PhD or early career researcher secondary data analysis grants
Encouraging research into counselling and psychotherapy

The deadline for stage 1 applications is Sunday 29 June 2025 at 11.59pm. The application portal will open for submissions on Friday 16 May 2025, you won't be able to submit an application before this date.Ìý

Our secondary data analysis grants are intended to support early career researchers or PhD students to undertake high-quality, ethical research contributing to the evidence base for counselling, psychotherapy or coaching in order to gain maximum research impact from existing data.Ìý

Secondary data analysis refers to research undertaken on known and existing valuable datasets.

An early career researcher is defined as someone who is either:

• within eight years of their PhD award (this is from the time of the PhD viva oral test) or equivalent professional training
• within six years of their first academic appointment (the first full or part time paid employment contract that lists research or teaching as the primary function)

These periods exclude any career break, for example due to: family care, health reasons, reasons related to COVID-19 such as home schooling or increased teaching load.

By PhD student we mean someone in the process of applying for a PhD or currently enrolled in a PhD programme at a UK institution.

We're supporting grants up to £30,000 per project and we also welcome applications for smaller amounts. Projects funded under this stream would not typically be expected to last longer than 24 months unless they include funding for a PhD.

Research proposals may include:ÌýÌý

• supporting PhD funding, this should be supplemented with funding offered by another partner for at least 50% of the total value
• researcher or team funding in institutions (as long as the principal investigator is an early career researcher or PhD student) - this includes a researcher or team based within an institution or working collaboratively with researchers from other institutions. Projects must have a primary focus on counselling, psychotherapy or coaching research, however they may be international, multi-disciplinary and include partners from outside the field

Eligibility criteriaÌý

Projects under this funding stream must:

• be led by a PhD student or early career researcher, defined for the purposes of these grants as someone who is either within eight years of either their PhD award (this is from the time of the PhD viva oral test) or equivalent professional training, or within six years of their first academic appointment (the first full or part time paid employment contract that lists research or teaching as the primary function). Researchers who are not considered to be early career can be included as partners on the bid
• exploit existing data resources relevant to counselling, psychotherapy or coaching
• be led by a UK-based partner who has access to a formal research ethics committee
• clearly demonstrate that the project team has the necessary skills and experience to be able to successfully deliver on the project
• sit within the Â鶹ԭ´´ definition of client-focused research in counselling, psychotherapy or coaching
• demonstrate clear alignment with Â鶹ԭ´´â€™s organisational strategy and research priorities
• appropriately involve people with lived experience (PLE) of counselling, psychotherapy or coaching throughout the research process, not simply as research participantsÌý

For full details of the application process and eligibility criteria, please see our Â鶹ԭ´´ Secondary Data Analysis Grant Funding (pdf).