dixon, Palliative and end of life needs of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities: what is the best way to do research to improve clinical services?
  • Dr Nada Khan, Retaining the GP workforce in direct patient care – A qualitative study of the factors influencing career intentions of GPs
  • Dr Helen Parretti & Dr Jennifer Cole, Chronic Disease in Dementia (CDID) Study
  • Dr Helen Leach, The experiences of remote consulting for people with chronic fatigue syndrome / myalgic encephalomyelitis and fibromyalgia in primary care

Reporting

Grant holders are required to submit an annual report each year until completion of their research project. Annual reports should be presented using the annual progress report template which can be found below.

Once the project is complete grant holders are required to submit a final report and a final financial report/ final statement of expenditure. Upon receiving these reports, we deem the project officially completed. Both reports should be presented using the reporting templates below.

For projects of up to 12 months, grant holders are only required to submit a final report and final financial report/ final statement of expenditure upon completion. No annual report is necessary as the project does not span more than 1 year.

We request that all recipients of our grants acknowledge the SFB in publications and presentations of work that we have funded. Grant holders are expected to notify and provide copies of research papers prior to publication (confidentiality and embargoes are maintained).

General information about funding

  • Individuals applying for grants must be based in the UK and have a substantial component of the project relating to UK general practice.
  • The Board does not fund audit projects or guideline developments.
  • The Board will award grants to individuals who are not members of RCGP.
  • Individuals of any primary care discipline can apply for the Annual grants.
  • Priority will be given to short term projects which will normally last up to 18 months.
  • The Board will not generally fund time for individuals who are already in receipt of funding for research from another source, but may consider a request for protected time for an individual working in a research practice which was in receipt of R&D support funding.

  • Professor Sophie Park (SFB Chair), Professor of Primary Care and Clinical Education, University of Oxford.
  • Professor Helen Atherton (Vice Chair), Professor of Primary Care Research, University of Southampton.
  • Dr Thomas Patel Campbell (Treasurer), RCGP Honorary Treasurer and GP.
  • Dr Munro Stewert, RCGP Vice-Chair of Policy and GP.
  • Professor Rupert Payne (representative of SAPC), Professor of Primary Care and Clinical Pharmacology, University of Exeter.
  • Professor Carolyn Chew-Graham, RCHP Research Paper of the Year Chair, Professor of General Practice Research at Keele University.
  • Dr Nicholas Thomas (RCGP Clinical Lead for Research), GP and NIHR Research Delivery Network Deputy Speciality Lead for Primary Care.
  • Dr Julia Hiscock, Medical Sociologist, Research Fellow at Bangor University and Co‐Director at North Wales Centre for Primary Care.
  • Dr Mark Lown, Clinical Lecturer at the University of Southampton.
  • Dr Kathryn Hughes, Senior Clinical Lecturer of Primary Care in the Division of Population Medicine at Cardiff University.
  • Dr James Prior, Research Fellow in Epidemiology, Keele University.
  • Dr Sarah Tonkin-Crine, Associate Professor and Health Psychologist, University of Oxford.
  • Dr Rachel Johnson, Associate Professor in Primary Care, University of Bristol.
  • Dr Patricia Schartau, Academic Clinical Lecturer in Primary Care, University College London.
  • Dr Jessica Watson, NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in General Practice, University of Bristol.
  • Dr Hajira Dambha-Miller, Associate Professor in Primary Care Research, University of Southampton.
  • Dr Helen Cramer, Medical Anthropologist and Research Fellow at the University of Bristol.
  • Representative of the RCGP Patient Partnership Group.