Funding opportunity

Funding opportunity: Population and systems medicine partnership: Jan 2022

Opportunity status:: Closed
Funders:: Medical Research Council (MRC)
Funding type:: Grant
Publication date:: 18 August 2021
Opening date:: 15 October 2021
Closing date:: 13 January 2022 4:00pm UK time

Apply for a grant to support new partnerships between diverse groups of researchers in population and systems medicine.

You must:

be a UK-based researcher based at an eligible research organisation
have at least a postgraduate degree.

The grant will allow you to:

establish new, high-value collaborative activities or capabilities
add value to high-quality scientific programmes that are already supported by grants from MRC and other funders.

Funding is available for between one and five years.

Who can apply

Any UK-based researcher with an employment contract at an eligible research organisation can apply. You will need to:

have at least a graduate degree, although we usually expect most applicants to have a PhD or medical degree
show that you will direct the partnership and be actively engaged in the work.

You can include one or more industry partners as project partners in your application. International co-investigators can be included if they provide expertise not available in the UK.

A principal investigator must lead the partnership. Any researchers you invite to become co-investigators must contribute to the academic leadership of the partnership.

Find more guidance for applicants on eligibility for MRC funding (section one).

The focus of this funding opportunity is population and systems medicine research. There are similar opportunities across other areas of medical research within the MRC remit, including:

infections and immunity
molecular and cellular medicine
neurosciences and mental health
applied global health.

You can also apply for a partnership grant through the methodology research programme. There are also other types of awards including:

research
programmes
new investigator.

You should contact us if you are not sure which opportunity to apply to.

What we're looking for

We fund partnerships working to transform our understanding of population and systems medicine. Partnership grants are expected to support these research areas, although research itself is not supported through this route.

The Population and Systems Medicine Board funds research to unlock the complexity of human health and disease across the life course.

Our remit includes population health and the impact of environmental factors including the social environment on health outcomes.

The research we support includes the physiology and pathophysiology of all the major organs and systems, with the exception of the brain and the immune system which are normally supported through our other research boards.

Research we fund includes, but is not limited to, the following areas:

cardiovascular
respiratory
musculoskeletal
gastroenterology
renal medicine and liver function
endocrinology and reproductive health
maternal health and the early origins of health and disease
nutrition, metabolic regulation, diabetes and obesity
trauma, acute medicine and surgery
inflammation in relation to disease processes and the resolution of the inflammatory response
medical sociology
lifestyle, socio-economic and behavioural impacts on health
health inequalities
population and disease related cohorts.

Find out more about the science areas we support and our current board opportunity areas.

We encourage you to contact us first to discuss your application, especially if you believe your research may cross MRC research board or research council interests.

If your application fits another research board remit better then we may decide to transfer it there to be assessed.

We will fund partnerships between diverse groups of researchers. These partnerships must:

establish new, high-value collaborative activities or capabilities
add value to high-quality scientific programmes that are already supported by grants from MRC and other funders.

We will not fund stand-alone, hypothesis-driven research projects which are eligible for MRC research or programme grant funding.

Collaborative activities can include:

networking and partnership activities
- establishing multidisciplinary collaborative partnerships or consortia
- fostering and enabling a national or international strategy in this area
- enabling knowledge sharing or creation across institutions
infrastructure support for establishing a unique shared resource or helping to exploit it, for example, staff, systems, equipment, seminars, workshops
activities such as specialist data and software platforms or resources.

We may support small scale, pump-priming projects, but your focus should not be on specific research questions. These should be interdisciplinary, high-risk and high-gain projects that would exemplify your partnership’s novel capability.

Successful partnership grants usually include a combination of these components. We will reject applications for funding only networking activities.

We expect partnership grants to reach maturity by the end of the initial award. You should find alternative ways of funding any follow-on activities.

Resource requests will vary between partnerships so we advise you to discuss this with the relevant MRC programme manager before you apply.

You can request funding for costs such as:

a contribution to the salary of the principal investigator and key co-investigators
support for other posts such as research and technical
consumables
equipment
travel costs
data preservation, data sharing and dissemination costs
estates or indirect costs.

We will not fund:

standalone hypothesis-driven research projects
funding to use as a ‘bridge’ between grants
publication costs.

Investigators’ salaries

If you are asking for funding to cover investigator time, you must:

detail each named investigator’s input
justify why the partnership needs this time commitment.

Usually, we will fund only the principal investigator and a small number of co-investigators. Other co-investigators may be involved without funding. We do not expect to fund project partners for participating in the partnership.

Research costs

You should request minimum resources for research. For example, we will support postdoctoral research positions only in exceptional cases. We may support technical posts if you can justify them.

You may use a partnership grant to buy equipment. You can also use it to cover the cost of essential infrastructure or to provide a platform for partnership activities.

We will fund the cost of working at an overseas research organisation if international collaboration is important to the success of your partnership. You must discuss this with the programme manager before you apply.

How to apply

Application deadlines for Population and Systems Medicine Board funding are usually around January, May and September. Although sometimes dates can change, so check the funding opportunities for details.

You can submit to any one of the available deadlines in the year. We do not expect you to submit more than two applications at the same time and encourage you to focus on application quality, not the number you can submit.

Read our guidance for applicants on the MRC resubmission process.

