The Northern Care Alliance recognises that high quality clinical research is beneficial for its staff, for the population that it serves, and for neighbouring partner organisations:
- It creates a culture of progressive improvement in clinical care; the most successful trusts in terms of quality and safety of patient care are also those with an excellent clinical research portfolio
- It enables individuals to develop and realise their own academic aspirations – attracting and maintaining a high quality and motivated clinical work force
- An impressive clinical research portfolio is mutually beneficial to partnering Universities, the NIHR Clinical Research |Networks and other healthcare research organisations
- Quality clinical research can attract funding support from research organisations, Universities and from the Pharma (industry) sector, fostering further growth and success
It is on this basis that the Research and Innovation (R&I) team of the Northern Care Alliance (NCA) has identified funds to support the growth and development of research within the clinical units of the Trust.
Application process
A number of awards will be available for applications from medical staff, nurses, and AHPs working within any of the clinical teams in the NCA who are either currently engaged in clinical research or have a desire to initiate a research project. A typical award would allocate funding of approximately £12k per year for a maximum of 2 years (subject to annual review), but where exceptional cases can be justified, the funding could be greater.
You will need to complete a short application form which describes the research need/project and which provides justification for the application. You will require support from your line manager/clinical director so that any individual funding can be recognised in job plans.
Examples of the type of applications that would be considered suitable are:
- Consultant programmed activity (PA): to enable time for clinical research project development, pilot work, research grant writing or development of a commercial research portfolio (including investigator led studies with industry partners)
- Funding for AHPs/other staff members within the clinical team for the above activities, or other research development
- Funding for research nurses or part funding of a clinical research fellow
- Funding for a pilot project that could eventually lead to design of a larger national funding application
Applications that are supported by matched funding (eg departments contributing to salary of a research nurse or research fellow) would be welcomed, and clinical research projects or activities that are likely to increase the NCA’s NIHR CRN portfolio recruitment activity will similarly be encouraged.
Application deadline and assessment process
The deadline for applications is 5pm on Wednesday 31 October 2018.
Research grant application form – guidance notes
Research grant application – form
Applications should be sent to steve.woby@srft.nhs.uk and will be assessed objectively by a balanced team including R&I staff, academics, research practitioners and clinical managers. The results of the competition will be announced in November with the intention that successful awards will be initiated on 1 January 2019.
Towards the end of the first 12 months of funding, a review process will be undertaken to determine whether the funding should be extended for a second year.