Seed Grants for Research application form - Barts Charity
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Seed Grants for Research application form

Research Seed Grant

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Before starting your application, please familiarise yourself with:

You must complete this online application along with a completed version of the detailed cost breakdown template.


If you have any questions, please contact funding@bartscharity.org.uk.


Do get in touch if we can support you in the application process by applying reasonable adjustments. All requests will be treated confidentially.


You can download a sample version of the form help you prepare your application, but you must complete and submit the online form for Barts Charity to consider your application.  


Fields marked with a red asterisk (*) are must be completed in order to submit the form.


This form has either already been submitted OR is currently unavailable for submission. For assistance, please contact funding@bartscharity.org.uk.

Checks

In ticking this you, the Lead Applicant, confirm that:



Section 1: Application Summary




Guidance: You may request up to 12 months of support, or up to 18 months when your project involves patient/participant recruitment.

Guidance: This date should be as realistic as possible, taking into account appropriate estimates for the time required to recruit staff, receive ethical approval etc. You may adjust your start date if your application is successful. We expect most Research Seed Grants to start within 6 months of the decision.

Guidance: If your application is successful, this is the organisation that will be responsible for administering the award.



Your application will need to be reviewed and electronically approved by a Finance Manager at your organisation with appropriate delegated authority. Please confirm their name and email address here. 

When you submit your application, they will be sent a copy of the application form and asked to approve it before the application is submitted to Barts Charity. The application needs to be submitted to us by 5pm on the day of the deadline.

We will confirm receipt of the application after the Finance Manager has approved it. 




Your application will need to be reviewed and electronically approved by the Legally Responsible Contact at the Joint Research Management Office (JRMO).

When you submit this application, they will be sent a copy of the application form and asked to approve it before the application is submitted to Barts Charity. The application needs to be submitted to us by 5pm on the day of the deadline.

We will confirm receipt of the application after the Legally Responsible Contact  has approved it. 




Section 2: Project Summary


Guidance: Succinctly outline the project, including the background to the problem, key aim(s) and objective(s), your methodology/plans for delivery and anticipated outputs/benefits.

Guidance: We may use this to describe your project through our communication channels (such as our website) and to describe your project to the public, supporters, donors and our Trustees. You should avoid unnecessary jargon, abbreviations and technical terms wherever possible. If you have to use them provide a clear explanation. Further guidance on writing a lay summary and other useful resources can be found through the INVOLVE 'Make it Clear' campaign.

Section 3: Related Applications


Guidance: If this or a similar application has been considered by another organisation recently (decision within 6 months of this application deadline), please select 'Yes'. This might include, for example, the NHS or an external funding body.



Guidance: Please upload this letter as a PDF.

Section 4: Project Details

Guidance: This section forms the main body of the proposal and must contain all the key information about the planned research project. It consists of the following subsections:
  • Project description
  • Projects involving human participants
  • Research involving animals.
You should use the subsections to best describe your project plans, while avoiding repetition.

Your application will be read by a range of people including experts in the field as well as individuals who may not know the context of your application in detail. Please write your application with this in mind.

References, Gantt charts, figures and any other supporting information referred to must be uploaded as an attachment

Provide a detailed description of: 

  1. Background
  2. Aims
  3. Work plan
  4. Expected outcomes/outputs
  5. Role of the team members involved
  6. How this will lead to an application for a larger grant in the future.

Guidance: Successful applications to this scheme clearly articulate how the expected research outcomes aim to enhance our understanding of health and illness and/or have the potential to lead to improved lives in East London.


You should structure your answer following the headings above.


1. Background 

Describe the background to the project and how it has arisen. In this section, provide the evidence base/justification for the proposal, including the current state of the field/area. It is important to include details of any preliminary work (published or unpublished) that has led to this proposal. 

Include citations, where appropriate, to the literature as well as your own work (including to figures/data uploaded as Additional Information). 

