Grants and prizes

The British Geriatrics Society administers a number of grants, prizes and awards with a view to encouraging high quality research and furthering the professional development of professionals with an interest in older people’s healthcare.

The BGS has made these available to encourage medics and healthcare professionals with limited study budgets to have access to educational opportunities for many years. We have recently reviewed our grants, awards and prizes, and simplified the process of applying. The current grants outlined below.

Our grants and prizes

Click below to learn more about the various grants, prizes and awards on offer from the BGS, along with eligibility criteria and current deadlines.

BGS & Dunhill Medical Trust Joint Doctoral Fellowship

The BGS has partnered with the Dunhill Medical Trust to co-fund Doctoral Training Fellowships to support front-line health professionals to undertake research relevant to age-related diseases and frailty. For deadlines and other information, click here.

Bulpitt Undergraduate Scholarship (Cardiovascular SIG)

Bullpitt Undergraduate Scholarship 2024

The Cardiovascular SIG of the British Geriatrics Society invites applications for the 11th Bulpitt Undergraduate Scholarship, to be submitted by 30 June 2024. Two awards of £400 will be made.

Candidates should write a 150 word statement as to why they should be given the scholarship and how the elective will help to further their interest in geriatric medicine.

Scholarship holders will be expected to write a report following the elective.

Entries to be submitted by email to: j.gough@bgs.org.uk (please include '2024 Bulpitt Scholarship Entry' in the subject line).

Closing date: 30 June 2024

Dhole-Eddlestone Memorial Prize

The Dhole-Eddlestone Memorial Prize is funded by a legacy from Dr Manindra Kumar Dhole, a BGS member who died in 1977. The prize is so named to commemorate the anniversary of his marriage with Dr Eddlestone. One cash prize of £1,000 is made each year and announced on 14 January, the anniversary of the date of their marriage. Applications are not accepted. The prize goes to ‘the most deserving published work of medical research appertaining to the needs of aged people’, in practice, the paper published in Age and Ageing each calendar year which most impressed the judging panel.

1980 Prof A N Davison
1982 Prof F I Caird
1984 Dr A N G Clarke
1986 Prof A N Exton-Smith
1988 Prof H M Hodkinson
1990 Prof J C Brocklehurst
1992 Prof M S J Pathy
1994 Prof Sir John Grimley Evans
1996 Prof T H D Arie
1998 Prof W J MacLennan
2000 Prof T B L Kirkwood
2002 Prof R Tallis
2004 Prof G Mulley
2006 Prof G Wilcock
2008 Prof Christopher Bulpitt
2014 Prof Roger Francis
2019: Prof Carol Jagger, for Projections of multi-morbidity in the older population in England to 2035. Press release here.
2020: Dr Margriet Pol, for Everyday life after a hip fracture: what community-living older adults perceive as most beneficial for their recovery. Press release here.
2021: Dr Claire Steves, for Probable delirium is a presenting symptom of COVID-19 in frail, older adults: a cohort study of 322 hospitalised and 535 community-based older adults.  Press release here.
2022: Dr Sarah Richardson, for Recurrent delirium over 12 months predicts dementia: results of the Delirium and Cognitive Impact in Dementia (DECIDE) study. Press release here.
2023: Prof Sasha Shepperd, for Is comprehensive geriatric assessment hospital at home a cost-effective alternative to hospital admission for older people? Press release here.
2024: Dr Alexander Mayhew, for Normative values for grip strength, gait speed, timed up and go, single leg balance, and chair rise derived from the Canadian longitudinal study on ageing. Press release here.

Fully Funded Places at BGS conferences

The BGS offers a limited number of Fully Funded Places (FFPs) to its events, to provide medics and healthcare professionals with limited study budgets access to educational opportunities.

FFPs for members in Category B, C and D are now available to apply for, covering the registration cost at a BGS conference. Applications are made via the event registration page, and should be made before registering for the meeting. Click here for further information about how to apply.

Who is eligible to apply for a Fully Funded Place (FFP)?

FFPs for BGS educational events are available to members of the BGS who have been a member for one year or more at the time of application. They are restricted to those in the following categories of membership:

Category B – Medics in training roles (Foundation year, IMT, registrars, clinical fellows0 and SAS grade doctors without study budget
Category C - Nurses and AHPs, as well as Pharmacists and Physician Associates
Category D – Undergraduate students – medics, nurse and AHPS

Further information about applications and eligibility can be found below.

Applicants must

Have been a continuous member for at least 1 year,
Be in the appropriate membership category (B,C or D)
Have approval from their educational or clinical supervisor and declare that there are no sources of funding available from their employer.
Apply as early as possible ahead of the conference to ensure sufficient time for your application to be considered and (if successful) for your registration to be confirmed
Apply when there are available FFP places.

Applicants must NOT

Have had a BGS FFP in the past two years
Register (and pay) in advance of the FFP application being responded to (this can be 5 days)
Provide inaccurate information in their application. FFPs can be rejected or rescinded if any of the information supplied is found to be erroneous.

