Beacon Internships

Overview of Beacon Internships

The overall aim of the Beacon Internships is to create opportunities to upskill ‘under-represented’ communities in clinical research, through mentored internships in clinically-aligned projects. 

These Beacon Internships are designed for flexible working, allowing better access to those who have caring responsibilities or different internship-access requirements. The Beacon Internships may be delivered throughout academic term-times and throughout academic holidays, in order to provide the opportunities to engage at the most appropriate time for the research project and interns. We have successfully delivered the following internships:

• Ethnic Minority – for all ethnic minority communities
• Pride – LGBTQAI+ community
• Gender – for all under-represented genders, such as female-identifying, non-binary and transgender
• Neurodivergent – for all neurodiverse communities
• Lower income – for those from a lower income background
• Care and carer – for those who come from care giving or care receiving backgrounds

The opportunities for representation do not need to be limited to those above – we are working to expand in many other areas. Each of our internship positions have been developed and reviewed with substantial engagement from those communities, to ensure these reflect the language, culture, sensitivities and desires of students wishing to develop their clinical research backgrounds.

These internships align with typical Athena SWAN goals – critical for Higher Education institutions in their work to best create teaching and research excellence. Here, you can see five links between the Beacon Internships and typical Athena SWAN ambitions:

Awareness and up-skilling	The provision of tailored equality, diversity and inclusivity opportunities supports with the awareness of the importance of these opportunities, and encourages this kind of opportunity to be replicated in future clinical academic endeavours for both staff and students involved in the internships.
Communication	These internships provide increased opportunities to connect students and staff through academic networks, and allows for greater communication and collaboration between these two groups.
Connectedness	These internships help widen the collaborations occurring between staff and student bodies, and aims to also lower the walls between the academic and research divisions of academic institutions in the hope to encourage closer collaboration and to make collaborative development more achievable.
Curriculum	These internships provide an opportunity to support students from diverse backgrounds who are underrepresented in academia, as well as providing opportunities to work with positive role models where people can identify with their seniors and see themselves represented in a clinical academic role.
Student empowerment	The activities as part of the internship aims to empower students in their academic development as well as providing platforms to facilitate opportunities to be mentored by those that are in a similar under-represented group as themselves for positive role models. This relationship and the academic growth of the individual will support the individuals in their ability to speak up confidently, facilitating the development of a more engaged and inclusive environment.

University of Dundee Internships 2025-2026

We are thrilled to be launching our internships at the University of Dundee’s Medical School. Working with The Dow Memorial Trust, NHS Charitable Trust, and UoD’s EVS team, we are launching four fully paid internships for the 2025-6 academic year.

We have recruited four interns from a staggering 73 applications for this pilot scheme at Dundee Medical School. This was a highly competitive application round, with excellent applications. We are thrilled to be able to provide internships for the following themes:

• Low income background
• Care and carer
• Gender
• Neurodivergent

We are supporting a diverse portfolio of projects this year, with significant clinical and academic impact. Please read below for the topics and supervisors of the internships.