2. Aims 
Describe the key research questions and/or hypotheses that you will address through this work. If your project does not have an underlying hypothesis, describe how this work will lead to progress in the field. 

3. Work plan 
Clearly explain how you will address your project’s aims. Provide enough information to demonstrate why you consider your approach will be successful. Include, as appropriate:
  • details of any validation already undertaken or rationale for using the selected protocols
  • the proposed sample size (including power calculations)
  • method(s) for sample selection
  • potential risks and associated mitigation plans
  • details of any milestones.

4. Expected outcomes/outputs

Outline the key outcomes/outputs that are expected to arise from this project.

 

5. Role of the team members involved

Outline the skills or expertise of each team member (including lead and co-applicants, collaborators and staff) and the role they will play in the delivery of the project.

6. How this will lead to an application for a larger grant in the future
What are your plans for follow-on funding? Please be specific where possible. For example, which funder/scheme you would approach for this. 

Section 4b: Projects involving human participants 



Guidance: The World Health Organization defines a clinical trial as: “any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes. Interventions include, but are not restricted to, drugs, cells and other biological products, surgical procedures, devices, behavioural treatments, process-of-care changes, preventive care, etc.” If your proposal involves a clinical trial (including a feasibility study), you should provide details of it below.
Expectations for clinical trials

Guidance: We expect clinical trials to be designed to ensure that the results are applicable to the population group(s) (including under-served groups) for whom the intervention is intended. 


We encourage applicants to use the NIHR INCLUDE Framework in the trial design stage to identify which groups should be included in the research, potential challenges to their inclusion and ways to address the identified challenges. Additional costs related to addressing identified challenges may be included in this application.

 

Additional guidance, including worksheets and examples, can be found here. 


You should include details of how you have integrated elements of this framework in your trial design in your answers below.



Guidance: Types of interventions can include but are not restricted to: screening procedures; collection of biological samples; biometric and clinical data; experimental challenges; pharmacological or behavioural treatments; process-of-care-changes.


Guidance: Provide evidence to support your recruitment plan. A letter of support from each centre confirming their willingness to participate should be added as an attachment in the Collaborators section. If you have identified any potential challenges to the inclusion of appropriate patient groups, you can include appropriate costs to overcome these challenges within this application.





Guidance: The sponsor is the organisation that takes responsibility for the design, conduct and management of the research. The sponsor provides the indemnity and insurance for the study, protecting the research team and study participants from negligent and non-negligent harm. Barts Charity cannot fulfil this role.


Guidance: When considered necessary by an AcoRD specialist, a completed Schedule of Events Cost Attribution Template (SoECAT) must be submitted as a part of the application. When a completed SoECAT is not considered necessary by an AcoRD specialist, only submit the front page (study information tab). This must be signed off by an AcoRD specialist. You can submit your SoECAT whilst we are reviewing your application, but we cannot make a funding decision without it.


Upload a PDF of the full form or just the front page (study information tab) as per your instructions from an AcoRD specialist. 

Section 4c: Research involving animals

Guidance: We support the AMRC principles on the use of animals in research as outlined in this statement.

 

Applicants are expected to be familiar with the relevant NC3R guidelines and have applied them to this project. More information is available on the NC3Rs website.

 

If your project involves primates, cats, dogs, equidae, pigs or their data, please contact the Funding & Impact team for advice before applying. 


Guidance: Select all that apply. Use CTRL+Click to select multiple options.

Provide a justification for the use of animals in this project. 

This should include: 

  • why animal use is necessary for this work

  • why the species to be used is most appropriate for the planned work

  • how the principles and guidelines set out by the NC3Rs have been incorporated into the project design.

  • research projects involving animals should include both sexes unless there is a strong rationale for not doing so, this information should be detailed within this section.






Section 4d: Additional questions

Patient and public involvement and engagement

Guidance: As a local funder, effective involvement and engagement of patients and the public in the work we fund is very important to us. 

