Tagged / mrc

MRC call for Senior Non-Clinical Fellowship

Funding opportunities

The MRC senior non-clinical fellowship is a highly prestigious award that provides non-clinical researchers of exceptional ability with exceptional opportunities to develop themselves to be research leaders. Applicants will be proven independent researchers with a track record of excellence in their scientific field, and will demonstrate significant promise as future research leaders. Support is now provided for seven years.

Who can apply?

Applicants will normally hold a PhD/DPhil and have at least six years’ post-doctoral research experience in academia or the wider economy. Applications from current MRC Career Development Award holders are particularly welcome.

Proposals are encouraged across all areas of the MRC’s remit from basic molecular science to applied clinical research. Medically and other clinically qualified professionals who are clinically active are ineligible, and should consider MRC’s Clinical Fellowships or Population Health Scientist Fellowship schemes.

MRC fellowships are not available to individuals who hold a tenured academic or research position, in the UK or overseas, at the time of application. If you hold a tenured position you should instead apply for funding under one of the MRC grant schemes. Similarly, individuals without formal tenure who are already supported by their Research Organisation as research team leaders should seek MRC grant funding rather than support via an MRC fellowship. There are no residence eligibility restrictions for this fellowship.

As part of the MRC equal opportunities policy, consideration will be given to applicants who are returning to science following a career break. There are no age limits for any of our schemes and all fellowships may be held part-time to fit in with domestic responsibilities.

Funding provided

The award provides a competitive personal salary for the fellow, research support staff, research consumables expenses and capital equipment appropriate for the research project, travel costs, and other appropriate items under full economic costs at a UK research organisation.

However, a Fellowship is not merely a large personal “grant.” Now that the awards are for seven years, candidates must show a commitment to developing the breadth of their research careers as well as excellence in depth. We recognise that plans for the later stages of a fellowship may be less detailed than those for the earlier years. Nevertheless, applicants should have ambitious and credible ideas for developing themselves as research leaders – scientists with vision and the ability to drive change.

Applicants are encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the Senior Non-Clinical Fellowship to spend time in an overseas research centre, a second UK research centre or a UK industrial centre. The aim is to provide a concentrated period of training that cannot be achieved as effectively within the academic host institution. MRC consider this period at a second centre to provide an invaluable opportunity to broaden fellows’ development towards becoming a research leader, and they would normally expect the Fellow to make one visit of up to 12 months. The interview panel may agree to requests for visits to more than one centre, if this can be justified on the grounds of training and development needs. These should not be simply collaborative visits. The Felllow should be prepared at interview to discuss in detail any visits proposed.

Tenure of award

An MRC Senior Non-Clinical Fellowship may be awarded for any period up to seven years. A mid-term review will be conducted by Panel members and MRC staff, to evaluate the fellow’s progress and institutional support, and also as an opportunity to provide mentorship and career advice for the fellow.

When applying, the case for support should describe a plan for seven years of research. However it is appreciated that during the tenure of the award, advances will be made and unexpected results may be produced which impact on the planned work, especially in the later years of the award. Consequently they encourage applicants to outline options for the last years of the fellowship rather than provide comprehensive details.

To account for the new longer duration, the case for support may be up to 12 pages in length.

Deadlines and submission details

This fellowship competition is held twice a year. There is no need to submit an outline application. Please see the schedule and deadlines for fellowships for closing dates.

Please apply for the Senior Non-Clinical Fellowship using the RCUK Je-S application system. Your proposal must be submitted through the MRC Je-S system by 4pm on the relevant deadline date.

Closing date: 10 October 2012

Short listing: February 2013

Interviews: 20 -21 March 2013

Take up dates: April – September 2013

Other work responsibilities

MRC senior non-clinical fellows and research support staff funded through full-time fellowships may spend up to six hours a week on teaching, demonstrating or other work. Payment for this work may be retained in full if this is the host institution’s normal policy.

Applications for other grant support

It is expected that senior fellows will seek grant support either from the MRC, through a research grant or other funding streams, or grants from other funding organisations. In applying for such funding, fellows should be mindful of their fellowship commitments (see above).

Guidance for applicants

For further information please refer to MRC’s contacts page.

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

Technology Strategy Board and MRC call to address Healthcare challenges

Funding opportunities

The £180 million Biomedical Catalyst, announced by David Cameron in December 2011, will see the Medical Research Council and the Technology Strategy Board working together to provide responsive and effective support for the best life science opportunities arising in the UK.

Support through the Biomedical Catalyst is available to UK businesses (SMEs) and academics looking to develop innovative solutions to healthcare challenges either individually or in collaboration.

