An multidisciplinary environment to help health researchers thrive

King’s is proud to host a thriving community of researchers in the health sciences, including research-active health professionals across King’s Health Partners.

Whether you are at the beginning your journey in health research or forging a clinical academic career, you will receive provide extensive support with your scientific and professional training needs.

This includes dedicated resources and opportunities from the Health Sciences Doctoral Training Centre (HSDTC) and King’s Clinical Academic Training Office (KCATO).

The Health Sciences Doctoral Training Centre (HSDTC) provides training, development and careers support for the more than 2,000 doctoral research students across our four health faculties.

Explore what HSDTC offers

Current King's doctoral students can visit the Health Sciences Doctoral Training Centre SharePoint Site (internal; King's credentials required) to register for courses, browse HSDTC small funding awards, participate in research-sharing and community-building activities, and much more.

We offer a wide range of opportunities for your research, professional, and career development, including in-person workshops, online sessions, and asynchronous resources.

As illustrated in the diagram above, our training programme consists of three pillars:

• Knowledge and Intellectual Abilities

Focusing on bioinformatics and statistics, this pillar offers intensive all-day workshops on RNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq analysis, multi-day courses on Python for biologists, and Python and R for quantitative research, and free access on-demand platforms such as DataCamp.

• Communication, Visualisation, and Impact

Workshops, themed boot camps, and funding opportunities in this pillar are designed to boost your skills in disseminating your research to maximise its impact in written, verbal, and visual forms.

• Research Organisation and Personal Development

Live and asynchronous courses in this pillar help you consolidate knowledge in research methods and design (including clinical research) and support you in developing professional skills for careers both in- and outside academia.

We encourage collaboration and community through schemes such as the HSDTC Buddy Scheme and the student-led HSDTC Annual Research Symposium. Our bursaries and other small funding awards encourage doctoral students to take ownership of their development and contribute to a positive research culture. We have enabled students to attend intensive training courses and summer schools, and funded research groups such as the Analytical, Environmental & Forensic Sciences (AEFS) PhD Seminars, and the Forensic & Neurodevelopmental Sciences (FANS) & Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (CAP) PhD Student Forum.

Through the annual Public Engagement Competitions, including the Science Communication and Science Image Competitions, we reward health sciences doctoral students for communicating their research in an engaging and accessible way to the general public. Shortlisted entries from previous years can be found on our blog.

King’s Clinical Academic Training Office (KCATO) offers advice, best practice and information on navigating your clinical academic career.

We champion clinical academic careers, recognising the unique value that clinical academics bring to innovation and improving outcomes for patients.

KCATO is open to all health professionals who are based at any of the organisations of King’s Health Partners (King’s College London, Guy’s and St Thomas’s, King’s College Hospital or South London and Maudsley NHS Trusts).