NCRM’s call for Networks for Methodological Innovation (NMI) projects will be issued on September 27th 2010.

The aim of this scheme is to enable networks of researchers to meet in order to stimulate debate and develop ideas in relation to methodological innovation. NCRM funds two projects per year, with a maximum budget of £24,000 per project.

The closing date for applications will be November 15th, 2010. Further information and the application form will be available from the National Centre for Research Methods website (here) or by email from info@ncrm.ac.uk from September 27th 2010.

The ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) is offering training bursaries up to £1000 to enable staff in the UK social science community engaged in research, teaching research methods or supervising research to update their skills. Contract researchers working in HEIs are also eligible for the bursaries. Please note that the bursary scheme is open for applications throughout the year i.e. there are no deadlines for applications.

The ESRC Research Resources Board wishes to improve the standards of research methods and to stimulate the uptake of high quality training courses in research methods across the UK social science community.

Each year there are 50 bursaries for up to £1,000 each to enable staff in the UK social science community engaged in research, teaching research methods or supervising research to update their research skills. Contract researchers working in HEIs are also eligible for the bursaries.

From 1st April 2010, applications can be submitted at any time.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must be social scientists.
• Masters or PhD students are not eligible; this scheme cannot be used to fund Masters or Doctoral studies.
• The training course or event must have a clear focus on research methods.
• Applicants can apply for more than one course per year but these must not total more than £1,000 in any one year.
• We would not normally expect to pay for courses at the applicant’s own institution.
• Bursaries are not normally provided for attendance at conferences but may be provided for attendance at training courses being run as part of a conference.
• Applicants can apply for a bursary for training courses outside of the UK but the applicant must demonstrate that the training in question cannot be provided in the UK.

For further information please click here

• Adding Quality to Your Research: a study day for quantitative senior researchers who are considering incorporating qualitative methods - 7 October 2010, Southampton
• Statistical Considerations for Grant Applications – Thursday 17th and Friday 18^th February 2011, Southampton

Please click here for details.

• Outline proposals for NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme Clinical Evaluation and Trials

Outline proposals for evaluation studies and trials are accepted on an ongoing basis, with an online web proposal form available on the HTA programme website at any time. Applications are considered four times a year.  The next cut-off deadline for proposals is 1pm on Thursday 7 October 2010.

For further information please click here.

• NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme call for Commissioned Research

A new NIHR HTA commissioned call for proposals is open. Further information about the type of proposals considered suitable and the assessment process can be obtained from the commissioning briefs. The closing date for applications is 1pm on Thursday 30 September 2010

For further information please click here.

• Opportunities for members to expand their industry contacts and exchange views with their peers.
• Business and technical presentations focused on health sector needs.
• Interaction with advisors and investors in an informal and informative environment.

Founding Partners

The Forum has been initiated with the active support of:

• Solent Synergy Limited (www.solentsynergy.co.uk)
• Genetix Limited (www.genetix.com)
• D Young & Co (www.dyoung.com)
• BDO (www.bdo.co.com)
• Universities of Bournemouth (www.bournemouth.ac.uk), Portsmouth (www.port.ac.uk),
• Solent (www.solent.ac.uk) and Southampton (www.soton.ac.uk)
• Solent Innovation & Growth Network (www.innovationgrowth.co.uk/solent)
• South East Health Technologies Alliance (www.sehta.co.uk)
• Ithaka Life Sciences Ltd (www.ithaka.co.uk)

The Forum

The Forum will be developed in collaboration with members so as to ensure it delivers value to members. It will be launched at the event set out below, which combines excellent speakers with great networking:

• 16:00 to 16:30 Registration and networking
• 16:30 to 16:40 Introduction and welcome by Nigel Vaughan, CEO, Solent Synergy Limited
• 16:40 to 17:00 The Health Innovation and Education Cluster, Prof. David Williams, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Health & Life Sciences, University of Southampton
• 17:00 to 17:20 Business perspective on industry trends, Charles de Rohan, CEO, Genetix Limited
• 17:20 to 17:40 Key developments in health technology IPR, Louise Holliday, Partner, D Young & Co
• 17:40 to 18:00 Open forum discussion on the event, the future of The Forum & health sector issues.
• 18:00 to 18:10 Region-wide connectivity, David Parry, CEO, SEHTA
• 18:10 to 18:30 Networking and close

Future events and costs

The frequency and nature of future events will be driven by members. However, the initial thinking is to hold 3 or 4 events of similar duration to the launch each year. All of The Forum’s activities will be run on a not-for-profit basis and the supporting partners will be donating their time without charge.

