We are running this funding opportunity on the new UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.
The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the UKRI Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application.
Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI.
To apply:
Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this Funding finder page.
- Confirm you are the project lead.
- Sign in or create a UKRI Funding Service account. To create an account, select your organisation, verify your email address, and set a password. If your organisation is not listed, email support@funding-service.ukri.org Please allow at least 10 working days for your organisation to be added to the UKRI Funding Service.
- Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to complete them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. If we need you to upload a document, follow the upload instructions in the Funding Service. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the ‘How to apply’ section on this Funding finder page.
- Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.
- Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.
Watch our research office webinars about the new UKRI Funding Service.
Deadline
We must receive your application by 4.00pm UK time on 12 December 2023.
You will not be able to apply or make amendments after this time. Incomplete applications or ineligible applications will be rejected.
Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.
Two-stage application process
The opportunity will be delivered in two stages: outline and full applications. Only completed outline applications that are invited forward by Panel based on the assessment criteria will be eligible to submit full stage applications. Only applications successful at full stage will receive funding.
Application structure will be consistent between outline and full stages allowing completed sections to be reused between the two applications where possible. Full stage applications will include an expanded approach section, and additional questions to provide full financial and partnership details. Full stage applications will also include an additional question to allow you to describe changes made since outline stage or in response to outline panel feedback (if any).
Processing personal data
MRC as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your funding service account and the registration of your funding applications.
We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice.
Publication of outcomes
If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the UKRI Gateway to Research.
Summary
Word limit: 400
In plain English, provide a summary we can use to identify the most suitable experts to assess your application.
We may make this summary publicly available on external-facing websites, so make it suitable for a variety of readers, for example:
- policymakers
- the public
- the wider research community
Guidance for writing a summary
Clearly describe your proposed work in terms of:
- context
- the challenge the project addresses
- aims and objectives
- potential applications and benefits
Core team
List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following:
- project lead (PL)
- project co-lead (UK) (PcL)
- project co-lead (international) (PcL (I))
- researcher co-lead (RcL)
- specialist
- professional enabling staff
- research and innovation associate
- technician
- visiting researcher
Only list one individual as project lead.
All awards must include resource or in-kind support for an accounting officer and will require annual reporting of spend.
Find out more about UKRI’s new grant roles.
Vision
Word limit: 500
What are you hoping to achieve with your proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Explain how your proposed work:
- is of excellent quality and importance within or beyond the field(s) or area(s)
- has the potential to advance current understanding, or generate new knowledge, thinking or discovery within or beyond the field or area
- is timely given current trends, context, and needs
- impacts world-leading research, society, the economy, or the environment
Within this ‘Vision’ section we also expect you to:
- describe how the proposal targets at least one of the following priorities:
- improves the access, resourcing and career offer from biomedical research to those skilled in data science
- improves development and permeability of biomedical science to data skills across career stages, disciplines, organisational structures and sectors
- develops collaboration, recognition, inclusion or leadership approaches that advance team and multidisciplinary biomedical data science
- supports and evaluates innovations in ways of working that have potential to drive persistent improvements in the capacity, quality and standards of biomedical data science
- describe the proposed work in an organisational context, describing relevant stakeholder roles and responsibilities, such as:
- the place the proposed work in a multi-organisational national or international landscape, describing relevant stakeholder roles and responsibilities
- identifying the potential direct or indirect benefits and who the beneficiaries might be
- identifying potential improvements in human or population health, whether through contributing to relieving disease or disability burden, improving quality of life or providing benefit to the health service or health-related industry
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the UKRI Funding Service.
Approach
Word limit: 750
How are you going to deliver your proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Explain how you have designed your approach so that it:
- summarises the previous work and describes how this will be built upon and progressed (if applicable)
- is effective and appropriate to achieve your objectives
- is feasible, and comprehensively identifies any risks to project delivery and how they will be managed (please note, governance is covered in separate application question below)
- uses a clearly written and transparent methodology (if applicable)
- will include, engage and benefit all necessary stakeholders and voices, including within project design
- will maximise translation of outputs into outcomes and impacts for others
Within this ‘Approach’ section we also expect you to:
- describe the position of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) within the approaches selected, and the impact on EDI of the chosen approach
- define stakeholder or community groups and detail approaches for their inclusion in design, delivery and outputs of projects
- specify an approach to monitoring, evaluation and influencing relevant stakeholders
- demonstrate access to the appropriate services, facilities, infrastructure, or equipment to deliver the proposed work
- consider the sustainability of the proposed projects
- provide a detailed and comprehensive project plan including milestones and timelines in the form of a Gantt chart or similar
The primary motivation of activities must be to understand or boost optimal approaches for supporting biomedical data science. Activity should help those with great ideas to test them out, to accelerate or scale-up positive change, or to increase support for those leading the way. You have freedom to decide how this is best achieved but learning must be relevant to improving the research culture and career offer for biomedical data science across the UK.
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the UKRI Funding Service.
