This course is no longer recruiting students.

If you are interested in the latest addiction research please follow our Twitter @MARC_training to stay up to date. 

Our vision is that the MARC programme will develop the future UK clinical research leaders in addiction to build and sustain capacity in this vital area of clinical neuroscience and address the gap in clinical research capacity in the addictions field in the UK.

Our vision is to develop the future UK clinical research leaders in addiction to build and sustain capacity in this vital area of clinical neuroscience and address the gap in clinical research capacity in the addictions field in the UK."

Addiction to alcohol, tobacco and drugs have a considerable economic and social impact on society in the UK and internationally. In addition concerns are growing about gambling, now classified as a behavioural addiction. Despite awareness of the magnitude of associated harms, the amount of evidence can be limited compared to other physical and mental health disorders.

Academic psychiatry has been at the forefront of the development of addiction research in the last 30 years and the UK has made key contributions to the international evidence base as well as contributing to NHS service development and national policy on addictions.

Currently however there are only a limited number of professors in addictions with a background in clinical psychiatry or clinical psychology and all will have retired or be near retirement within the next decade. There are currently even fewer junior clinical academics in the UK putting this vital area of research to meet the immense unmet need at risk. 

Therefore opportunities of a career in clinical academic addiction are rarely presented with the result that there are very few existing potential candidates to become the future UK clinical research leaders in addiction. Consequently, there is a need to kick start clinical addiction research in order both to sustain capacity in this vital area of clinical neuroscience.

To meet such a need, the MRC Addiction Research Clinical (MARC) Training programme has been developed by bringing together the clinical addiction research expertise in three leading Universities, Imperial College London (IC), King’s College London (KCL) and University of Bristol (UoB).

For more information contact the MARC Team marc@imperial.ac.uk  or contact the MARC leads directly  Anne Lingford-Hughes (Imperial College London), Colin Drummond (King's College London) or Matthew Hickman (University of Bristol).

Click here to find out more information or register for the MARC Spring School