Hence, we will simply seek to recover from attendees the cost of venue hire and catering. The initial event will be held at Lainston House near Winchester on Monday 6th September and will be priced at £35:00 per head (inc. VAT), with a 50% discount for academic staff. A light buffet and soft drinks are included. The supporting partners all very much look forward to seeing you there.

Please e-mail your acceptance to nigel@solentsynergy.co.uk

Nigel Vaughan

CEO, Solent Synergy Limited

• Senior Non-Clinical Fellowships

The MRC Senior Non Clinical Fellowship is a highly prestigious award for non-clinical researchers of exceptional ability.  Applicants are expected to be proven independent researchers with an excellent track record in their scientific field, and demonstrate promise as future research leaders. Support is provided for five years.

Click here to download the advert.

• Special Research Training Fellowships in Biomedical Informatics (computational biology, neuroinformatics and health informatics)

The MRC has identified the application of informatics as an area of strategic importance to health and medical research. This special training fellowship is aimed at developing outstanding individuals who are seeking to move into the application of mathematical, statistical and computational methods to biomedical research problems.

Click here to download the advert.

• Methodology Research Fellowships

These Fellowships continue MRC’s commitment to the development of innovative research methods in health research. The Fellowship provides a significant career development opportunity for early postdoctoral researchers.

Applicants should have a grounding in health research, not necessarily in a methodological discipline. The Fellowship enables the development, validation and application of innovative methodologies in one or more of the following disciplines: health economics; biostatistics, bioinformatics; modeling, decision sciences, epidemiology; clinical trials; behavioural sciences; health psychology, qualitative methodologies and mixed methods, medical sociology and medical geography.

Click here to download the advert.

• Career Development Award in Biostatistics

This Fellowship is open to applicants already working in, or who wish to move into, health related research.  It provides up to four years’ funding for multidisciplinary research training into innovative statistical methods and their application in clinical research.  Applicants should present not only a challenging research project but also clear and ambitious plans for their development as researchers able to apply advanced skills to an increasingly broad range of problems.

Click here to download the advert.

• Clinical Research Training Fellowships Round 2

The MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship is a pre-doctoral/entry-level clinical fellowship providing up to three years support for active professionals to undertake specialised or further research training in the biomedical sciences (up to four years for patient-orientated research). Fellows are required to register for a research degree, normally a PhD, based on the research undertaken during the fellowship. Individuals who obtained their PhD some time in the past and now wish to pursue further research training in the biomedical sciences are also eligible to apply for this award.

Click here to download the advert.

• Population Health Scientist Fellowships

The MRC is committed to building capacity in population health sciences and this Fellowship supports research and specific training for up to 4 years at pre- or post-doctoral entry level.  We welcome proposals from a broad range of disciplines including and not limited to Social, clinical, life course and epidemiology; Biostatistics; Health demography; Medical Sociology; Health psychology; Medical anthropology; Human geography; and Health economics.

Click here to download the advert.

The NIHR Service Delivery and Organisation (SDO) programme is funded by the NIHR, with contributions from NISCHR in Wales.

10/1010: Unplanned hospital admissions

The focus of this call is research to prevent and reduce unplanned hospital admissions. The context is that of unscheduled care within health systems. Proposals are invited for primary research which examines the organisational behaviours, systems and relationships across boundaries required to prevent and reduce unplanned hospital admissions. They have identified four particular themes for research:

• The regulation or control of health systems for control of unplanned admissions
• Commissioning for control of unplanned hospital admissions
• Acute care workload management
• Improvements in demand management that address increases in unplanned admissions

Applicants are asked to submit outline proposals for the above call by 1pm on Thursday 16 September 2010. Click here to find out more about this funding opportunity.

