Funding Opportunities
Funding Opportunities 2010
This document summarises competitions for research funding ranging from £100K to £2M including grants to assist you during the development of your application.
You may like to consider applying for a Bupa Foundation Medical Research Grant (see below) with an annual deadline in October and an online eligibility test.
UKSCIRN are inviting proposals from researchers in Spinal Cord Injury who are interested in developing a multi-centre application to any of the funding bodies below.
Take a look at each competition below and follow the link to the guidelines. If you feel your research proposal might be suitable for one of these funding opportunities please email me at: sally.henry@buckshosp.nhs.uk
You will then be asked to submit your proposal to UKSCIRN for a peer review. Support by our Network will strengthen your application for external funding.
Sally Henry
Programme Manager UKSCIRN
01296 315832
http://www.spinalresearchnetwork.org
Please note: Submission dates for competitions not yet launched are provisional and subject to change. Always check the website (see links below).
Bupa Foundation Medical Research Grants
Medical research grants are focused on areas the Foundation perceive as relatively deficient in funding opportunities in the UK.
The Bupa Foundation are keen to see applications for clinically relevant medical research projects aimed at increasing medical knowledge and effectiveness in patient care. These should have the potential to change policy and/or practice in the UK. Applications may be for single projects or for longer programmes up to three years in duration. The Bupa Foundation does not fund basic medical research or service development.
The Bupa Foundation donates approximately £1.5 million per year through its medical research grants, grants for medical research on a specific "theme" and its annual Foundation awards, the vast majority of which go to medical research teams in NHS hospitals.
The Bupa Foundation currently gives medical research grants to work in the following areas:
Surgery: projects ranging from development of surgical practices to evaluating outcomes and identifying/teaching new techniques
Preventive Health:projects covering all health environments (including the workplace) from epidemiology to health maintenance
Information and Communication:projects designed to enhance the partnership between medical professionals and the public/patients
Read section on Eligibility – then take the online eligibility test at http://www.bupafoundation.co.uk/asp/research/eligibility.asp
National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)
1. Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB)
RfPB offers 3 competitions per year. UKSCIRN are interested in supporting an application for competition 13 (below) – please note that the development of applications must commence some time before the registration date which is close to the submission deadline:
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Project grants should be up to 36 months duration with a total maximum cost of £250k including overheads. RfPB project grants will also fund pilot studies, feasibility studies, meta-analysis, modelling studies and so forth. The maximum costs quoted above will exclude any Service Support and Excess Treatment Costs, although these must be detailed in the application finance forms.
– read guidance notes:
http://www.nihr-ccf.org.uk/site/docdatabase/rfpb/default.cfm
Please note that the programme will not fund (see page 2 of guidance notes):
Laboratory-based research or basic science research, including research based on animals
Setting up or maintaining research units
Proposals which are solely service developments: although the programme will fund research aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of a service or intervention it will not fund the costs of providing the service or intervention itself
Proposals which are solely: audit, surveys, needs assessment, technology development (although these elements may be part of an integrated research study). Systematic reviews may be funded as part of a larger project or as stand alone studies.
2. Programme Grants for Applied Research (up to £2M)
UKSCIRN has recently supported a bid for competition 6 which was successful in the first round with the outcome pending for the full application. We are now interested in supporting a bid for competition 9 (see deadlines below).
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Funding is awarded up to the value of £2m.
A Programme Grant for Applied Research will not support:
Basic research or experimental medicine. The NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research scheme aims to provide evidence to improve health outcomes, and is largely focused on the later stages of the research process, where research findings are expected to impact on healthcare within 3-5 years of the end of the period of funding.
Exploratory rather than confirmatory research; for example, “fishing expeditions” to find risk factors will not be supported, but validation of previously identified factors would be eligible for support; similarly, development of theory would not be supported, but its validation or application could be.
Proposals comprising solely a single Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT); these should be directed towards the NIHR HTA Programme Clinical Trials competition or other funding bodies. Proposals containing RCTs as one strand of a larger programme may be acceptable, provided that the design is scientifically robust (large enough to identify a clinically plausible difference, etc.), and can be adequately resourced within the budget of any Programme Grant award.
Proposals consisting solely of evaluations of existing services, where the programme of work does not include work to allow the evidence-based development of these services - evaluations of existing services could comprise one strand of a broader programme, however.
