I hope that by the end of the next five minutes you will have gained some insight into my experience as a Chief Investigator (CI) of a study supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NIHR) Associate Principal Investigator (PI) scheme, and feel encouraged that with the right infrastructure, support network and training you can succeed as a CI without being a professor with decades of research experience.

My experience as a CI began during my ST1 year on a national melanoma study. I’m not going to go into the specifics of the project as it is beyond the scope of this blog, but as a CI I had a range of responsibilities which ranged from initially designing the study and setting up the study with the Associate PI scheme and subsequently mentoring an Associate PI.

As CI I was responsible for obtaining funding and ethical approval. As many of us know, these are long-winded and challenging processes which often require multiple attempts, but they undoubtedly lead to professional growth as a researcher. I was also responsible for coordinating research across multiple centres. This involved organisation, team-working and communication skills, working with a range of collaborators and researchers. Finally, as is sometimes the case with prospective research we had to overcome challenges with recruitment which again led to significant growth as a researcher.

Mentoring an Associate PI encompassed regular meetings and supporting them to achieve the Associate PI checklist. This ensures acquisition of invaluable and transferrable research skills, such as engaging with the training and education of local staff and recruiting and consenting patients.

Mentoring an Associate PI provides a unique opportunity to give back to the research community. To use all that knowledge, skill and experience you’ve accumulated and that others have invested in you, and start sharing it with other enthusiastic early career researchers is extremely rewarding. I think being an early career researcher yourself can be advantageous when mentoring an Associate PI because you know the struggles of how foreign research can feel when starting off. In addition, Associate PI’s might feel more able to approach you with questions because you are an early career researcher.

Top Tips to succeed as a CI of a study supported by the NIHR Associate PI scheme

1. For me perhaps the most important tip is having good mentorship and inspiring collaboration. Research really is a team sport, and it is very hard to succeed without a good team around you. I was lucky enough to have mentors with experience working as CI’s and familiar with the NIHR Associate PI scheme. A good example of when mentorship proved invaluable was when we were submitting our IRAS ethical approval. My mentors were able to ensure that we ticked the right boxes to receive NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) Support and inclusion in the NIHR Clinical Research Network Portfolio which is necessary for registration on the Associate PI scheme.

2. My second tip is to proactively seek out learning opportunities. The BAD Research Resources page offers information about courses and resources for a range of research domains. Try to seek out courses that give you the skills that you feel you might need to develop in order succeed as a CI. For me, these included things like my MRes degree, following the academic pathway into research and the experiences I accumulated during my Specialised Foundation Programme (SFP) and Academic Clinical Fellowship (ACF), training fellowships such as the UK Dermatology Clinical Trials Network (UKDCTN) SpR fellowship and the network I’d built up working on the editorial board of a journal for many years.

Arguably there is no replacement for practical hands-on research experience. I remember being a medical student and a professor mentioning the concept of low-hanging fruit. Try to begin with smaller local research projects like concise reports or letters to the editor and work up to roles as a principal investigator, in this way slowly building your experience and preparing you for your role as a CI.

3. My final tip is persistence. Research projects naturally ebb and flow. There will be times when things will go without a hitch and it will be smooth sailing. There will also be times when it will be rough and you might feel like jumping ship. Persistence is the key. Speak to your team and lean on them for support, maintain a good work-life balance and do your best to stick at it; hard times do pass and eventually you’ll be at the top of the mountain, and it will all be worth it.

So, to summarise: establish a support network and acquire the skills and training you need to succeed as a CI. Be prepared to persist through the hard times, which will inevitably occur. And most importantly, I hope you can take from this post that you don’t need to limit your ambitions.

As an early career researcher, opportunities exist within the NIHR Associate PI scheme not only to work as an Associate PI but also to set up your own study as a chief investigator. It is incredibly rewarding to mentor Associate PI’s and see them progress, and I can only advocate for how brilliant an opportunity it is to work as a CI.

Several of the BAD research studies support the Associate PI scheme, including the BAD Biologic and Immunomodulators Register (BADBIR) and the UK Keratinocyte Cancer Collaborative (UKKCC) ATLAS study.