The UK Standards for Public Involvement has produced detailed guidance and best practise case studies related to involving and engaging patients and the public in research. This includes processes, procedures and values necessary to support suitable public and patient involvement. We recommend that you review this guidance before planning any involvement activities.

Specific guidance for patient and public involvement in lab-based projects can be found here.

Patients and the public should be involved and/or engaged in every stage of a project, from developing a proposal through project delivery to evaluation and dissemination.

Costs related to involvement and engagement within your project can be funded by this grant and should be detailed in the finance section of this application form.

Guidance: Outline your approach to the involvement and engagement of patients and public in all stages of the project, including:
• Who will be/has been involved and why?
• Why is your approach to patient and public involvement appropriate for this project?
• Details of how you will support and enable patient and public involvement and engagement in your project (e.g., payments, training).

Where you have decided not to include patients and/or the public in the development, delivery and/or dissemination of the project, you must explain why in this answer.
Outputs and management plan

Guidance: As a charity, we want to ensure that the outputs (knowledge and materials) generated by the projects we fund have the largest possible impact. We expect applicants to consider whether the outputs of a project might be of value as a resource to others and, if so, to consider their approach to managing and sharing anticipated outputs to maximise their potential benefit.

 

We are interested in all possible outputs from your project. For example, outputs could include:

  • data/datasets

  • software

  • materials

  • policy

  • patents

  • manuscripts/papers

  • training

  • clinical pathways.


Benefit

Approximately how many patients will benefit from this project? Please provide:

  • evidence of how this figure has been derived 
  • details of the population who will benefit (e.g. age, demographic profile, location or disease profile)
  • details of patients/staff who may benefit within Barts Health NHS Trust specifically, if applicable.

Guidance: If possible, provide the number of patients that would benefit per year in the UK. Where this is not possible, please state the units that you have used.
Attachments
The upload fields below will only accept Office (e.g. Word) or PDF files.

Upload a list of the sources cited in the Project Description. Include all authors, the full title of each publication, journal title, year, volume and pages. For citations to preprints, state "Preprint", the repository name and the article's persistent identifier (for example DOI).

Preliminary data, figures, schema and other supporting information. This document is not included in the word counts of the Project Description. This document must not exceed one A2 page (or two A4 pages if your project involves human participants). If you exceed these limits, we will return the application to you so that you can reduce its length.

Section 5a: Applicants

Guidance: The project team consists of a Lead Applicant and up to three Co-Applicants.


The Lead Applicant will be the main contact for the application and award, if successful, and is responsible for grant administration and reporting.


See the scheme page on our website for details of eligibility criteria for the applicant team.















Guidance: If you have obtained a PhD/MD, please include details of this here.

Guidance: We encourage applications from individuals who have taken career breaks. We want to ensure that any such breaks are taken into account when we consider your track record. We are not asking for the reasons for this break so please do not provide these here, including sharing any sensitive personal health information.

Any disruption to your usual work caused by the coronavirus pandemic should be included here.











Guidance: Research outputs may include (but are not limited to):

  • Peer-reviewed publications and preprints.

  • Datasets, software and research materials

  • Inventions, patents and commercial activity.

·     Do NOT add the journal impact factor, number of citations or other article level metrics to this list.




Section 5b: Applicants


Co-Applicant details













Guidance: If you have obtained a PhD/MD, please include details of this here.

Guidance: We encourage applications from individuals who have taken career breaks. We want to ensure that any such breaks are taken into account when we consider your track record. We are not asking for the reasons for this break so please do not provide these here, including sharing any sensitive personal health information.

Any disruption to your usual work caused by the coronavirus pandemic should be included here.











Guidance: Research outputs may include (but are not limited to):

  • Peer-reviewed publications and preprints.

  • Datasets, software and research materials

  • Inventions, patents and commercial activity.

·     Do NOT add the journal impact factor, number of citations or other article level metrics to this list.




Use the 'add another response' button to add details for another co-applicant.

