Inspiring our students
INSPIRE aims to light the fire of scientific enquiry in those students who might be tempted by an academic career.
The University of Bristol is a research intensive university, ranked by the Research Excellence Framework 2021 among the UK's top research universities. We are committed to enabling our students to become involved in research.
Bristol INSPIRE is part of a national programme to increase medical, vet and dental student engagement in academic research. We are administered by the Academy of Medical Sciences and funded by the Wellcome Trust. Our local programme is partnered with GW4 universities Cardiff, Plymouth and Exeter.
Research opportunities
The University of Bristol offers a broad range of activities, opportunities and incentives for students to engage with our research teams. These research opportunities have been developed through consultation with current students, and with matched funding from the Faculty of Health Sciences, the Faculty of Life Sciences and the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute.
We also work in close partnership to deliver co-ordinated activities with the INSPIRE schemes in the Universities of Cardiff, Exeter and Plymouth.
Academic activity
INSPIRE aims to encourage medical, dental and veterinary students to take part in research. We’ve had many success stories over the years, including students presenting at conferences, publishing and going onto enter academic clinical careers.
INSPIRE achieves its goals through:
- Travel grants - for any medical, dental and vet students to attend conferences/meetings and present their research
- Taster days - students can find supervisors for the summer vacationships - for any Year 2 medical, dental and vet students
- Summer Studentships - funding for students to join a research team and conduct a 4 week research project - for any year 2-4 Bristol medical or dental students and any AGEP-1, Year 2, Year 3 and Year 4 vet students
- Inspire student journal - an opportunity to edit and peer review student research papers. Students also have the opportunity to be involved in the student-led Student Health Sciences Research Journal.
The most up to date information on INSPIRE opportunities can be found on our blog.
Clinical Academic Pathway
This could be your first step into Clinical Academic Training.
National Intercalators’ Conference
Bristol INSPIRE ambassadors regularly organise the Intercalators’ conference. The conferences showcase the wide variety of exciting and impactful research carried out by medical, dental and veterinary students from across the UK during their intercalation year.
During the previous conference, Professor Athimalaipet Ramanan delivered an amazing keynote talk on his journey into clinical research, while Professor Tony Pickering & Dr Anna Gordan gave an inspiring careers talk to budding academic doctors.
Keep up to date with our events.
It was a great honour and pleasure to lead the team organising the conference. The experience allowed me to grow as a leader and being a part of the team was incredibly fun and rewarding to see the event take shape and run the event with the team. I have learnt a lot about planning and organising events due to partaking in INSPIRE.