Project	What does the project involve?	What will the intern be doing?	What support will the intern have?	How will the internship help the intern’s academic portfolio?	Who is the supervisor for the project?
	The goal of this project is to compare the demographics and clinical outcomes of patients based on combinations of their pulmonary function tests, such as spirometry and oscillometry. The study will use an existing international database including 617 moderate-to-severe asthma patients, gathered from two specialised asthma centres: Ninewells Teaching Hospital in Dundee, UK, and the Outpatient Allergology Clinic in Bergamo, Italy. This project will culminate in a first-author publication in a reputable respiratory or allergy journal alongside a first-author conference presentation, offering the Beacon Intern a valuable opportunity to contribute meaningfully to our field and gain exposure in academic settings.	1. Data management and cleaning – assisting in organising and cleaning the asthma dataset, ensuring that all demographical and clinical variables are properly formatted and addressing any inconsistencies or missing data before the analysis phase begins. 2. Statistical analysis – involvement in performing statistical analyses comparing the four cohorts using SPSS. 3. Literature review – contributing to a thorough literature review to help frame the study’s findings within the broader context of asthma research. 4. Manuscript preparation – drafting sections of the manuscript for publication in a reputable asthma journal with guidance. This will be a valuable opportunity for the intern to learn how to clearly and effectively communicate research findings. 5. Presentation skills – opportunity to prepare and present research findings at the Scottish or British Thoracic Societies.	1. Mentorship – weekly meetings with both myself and my PhD student to provide guidance on tasks and help plan their project. 2. Induction – an introduction to our team’s IT systems and research methods to ensure the intern feels comfortable with our work environment and understands the expectations. 3. Collaboration – we foster a team-oriented environment, so the intern will have opportunities to collaborate with other international researchers, gaining valuable networking and learning experiences. 4. Feedback – we place a strong emphasis on constructive feedback to support the intern’s professional growth. They’ll also have the chance to share their feedback on the experience, ensuring a mutually beneficial opportunity.	1. Hands-on research experience – by contributing directly to an active respiratory research project, the intern will gain valuable real-world experience that is highly regarded in academia. This will provide them with concrete examples to include in their academic portfolio. 2. Skill development – The internship will offer a chance to refine key technical skills, such as statistical analyses and learning about physiological tests, which are crucial in the field of respiratory research. 3. Publications and presentations – The intern will have opportunities to take a lead role in a publication and presenting their findings at a high-profile academic conference such as the Scottish or British Thoracic Societies, further strengthening their academic profile. 4. Networking – through this role, the intern will have the chance to establish connections with experienced international researchers, opening doors to future collaborative projects and potential academic references.	rchan@dundee.ac.uk
	-PET/ CT scan following CRT for Head and Neck cancer: 3 months versus 4 months Trial. -PET positive Thyroid Nodules / correlation with Differentiated thyroid cancer. -Risk Assessment Protocol for screening Head and Neck cancer.	Data collection/ Analysis/ working with other teams/ validation of risk protocol for head and neck cancer screening.	We will schedule regular meetings for initiating protocol of studies and working on ethical approval. There will be regular meetings to follow up progress, discuss data and working on publication/ presentation.	Initiation of ideas, developing structured research plan and get solid outcomes to present in a local/ regional and international meeting/ publications as well	ahmed.youssef@nhs.scot
	The Abnormal Liver Function Investigations Evaluation (ALFIE) study from Tayside in Scotland examined the consequences of incidental abnormal LFTs in primary care between 1989 and 2003. This study examined 95,977 patients who had LFTs checked a total of 364,194 times. 21.7% of patients had at least one abnormal liver enzyme, and 1090 (1.14%) went on to develop chronic liver disease within the timeframe of follow up (median 3.7 years). Intelligent liver function testing (iLFT) was invented in Tayside to answer these problems. The iLFT pathway is a novel, automated system designed to improve early diagnosis of liver disease. The pilot trial demonstrated that iLFT increased diagnosis of liver disease whilst remaining cost-effective. As such, iLFT has been fully operational across our region (NHS Tayside, Scotland) since August 2018.	Data entry across the wider project, with the opportunity to perform analysis on a subset of the data to answer specific question related to liver disease.	There are 2 consultants, a post doc and 3 clinical fellows are involved with research on iLFT, and will provide context and training on the data set. The intern will have a space in the group office, allowing easy discussion with colleagues to support the student in their work. There are two weekly meetings which the intern will be encouraged to attend, as and when their other commitments allow. One meeting covers liver-related research, mainly iLFT, and the other includes wider gastroenterology research. Our research group has extensive experience in supervising research with medical students from a wide variety of backgrounds.	They will gain expertise in data entry, data mining and analysis techniques of routine clinical data. They will have the opportunity to interact with the wider research group and will be encouraged to attend the wide-ranging seminar programme within the School of Medicine. The intern will have the opportunity to present their research as an abstract at local and national meetings, allowing them to develop their presentation skills. Additionally, there will be the opportunity to develop academic writing skills and to contribute to articles.	j.f.dillon@dundee.ac.uk
	NHS Tayside have launched an innovative rib fixation service, as part of the major trauma network service. This ties in nationally across the four Scottish centres which provide this service. The evidence base for this is developing, and here at Tayside we have the unique opportunity to research the service as it enrolls. We are aiming to prospectively recruit patients into qualitative and quantitative research, as well as build a national audit program for this service to allow for multicentre analysis to improve clinical evidence and outcomes for the patients.	Rib fixation is a small but invaluable service in major trauma centres. As part of this, patients may have flail segments, pain from the fractures or physiological changes that would improve from fixation. Our intern would be working with us on recruiting patients into a mixed-methods research study evaluating the impact of fixation and outcome measures, and exploring patient reported outcomes. They will do this locally, and work with a national team in the major trauma centres to coordinate a national audit database to help develop this research further.	We are a small, supportive clinical team with strong academic interests. Our intern will be supported locally with our academic and clinical teams, and will work with the consultant orthopaedic team across Scotland. We will have a named registrar and consultant locally for educational and pastoral support.	This intern will develop experience in both qualitative and qulitative research and analysis. They will be supported by our academic team to develop skills in consenting into research projects, collecting data and disseminating the results in both conference presentations and written publications.	joseph.littlechild@nhs.scot

University of Warwick Internships

There were six internship opportunities for Warwick Medical Students during the 2023-2024 academic year:

• Ethnic Minority – for all ethnic minority communities
• Pride – LGBTQAI+ community
• Gender – for all under-represented genders, such as female-identifying, non-binary and transgender
• Neurodivergent – for all neurodiverse communities
• Widening participation – for those from a low income background
• Parent and carer – for those with caring responsibilities

Unfortunately, there has been no further funding available for The Beacon Internships at University of Warwick. For those interested in learning more about our work there, and the impact of these internships, please do email us.