Pre-application stage

You must contact the programme manager at least six weeks before you apply for a partnership grant. You must provide a brief abstract of your application to help them decide if it is eligible.

After we have received your abstract, the programme manager will give you advice on how best to develop your application. They will also ask you to email a pre-application summary. This should be no more than two pages of A4, but may include an extra page of references if needed.

The summary should include the following information:

the title of the potential MRC partnership
a list of the principal investigator, co-investigators and their affiliations
a list of collaborators (if known at this stage)
the aims of your application. This should explain why the partnership is important, the nature of the partnership and its activities, and how these align with the partnership grant expectations
an estimate of the likely cost to MRC including staffing and equipment costs.

You should also provide a two-page CV for the principal investigator and co-investigators, including a summary of recent funding for those investigators. You can add a list of publications as page three of the CV document.

Full application stage

We may invite you to complete a full application via our online Joint Electronic Submission system (Je-S). We will do this in advance of the closing date.

Your application should include a cover letter confirming the name of the programme manager who agreed you could apply.

You should read the general guidance on how to complete an MRC application (section 2).

Industrial partners

If you want to include one or more industry partners as a project partner, you must also:

complete the project partner section in Je-S
submit an MRC industrial collaboration agreement (MICA) form and heads of terms
include ‘MICA’ as a prefix to your project title.

Find out more about MRC industry collaboration agreements.

Case for support

The list below covers specific points that you should address when writing your case for support. You must make sure that your application answers all these questions.

You should read the list, in conjunction with the MRC case for support general guidance (section 2.2.3).

You must include the following in your case for support:

Importance

State the aims of the partnership.

Explain:

why establishing a partnership is necessary for this area of research
how establishing a partnership will add value to current research, for example creating new capabilities or enhancing coordination
why you cannot access support for the partnership through other means
how a partnership will improve the UK’s international standing in this area.

Partnership plans

Describe the activities associated with the partnership, including timelines and indicating where activities may be concurrent. You may include a Gantt chart to depict this.

For any infrastructure or equipment requests, state how you will use this to further the aims and objectives of the partnership.

If you are requesting funding for an infrastructure project in one university but providing a service to the wider research community, you should make this clear in your application.

Outline future plans:

for sustaining the partnership beyond the proposed duration of MRC funding
for accessing further funding (from MRC and elsewhere) to support any follow-on hypothesis-driven research, which may develop as a result of the partnership.

Participants in the partnership and existing funding

Describe:

how the partnership grant will enable researchers to work together and how it will build capability in a strategic area, for example, partnerships that bring together researchers who otherwise would not work together. There should be clear discrimination between co-investigators and partners or collaborators
how the partnership between the participants will benefit the wider research community.

Justify why each of the named investigators is necessary for the partnership, including their level of time commitment.

Provide a brief report on the progress of recent research for investigators in the partnership including an acknowledgement of any previous or current MRC funding and progress to date on delivery of this research.

You should also include the scale of support provided, for example, the number of postdoctorates or technicians, and total amount of consumables and equipment.

Environment

Describe:

the environment in which the partnership will take place
the support the partnership will receive from the host research organisation, for example, reducing or waiving co-investigator salary, associated estates costs and other in-kind contributions such as towards the cost of equipment.

If your proposal requests shared equipment, describe where this will be and how the host research organisation will support this equipment. Describe the management arrangements for ensuring equity of access.

Management

Provide an overview of how you will manage the partnership. For example, who will bring coherence and management to the partnership and how? Outline any plans for:

regular meetings
bringing together disparate communities
a strategy for the set-up of networks
arrangements for access and upkeep of equipment.

While networking or workshop activities can add value to a partnership, we will not accept applications centred only on these types of activities.

Applying through Je-S

You must apply through the Je-S system. Please read the Je-S how to apply guidance (PDF, 190KB) for more information. If you need further help, you can contact the Je-S help desk on 01793 444164 or by email jeshelp@je-s.ukri.org.

You should give your administrative department sufficient notice that you intend to apply. Your organisation must submit your application before 16:00 on the deadline date.

When applying select:

council: MRC
document type: standard proposal
scheme: research grant
call/type/mode: Research Boards Jan 2022 Submissions.

Indicating the proposal is a partnership grant

Select the ‘grant type’ option from the proposal document menu, within the Je-S proposal form. Within the section, select the radio button adjacent to the ‘partnership grant’ option and select the ‘save’ button.

How we will assess your application

When we receive your application, it will be peer reviewed by independent experts from the UK and overseas.

You can nominate up to three independent reviewers. We will invite only one to assess your research proposal and may decide not to approach any of your nominated reviewers.

Peer reviewers will assess your application and provide comments. They will also score it using the peer reviewer scoring system against the following criteria:

importance: how important are the questions, or gaps in knowledge, that are being addressed?
scientific potential: what are the prospects for good scientific progress?
resources requested: are the funds requested essential for the work? And do the importance and scientific potential justify funding on the scale requested? Does the proposal represent good value for money?

Read the detailed assessment criteria for each MRC grant type.

We will review these scores and comments at a triage meeting and expect to continue with the highest quality applications with potential to be funded. If your application passes the triage stage, we will give you the chance to respond to reviewers comments.

A board meeting will then discuss your proposal and decide if it is suitable for funding. We make a decision within six months of receiving your application.

Find out more about the MRC peer review process.