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Prizes, Awards and Fellowships

BASS/BSS Presidents' Travelling Fellowship

The British Association of Spinal Surgeons (BASS) and the British Scoliosis Society (BSS) offer senior residents, spinal fellows and consultants within two years of appointment a chance to have extensive exposure to complex spinal procedures at established spinal units over 2 weeks.
The Fellowship programme includes mandatory attendance at the following BASS/BSS meetings. The programme rotates between established orthopaedic and neurosurgical spinal centres allowing significant contact between fellows and leaders in the field.

Due to the COVID pandemic, this fellowship (which usually is held in the Spring) has been placed on hold and will be reviewed once they are able.


The Spinal Training Interface Group (TIG) Fellowship

This programme is an exciting curriculum-based training fellowship, combining neurosurgical and orthopaedic spinal surgical training for pre CCT fellows. Fellows are appointed by a competitive application and interview process centrally and once selected choose which centre to go to from the list of suitable centres, at the moment there are 10 centres in the programme: Leeds, Salford/Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Sheffield, Birmingham, Oxford, Cardiff, Preston, Stoke on Trent.

Applicants must have passed FRCS part one at the time of recruitment, but must have passed part two by the time the fellowship commence. Fellowships are pre CCT at this time but will change to post CCT in due course.

For more information please visit: https://www.ukssb.com/stig


Reports from current Spinal TIG fellows can be found below:

Alex Goubran 

Specialisation: Trauma and Orthopaedics
Deanery: Southwest Peninsula Deanery
TIG centre: Sheffield
TIG Fellow: 2020 - 2021
>>Read the full report here<<



Al Durst  

Specialisation: Trauma and Orthopaedics
Deanery: East of England
TIG centre: Cardiff
TIG Fellow: 2020 - 2021
>>Read the full report here<<



External bursaries, awards and fellowships

Below are a selection of external bursaries, awards and fellowships. Please visit their websites for further details.

AO Spine

The purpose of an AOSESA (AO Spine Europe and Southern Africa) short term fellowship is to provide additional experience for trained orthopedic and neurosurgeons interested in spinal surgery.

Short-term fellowships are offered in official AO Spine certified AO Spine Centers. Applicants must choose and prioritize a minimum of 3 Spine Centers, which increases their chances of being accepted.

Duration - AO Spine offers short-term fellowships that range in duration from one week up to 8 weeks. In case the fellow would like to do a 12 weeks fellowships, the additional 4 weeks must be self- financed by the fellow and approved individually by the Spine Center. No long-term fellowships are offered within the AOSESA Fellowship program.

Support - An AOSESA stipend for each fellow will be transferred to the bank account of the fellow once the fellowship has started, based on availability of the required budget.

For more information visit: https://aospine.aofoundation.org/education/fellowship


Asia Pacific Spine Society (APSS) / SICOT Travelling Fellowship

Two selected candidates, who are from outside the Asia Pacific region are offered the possibility to travel to renowned centres in Asia.

SICOT will cover the accommodation and travel expenses (economy ticket only; taxis will only be reimbursed at a reasonable amount; airport shuttle bus service must be used in priority to taxis) up to the amount mentioned by SICOT.

For more information visit: https://www.sicot.org/apss-spine-fellowship


Eurospine Fellowships

Fellows can you choose to perform their fellowship in an EUROSPINE Surgical Spine Centre of Excellence (SSCoE) or a non-EUROSPINE Surgical Spine Centre of Excellence (Non-SSCoE).

The fellow must be a board certified orthopdaedic, trauma or neurosurgeon. Fellows are responsible to organise their fellowship directly with their chosen host training centre. EUROSPINE will not provide the fellow with any support, financial compensation, salary or grant. The fellow must remain in the institution for a minimum 6 months.

For more information visit: https://www.eurospine.org/fellowship-validation.htm

EUROSPINE Observership Grants

The Observership grant is open to full members and young members of EUROSPINE and to those that have submitted full/young and complete membership applications.

This Observership is done with any EUROSPINE member to gain valuable experience. The Observership recipients will be granted a stipend of €1,500

For more information visit: https://www.eurospine.org/observership-application.htm


Eurospine Task Force Research (TFR) Travel Grants

EUROSPINE TFR is sponsoring four travel grants €2,000 for the TFR Course "How to Make your Research more Relevant, Feasible and Publishable"

The €2,000 stipends are intended to cover the registration fees (participants will be required to register as any participant), travel and accommodation costs to attend the course. The course is open to all clinicians interested in gaining a basic understanding of clinical research. This course will provide clinicians with an overview of the methodology used to conduct clinical research.

For more information visit: https://www.eurospine.org/tfr-travel-grants.htm


International Society of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology (SICOT) offers various other fellowships in different international hospitals with a subspeciality interest in spine

For more information visit: https://www.sicot.org/fellowships


British Scoliosis Research Foundation (BSRF) Grant

BSRF Research Grant is open to appropriately qualified professionals such as scientists, clinicians, and allied health professionals (nurses, psychologists or physiotherapists).

Applicants are advised to submit their proposal regarding any area of spinal deformity research under one of the following three headings, small exploratory grant (maximum grant award for this category is £15 000), new investigation grant (specifically targeted to new investigators, maximum award is limited to £40 000) and major research grant (maximum of £100 000 per year up to two years’ duration).

For more information visit: http://www.bsrf.co.uk/research-grants/grant-options


British Association of Spine Surgeons (BASS), RCSEng, 38-43 Lincoln's Inn Fields, Holborn, London, WC2A 3PE

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