This joint programme between the MRC and TSB will offer three categories of grant:

Feasibility Award

Early Stage Award

 Late Stage Award

The categories are designed to support the maturation of an idea from concept to commercialisation. This will create a pipeline of projects encompassing the early stage exploration of commercial and technical potential through to proving utility in the field (which may involve human clinical trials) and development prior to commercialisation. Applicants may apply for the award category most appropriate for their work without having received a prior award.

Support will be available for projects arising from any sector or discipline that are aimed at addressing healthcare challenges. Example solutions may include (but are not limited to): stratified healthcare (both therapy and diagnostic components), regenerative medicine, diagnostics, eHealth and mHealth solutions, enabling medical technologies and devices. The Biomedical Catalyst will seek to support those opportunities which demonstrate the highest scientific and commercial potential irrespective of medical area.

Please see the Technology Strategy Board healthcare page for more information about their work in this area.

The Biomedical Catalyst will operate in response mode and will in essence be “always open”. However to assist the processing of applications there will be key submission and assessment dates which will differ depending on the category of award and applicant type, please see the links/dates below for further details. The assessment of Early and Late Stage awards will culminate in a panel assessment for both academic and business led applications enabling funding decisions to be made three times a year.

All applications will be subject to assessment by independent expert reviewers with short-listed applicants for Late Stage Awards being interviewed by a committee. Applicants for Late Stage Awards are advised to note that should they be successful in being invited to interview they should hold the dates of the next committee meetings as these are fixed and non-negotiable. Dates will be confirmed when applicants are sent their invitation to submit a full stage proposal (and will be posted on this page in due course).

Please note: If your application is led by an academic, you will need to apply on the Medical Research Council website.

If your application is led by a business, you should make your application on the TSB website.

Open date: 30 April 2012

Email: competitions@innovateuk.org

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

                                                                                                                                       

Find out about Dr Samuel Nyman’s research into the psychosocial aspects of falls and their prevention in older people

Research by Age UK estimates that falls amongst older people in the UK could be costing the NHS in excess of £4.6m a day, with up to one in three people over 65 falling each year. Falls account for over 50% of hospital admissions among the over 70s, with around 14,000 older people dying annually in the UK after a fall. Evidence suggests that if older people regularly take part in exercise specially designed to improve strength and balance then their risk of falls can be cut by up to 55%. Dr Samuel Nyman in the Psychology Research Group (DEC) undertakes research primarily focused on the psychosocial aspects of falls and their prevention in older people, and has a particular interest in helping older people become physically active to prevent falls. His work has focused on how internet-based falls prevention advice can be made more motivating and inspiring for older people, and he was invited as a guest speaker to present his research at Arthritis Research UK’s Musculoskeletal Educators Conference in June 2011.

Samuel is part of a multi-disciplinary team of researchers, led by Prof Marcus Ormerod at the University of Salford, who have been awarded funding from the MRC-led cross-council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing programme to conduct a year-long pilot study called: “Go Far (Going Outdoors: Falls, Ageing and Resilience)”. Go Far starts in January 2012 and will investigate the role of the outdoor environment in shaping health inequalities, explore older people’s experiences of falling outdoors, develop and test tools and techniques to evaluate the relationship between at-risk people and the outdoor environment, and develop a clear road map for future cross-disciplinary research in this area. The project will also involve experts from Age UK, the UK Health and Safety Laboratory, and Toronto Rehab.

Working with Dr Claire Ballinger (University of Southampton) and Prof Judith Phillips (Swansea University), Samuel’s contribution will be to explore through focus groups older people’s perceptions of the key risk factors for falling in the outdoor environment. This aspect of the project will lead to an understanding of the environmental risk factors which have yet to be accounted for in the current evidence base. Overall, the project will develop a greater understanding of the many factors involved in outdoor falls and create practical tools which will significantly help older people’s health and wellbeing.

Prior to this project Samuel undertook a systematic review of older people’s participation in falls prevention interventions. Earlier this year Samuel presented this research at a symposium in Italy for the European Congress of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics, which he also co-chaired. He will also present this work as one of the six selected oral presentations at the forthcoming 12th International Conference on Falls and Postural Stability to be held in Manchester on 9 September 2011. The work has also been published as two journal articles in Age and Ageing, a leading international geriatrics journal:

Samuel is currently developing a website to use with older people later this year with the aim of identifying further (with the use of psychological theory) what are the best ways of communicating falls prevention advice to older people to facilitate their ability to continue to lead healthy, independent, and active lifestyles.

Population and patient data sharing for mental health research funding available

Funding opportunities

The MRC invites proposals for a population and patient data sharing initiative for research into mental health. Projects should exploit high-quality existing data in novel ways to advance knowledge of factors affecting addiction and mental illness and inform research for new treatments. A total budget of £1 million is available; see the MRC website for more details.