Proposals for funding to complete research originally funded by other organisations; proposals for work which generates added value by building on research funded by other organisations may be acceptable, however.
Proposals for work which is not Generalisable beyond the immediate service environment.
Want to apply for the above but need funds to do so? Now you can apply for a grant to fund you while you improve the quality of your application:
3. Programme Development Grant (up to 100K)
The Development Grant was launched for the first time in November 2008 in order to encourage good quality applications for the Applied Programme Grant.
UKSCIRN are interested in supporting applications for competition 4 (see deadlines below):
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This grant is offered (see page 1 of the guidance notes) because a large proportion of the proposals reviewed by the NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research Selection Panel are significantly flawed. One of the areas of weakness identified by the Selection Panel has been the tendency for applications to be submitted at too early a stage in the development of the research programme. For example, although the proposal may address an important topic, the applicants fail to provide convincing data on the need for the research, or are unable to demonstrate its practicability by presenting the results of pilot or feasibility studies, or have not assembled a team with the necessary track record. Under these circumstances, the Selection Panel is unable to recommend a Programme Grant award, despite the obvious potential for a high quality research programme in the relevant area.
The sole purpose of NIHR Programme Development Grants is to address this problem by providing funding of £20k to £100k (over a period of 6 – 18 months), to enable a research team to develop and refine its research ideas, obtain empirical justification for research plans, or acquire or further develop appropriate collaborative expertise. Successful completion of the preparatory work funded via the Programme Development Grant should enable a research team to position itself for a successful Programme Grant application in a subsequent funding competition.
Medical Research Council (MRC)
1. Development Pathway Funding Scheme
The MRC plans to spend £25 million over the next three years on this initiative. It is envisaged that projects would normally seek initial funding in the range of £250k-750k. Depending on the nature of the research, this might be sufficient for one or two years work, or occasionally longer. Larger development programmes will normally be supported in stages, but higher awards can be justified by the work needed and endpoints sought.
Please see this link for further information, including scope and eligibility:
http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Fundingopportunities/Grants/DPFS/Specification/index.htm#P147_14995
Here are the deadlines:
Please note: This table may give you the idea that the columns which list the dates for the full and outline deadlines should be reversed but these dates are confirmed as correct. As is normally the case, the outline application should be submitted FIRST – the researchers should select the date they wish to submit it from the 2nd column. The researcher should make a note of the date for the corresponding DPFS panel meeting in the column to the right. If the outcome of this meeting is favorable the researcher then has 6 MONTHS to submit their FULL application. UKSCIRN are interested in supporting an application for the outline deadline of 14th July 2010 or 18th November 2010. There are no later dates for submission currently posted. For further information visit: http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Fundingopportunities/Grants/DPFS/Specification/index.htm#P147_14995
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Deadline for full applications |
Deadline for outline applications |
DPFS Panel Meeting |
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Tuesday 6 July 2010 |
Wednesday 14 July 2010 |
15 – 16 September 2010 |
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Thursday 4 November 2010 |
Thursday 18 November 2010 |
19 – 20 January 2011 |
2. Research Grants
MRC research grants are suitable for short- and long-term focused projects and also for broader-based research programmes. In addition, they can be used to support method development or development and continuation of research facilities, and collaborations of more than one group, or more than one institution. A research grant can be awarded for any period of up to five years, but those of two years or less are for proof of principle or pilot work only.
Research grants do not cover research involving randomised trials of clinical treatments. If your proposed research will lead directly to a separately funded clinical trial, please contact an MRC research board manager to discuss its eligibility.
Under the research grant scheme you may request support for a period of up to five years, which can include support for those criteria mentioned for the Programme Grant above (e.g. the salary of the principal investigator and co-investigators). Again, like the Programme Grant the MRC will usually fund on the basis of 80 per cent of the full economic cost of your research to your institution. Your proposal must show 100 per cent of the full economic cost throughout.
Application deadlines are usually in January, May and September. Check which of the MRC’s four research boards award grants in your scientific area and check its application deadlines dates. Follow this link:
http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Fundingopportunities/Grants/Researchgrant/index.htm
For research board submission deadlines visit:
http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Fundingopportunities/Deadlines/index.htm
All proposals are assessed by external experts before they are considered by the MRC research boards at their meetings in May/June, October/November and February/March.
Please see this link for details of other MRC funding opportunities: