The Academy of Medical Sciences has launched a £1 million scheme called 'Inspire' to stimulate medical and dental undergraduates to pursue scientific research, with funding from the Wellcome Trust. The scheme aims to foster a research culture in all clinicians entering the NHS to ensure patients benefit from the latest breakthroughs in medical science.

Inspire is a five year, UK-wide scheme that will provide grants of up to £10,000 to medical schools to establish innovative activities that build student interest in research. A special project fund of £100,000 will also be distributed to support particularly innovative or high impact activities. The Academy will run a series of sharing conferences to enable medical schools to showcase activities and share learning.

The Academy's Starter Grants for Clinical Lecturers scheme offers £4.5 million in start-up funds to help doctors and dentists kick start their scientific career by allowing them to pursue academic work alongside patient care.

The money will be distributed in grants of up to £30,000 to clinical lecturers to help them gather preliminary data and strengthen their applications for longer term fellowships and funding. The grants will be awarded biannually from 2013 for four years through the Academy of Medical Sciences Starter Grants for Clinical Lecturers Scheme.

Further details for both schemes are available at www.acmedsci.ac.uk.