Section 6: Finances


Guidance:

  • We will fund only the direct costs of the project.

  • All requested costs must be justified in the context of the proposal.

  • You must obtain accurate costs from the Joint Research Management Office (JRMO, Queen Mary University of London/Barts Health) or the Research Support Services at City, University of London.

  • All costs requested must be in line with Barts Charity's Cost Policy.

  • We expect that the majority of the project’s costs would be incurred in Barts Health NHS Trust, the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, QMUL or the School of Health Sciences, City, University of London. We will consider providing funds to other collaborating organisations on a case-by-case basis. Where agreed by the Charity, this collaboration will need to be managed by the Administering Organisation as a sub-contract.

  • All amounts below must be shown as whole numbers and in pound sterling (£).

Guidance:  If your Administering Organisation has calculated the full economic cost (FEC) of this proposal, please include the total calculated here. Barts Charity will only pay Directly Incurred costs as per FEC calculations. You should also include the value of contributions from other sources (e.g. other funders or industry partners). 

Guidance: If your Administering Organisation has calculated the FEC for this proposal, please state the  sum of Indirect and Directly Allocated costs calculated for this project and state that these will be covered by the Administering Organisation. For all other contributions, please provide a list of the value and source of funding as well as what this will cover.

Provide a breakdown of costs requested from Barts Charity using the following cost categories.

You must ensure the breakdown matches the Amount requested from Barts Charity

All amounts below must be shown as whole numbers and in pound sterling (£).
Year 1
Staff
Materials and Consumables
Equipment
Public and Patient Involvement
Estates
Publications/Dissemination
Animals
Other



Please ensure the breakdown below matches the Amount Requested from Barts Charity
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4
Staff/students
Materials and Consumables
Equipment
Public and Patient Involvement
Estates
Publications/ Dissemination
Animals
Other

Guidance: Upload this file as a PDF. Please append any quotes to this file.

Guidance: Further details regarding allowed/disallowed costs is available in Barts Charity’s Cost Policy.

 

Staff

  • Outline the role each staff member will play in the project, including a justification for the level of salary support requested.

  • Where the requested staff member has already been identified, please provide their name and a justification for their participation in the project.

Equipment

  • A company quote is required for any piece of equipment over £5,000. Quotes must be uploaded as single document with the detailed breakdown of your project's budget.

  • You must ensure that any freight/shipping/delivery, installation, or capital/estates costs related to equipment have been considered and requested, as necessary. We will not provide additional funds at a later date that are not requested in this application. 

  • The Lead Applicant is responsible for ensuring that a suitable location to house/store the equipment has been identified. 

 Public and Patient  Involvement and Engagement

  • We encourage the involvement of patients and the public in the design and delivery of your project. You may request funds to support these activities.

Section 7: Ethics and Approvals



Provide details of the ethical and/or regulatory approval(s) that you have or will seek for this project. Include:

  • The Committee or regulator

  • Date of (actual/planned) application(s)

  • The outcome or date of expected outcome


Guidance: We reserve the right to request copies of relevant approval documents at any point during the lifetime of the grant.



Diversity Monitoring


Barts Charity is committed to ensuring that our decision-making processes are fair and free from bias. We ask that all applicants complete a short diversity questionnaire to allow us to monitor our progress against these aims.

Data collected will be held separately to your application and cannot be accessed by anyone involved with processing or assessing your application.

Each applicant will receive an email with further details and instructions on completing this survey shortly after the application is submitted. If an applicant has provided this data in the last two years, we will not ask them again. They may however request a form to update or remove this data but contacting funding@bartscharity.org.uk.

Review and Submit




When you submit, your application will be sent to your Legally Responsible Contact (LRC, see page 3 of this form for more information) for approval. The LRC will then review your application and submit it to the Charity.

Your application must be received by 5pm on the day of the deadline.

The Lead Applicant will be send a PDF copy of the data entered into this form.
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