Evidence of commitment
Word limit: 750
Can you evidence existing organisational commitment to improving research culture for biomedical data science?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Specify and evidence any existing activity or approaches from within the lead or partnering research organisations that are designed to advance any of the following within UK biomedical research:
- improving the access, professional development and career offer from biomedical research to those skilled in data science, at both team and leadership level
- improving the quality, standards and professionalisation of biomedical data science across multiple research teams
- improving equality, diversity, inclusion and embedding multidisciplinary ways of working for biomedical data science across multiple research teams
- improving the inclusion, recognition, resourcing and reward of multiple different biomedical data science roles and contributions (some of whom may not currently feature on UKRI research grant support)
- improving career tracks that are flexible and can support career mobility for biomedical data science skills across career stages and offer permeability across disciplines, organisational structures and sectors
- improving the approach to planning and resourcing of data (and related activity) as a primary, lasting, and reusable biomedical research output
- improving the benefits from industry engagement and efficient delivery of academic-industry collaboration for biomedical data science
Evidence must be limited to established existing activity but can cover any steps taken at individual, group, organisational or community level.
Applicant and team capability to deliver
Word limit: 1,500
Why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Evidence of how you, and your team, have:
- the right balance of skills and expertise to cover the proposed work
- the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and your approach to develop others
- contributed to developing a positive research environment and wider community
Use the Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI) format to showcase the range of relevant skills you and, if relevant, your team (project and project co-leads, researchers, technicians, specialists, partners and so on) have and how this will help deliver the proposed work. You can include individuals’ specific achievements but only choose past contributions that best evidence their ability to deliver this work.
Complete this section using the R4RI module headings listed. Use each heading once and include a response for the whole team, see the UKRI guidance on R4RI. You should consider how to balance your answer, and emphasise where appropriate the key skills each team member brings:
- contributions to the generation of new ideas, tools, methodologies, or knowledge
- the development of others and maintenance of effective working relationships
- contributions to the wider research and innovation community
- contributions to broader research or innovation users and audiences and towards wider societal benefit
Complete this as a narrative. Do not format it like a CV. UKRI has introduced new role types for funding opportunities being run on the new UKRI Funding Service.
For full details, see Eligibility as an individual.
Management
Word limit: 500
How will governance, team management and decision-making assure maximum benefit to those engaging with the project?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Project and team management
Explain how your project will be managed including:
- approaches to prioritisation, monitoring, and decision-making
- engagement with other stakeholders in decision-making, including any co-design
- approach to governance, including strategic (re)direction and resourcing oversight
- how governance will be equitable, proportional, and actionable
- team approaches (if any)
You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. Further details are provided in the UKRI Funding Service.
Organisational support
Word limit: 400
How will organisations contribute to support the delivery and impact of the proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
You should demonstrate commitment to engaging in cross-award activities, promoting pilot outputs and championing diverse biomedical data science communities. Commitment should specify the buy-in from senior level staff within the lead organisation, and partner organisations as required.
Within this section, we also expect you to:
- describe how your, and if applicable your team’s, research environment (in terms of the in-kind support, place and relevance to the project) will contribute to the success of the work
- describe your, and if applicable your team’s, research organisation’s commitment to risk tolerance, (de-)implementation costs and sustainability as required to evaluate new ways of working
Project partners
Add details about any project partners’ contributions. If there are no project partners, you can indicate this on the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
A project partner is a collaborating organisation who will have an integral role in the proposed research. This may include direct (cash) or indirect (in-kind) contributions such as expertise, staff time or use of facilities.
Add the following project partner details:
- the organisation name (searchable via a drop-down list or enter the organisation’s details manually, as applicable)
- the project partner contact name and email address
- the type of contribution (direct or in-direct) and its monetary value
For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.
If an individual or organisation outside the core team is responsible for recruitment of people as research participants or providing human tissue for this project, list them as a project partner.
For outline applications, only an initial list of partnerships is required (letters or emails of support are not required for the outline), and this may differ within full applications. You are expected to develop partnerships and partnership contributions if invited to submit an application to the full stage.
Ethics and responsible research and innovation (RRI)
Word limit: 400
What are the ethical or RRI implications and issues relating to the proposed work? If you do not think that the proposed work raises any ethical or RRI issues, explain why.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
This section is optional and may not apply to all applications.
Demonstrate that you have identified and evaluated:
- the relevant ethical or responsible research and innovation considerations
- how you will manage these considerations
References
Word limit: 500
List the references you have used to support your application.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Include all references in this section, not in the rest of the application questions.
You should not include any other information in this section.
We advise you not to include hyperlinks, as assessors are not obliged to access the information they lead to or consider it in their assessment of your application.
If linking to web resources, to maintain the information’s integrity, include persistent identifiers (such as digital object identifiers) where possible.
You must not include links to web resources to extend your application.
Outline costs
Provide costs that reflect, as accurately as possible, the funding you will need.
For outline applications, costs can be indicative and may differ within full applications. Justification of costs is not required at the outline stage.