How often can I receive a FFP?

FFP applications are restricted to one application per member every 2 years.

You may only apply for a FFP after being a member of the BGS for a minimum of 12 months. Thereafter, eligible members are restricted to one FFP in any 24 month period (not inclusive of the initial 12 months of membership)..

Therefore, a member who joins on the 1 January 2022 can apply for their first FFP on 1 January 2023, and cannot apply for another until 1 January 2025 at the earliest.

When can I apply for a FFP?

We recommend that you apply as early as possible to secure your preferred event and registration type (virtual or in-person). We cannot accept new applications less than 7 days before the event is due to occur. It can take 5 days to process, so the cut off period will be 7 days before an event.

Are there restrictions on the number of FFPs available?

FFPs are valid for a specific member to attend a specific event and are not transferrable between members or events.

The BGS now only offers FFPs for its own BGS events. This includes our large annual meetings (such as our Spring and Autumn meetings) and, in future, smaller national, regional and SIG meetings.

Where the event is being held as an in-person or hybrid event, there may be a cap on the number of in-person places available via the FFPs scheme, due to limitations at the venue and the considerable overheads associated with delivering such meetings.

Applicants will be offered a virtual place, where in person attendance is not possible or if no in-person FFP places remain.

If you are offered a FFP to attend an event and are subsequently unable to attend the event live, you must contact us to cancel your attendance otherwise you will be recorded as having received a FFP and will be unable to reapply again within the time periods specified above. If the event itself is canceled by BGS your FFP will be voided and you may reapply for another event.

Movement Disorders Essay Prize

Applications invited for the BGS Movement Disorders SIG Essay Prize 2024

The BGS Movement Disorders SIG is inviting submissions for its Essay Prize Competition 2024

Eligibility: Open to medical, nursing and therapy students

Title of the essay: "Artificial Intelligence, Parkinson's and me"

Closing date for entries: 31 May 2024

Submissions by email to: j.gough@bgs.org.uk

Prizes for top three essays: £500, £300 and £200

Word limit: 1,500 (limit for references: 20)

Movement Disorders Research Grant

We are pleased to offer grants in support of small research, quality improvement and innovation projects in the field of older people with movement disorders.

The Movement Disorder SIG research grants are eligible for National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) non-commercial partner status. Being an NIHR non-commercial partner brings several benefits such as local Clinical Research Network (CRN) support. Partner status also enables decisions about eligibility for Network support/ adoption to be reached more quickly for the studies the BGS funds. Once confirmed eligible for CRN support, these funded studies will be included in the NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) Portfolio. Such studies have access to NHS infrastructure for research, training and ISRCTN (a simple numeric system for the unique identification of randomised controlled trials worldwide) registration as well as NHS Service Support and Research Management and Governance.

Support via the Clinical Research Network provides:

Access to a local network of dedicated skilled research support staff including research nurses and other allied health professionals, who can help identify eligible patients, arrange consent to participate in the study, monitor and follow up patients as they progress through the study.
Support to ensure that a study can be successfully delivered in NHS settings, including pharmacy, imaging and pathology services and the possibility of securing protected time for NHS staff to conduct research.
Access to experienced Research Management and Governance staff who can advise on governance aspects of undertaking clinical research in the NHS and facilitate the rapid approval of a study through the NIHR Coordinated System for gaining NHS Permission (NIHR CSP).

The value of the grant awarded shall generally be in the region of £100-£2000.

Conditions of the award

The grant will be awarded twice yearly at the discretion of the BGS Movement Disorder SIG committee.
The application deadlines shall be 31 July and 31 December annually.
The value of the grant shall be at the discretion of the BGS Movement Disorder SIG and the adjudication process is final.
The grant shall be used solely for the purpose set out in the application process.
Publication costs should not be included in your application as they will not be funded.
The applicant must be a member of the British Geriatrics Society Movement Disorder Special Interest Group
The applicant must agree to dissemination of their work by presenting their project at a BGS MDS conference following completion of the project.
Acknowledgement of the BGS Movement Disorder SIG Research Grant must be made in any publication and/or presentation.
The applicant agrees to submit a short blog article (250 – 300 words) outlining the benefits gained from the grant.

Full details and the application form are available from Joanna Gough, BGS Scientific Officer at j.gough@bgs.org.uk

Research Project Grant

The BGS awards Research Project Grants to support research-related activities undertaken by non-consultant grade doctors, nurses, allied health professionals or pharmacists who work in the field of geriatric medicine or have an interest in ageing.

Up to two grants of up to £10,000 each may be awarded per round.

There are two rounds every year, opening 1 April with a deadline of 30 June, and opening again on 1 November with a deadline of 1 March. For more information, click here.

Rising Star Awards

The Rising Star awards are awarded each year and are a prestigious acknowledgement of an individual’s leadership potential, with a prize of £250 attached to each award. The categories are:

Rising Star Award for Research
Rising Star Award for Clinical Quality

Applications typically open in August and close in October each year. For more information, please click here.