10/1011: Responsive funding in the NIHR SDO programme – call for proposals from researchers for secondary research studies

They are seeking proposals for projects of up to 24 months duration and up to £300,000 in cost. The focus of the research is to fund secondary research studies, by which they mean research which sets out to use existing data rather than to collect new data through fieldwork.

Constraints are not placed on the nature, source or type of the existing data that research projects might seek to use – they could be qualitative and/or quantitative; held in electronic, paper or other forms; produced by NHS organisations or by other national bodies or professional bodies/groups; and in the public domain or privately held.

Applicants are asked to submit outline proposals for the above call by 1pm on Thursday 16 September 2010. Click here to find out more about this funding opportunity.

10/1012: Expedited evidence synthesis to support decision-making by managers and leaders in the NHS

Projects will cost between £50,000 and £80,000 and take from six to nine months. This call for proposals is specifically for evidence syntheses and has three main purposes:

• To respond to the research needs of NHS decision-makers by commissioning rapid evidence syntheses
• To produce short research reports based on those evidence syntheses which will be easily accessible to research users in the NHS management with findings which are relevant.
• To identify gaps in research knowledge of importance to the NHS management community to enable the programme to better target future research commissioning.

Applicants are asked to submit full proposals for the above call by 1pm on Thursday 16 September 2010. Click here to find out more about this funding opportunity.

NEW: SDO Annual Review

The SDO programme Annual Review 09/10 is available now for download at ww.sdo.nihr.ac.uk/publicationsannualreports.html

Therefore those researchers planning on submitting to the September deadline (24 September2010) will no longer have to have an ROI in advance.

RfPB is therefore now a one-stage application process, with no outline stage.

Remember however that to have the best chance of being funded you really do need to get support from the RDS as early as possible.

Since starting in 2009 the Research Design Service South Central has worked with over 195 Researchers from across the South Central Region, including both academics and health professionals from all aspects of healthcare.

We have advised on over 250 research projects, many of which have received funding already and many which are expected to receive funding over the coming months.

The Research Design Service, a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) funded organisation, aims to support health researchers by encouraging the development of high-quality research.  Across the country, ten branches of the service are providing free advice on all aspects of preparing grant applications, including: identifying suitable funding sources; building an appropriate research team; designing a study; identifying the resources required for a successful project; and involving patients and the public.

There is a misconception that the RDS is only aimed at those researchers with less grant writing experience than their colleagues, but this is simply not the case. The RDS has a wide range of skilled research professionals and is able to bring its knowledge and experience to benefit all research funding applications from researchers of all levels.

Contact us now to discuss how to improve your application.

¹ Based upon the most recent RfPB funding data from NIHR

Public and patient involvement in research can enhance the quality of research and research outcomes, according to a new report published by INVOLVE.

INVOLVE is funded by NIHR to promote public and patient involvement in research.  The new report: Exploring Impact: public involvement in NHS, public health and social care research looks at the impact of public involvement through an in-depth review of published literature.

It draws together examples of how public involvement is conducted, and how it makes a difference. It also raises questions about the quality of evidence showing the impact of such involvement, revealing huge variations in how this is assessed and reported, highlighting difficulties in judging it or drawing general conclusions.

The full report (116 pages) is available to download on the publications section of the INVOLVE website

http://www.invo.org.uk/Publications.asp
http://www.invo.org.uk/pdfs/Involve_Exploring_Impactfinal28.10.09.pdf

a 16 page summary is also available http://www.invo.org.uk/pdfs/InvolveExploringImpactSummary3.11.09final.pdf

Please contact INVOLVE if you need a paper copy of the report admin@invo.org.uk or telephone 02380 651088

INVOLVE shares knowledge and learning on public involvement in research and provides resources for researchers and research commissioners and funders on how to involve members of the public in research.

For further information on INVOLVE please visit their website www.invo.org.uk