Monthly Archives: September 2019

The Komen Tissue Bank Challenge: Using Normal Tissue to Fight Breast Cancer

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25 September 2019 (Letter of Intent)      16 December 2019 (invited full application)

The Komen Tissue Bank Challenge: Using Normal Tissue to Fight Breast Cancer
https://ww5.komen.org/ResearchGrants/FundingOpportunities.html

Funding for researchers proposing innovative research using samples or data derived from the Komen Tissue Bank (KTB), a biorepository containing breast tissue and blood products from donors that show no evidence of breast cancer at the time of donation.

value of up to $200,000 for up to two years.

Science Media Centre

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https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/working-with-us/for-scientists/intro/

At the SMC’s popular Introduction to the News Media sessions, media-experienced scientists, news journalists, science correspondents and press officers give presentations about the realities of the news media, all with an eye to science in the headlines. The SMC has run over 20 Introduction to the News Media sessions engaging thousands of scientists across the UK, in venues in London, Durham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester, Brighton, Exeter, Belfast and Norwich.

What are the sessions?

The sessions last half a day and offer a beginner’s guide to the media, giving an insight into the way the news media works. You will get a tour of some of the key issues, hearing about topics including:

• how and why scientists and journalists should engage with each other
• top tips for dealing with the media
• how journalists find stories
• the role of the press office
• the role of the news editor

All sessions are free of charge.

It isn’t: Skills-based media training. This session will not prepare you for a confrontation with Wark or Humphrys, and it is not practical media training; but it will give a flavour of the news media to help you understand its demands and make it easier for you to work with journalists. The SMC, however, does offer individual support to scientists when collaborating with them on frontline media work, and the Introduction to the New Media sessions are one way in which we develop relationships with scientists.

Is it for you? We welcome scientists, social scientists, engineers and clinicians from any discipline and at any stage of their career in academia or industry (excluding those at undergraduate level), who have little or no media experience but would like to find out more. If you would like to register your interest in attending a session in the future, please contact us at the email address below.

Example event programme. 

upcoming sessions

Are you interested in how the media works?  Do you get frustrated by what you read and see in the news?  Do you want to help journalists report your subject better?  If so, this is the event for you.

Come to our next Introduction to the News Media event on Thursday 24th October at the Wellcome Trust in London (215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK), from 1pm to 5pm.

It’s a hugely informative, entertaining and popular afternoon.  And it’s FREE.

You will hear from national news science journalists about what makes a story, what drives the news agenda and what they need from you – and you will get a chance to interrogate them on what drives you mad about the media.

You will also hear from press officers working at the coal face of science communication, and from scientists who have worked with the media and lived to tell the tale.

If you’d like to attend, please send your full name, job title, institution, institutional e-mail address and phone number to introduction@sciencemediacentre.org and we will send you confirmation, the programme and more information in due course.

Places are limited and we are looking for scientists at least part way into their careers – so it’s not aimed at students. Please do not request a place unless you are sure you can make the date and it is in your diary.

Testimonials

“It gave me a good insight into why the media view is so different- and makes me listen to the views expressed now in a different light.”

“Have already had some contacts with the media, but was very nice to hear things from their point of view. Must be said, have not appreciated fully the time pressures they work under.”

“I found it one of the most rewarding uses of an afternoon that I can remember.”

“I found the event very interesting and useful. I feel more comfortable with the idea of talking to journalists now.”

“I thought the event was extremely well organised and had a good balance of views from scientists and the media. Very engaging speakers and really practical advice and information.”

“Really enjoyed the meeting and found it very informative.”

British Academy: Knowledge Frontiers – International Interdisciplinary Research 2020

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23 October 2019, 5pm

https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/programmes/knowledge-frontiers-international-interdisciplinary-2020

  • Awards of 24 months in duration and up to £200,000 are available.
  • Funding can be used to support research expenses and consumables; travel and subsistence; networking, meeting and conference costs; and research and/or clerical assistance (postdoctoral or equivalent).
  • Awards are offered on a 100% full economic costing basis.
  • Projects must begin on 1 April 2020.

Eligibility requirements

  • The lead applicant must be a researcher from the humanities or social sciences, and be based at an eligible UK university or research institute. S/he must be of postdoctoral or above status (or have equivalent research experience).
  • Projects must involve at least one co-applicant from the natural, engineering and/or medical sciences. Collaboration between researchers in different institutions is encouraged, where appropriate, given the nature and aims of the programme, and applications may include co-applicants and other participants from overseas.

The British Academy is inviting proposals from UK-based researchers in the humanities and social sciences wishing to develop international interdisciplinary projects in collaboration with colleagues from the natural, engineering and/or medical sciences, with a focus on hazard and risk, cultures of forecasting, and the meaning of resilience.

The purpose of each project will be to develop new international research ideas. Projects will need to also demonstrate an innovative and interdisciplinary partnership (between researchers in the social sciences or the humanities on the one hand and counterparts in the natural, engineering and/or medical sciences on the other). The Academy is looking to fund applications that break new ground in the collaborations – international and interdisciplinary – they support and the research they aim to undertake. The Academy particularly encourages applications led by scholars in the humanities.

Projects must relate to one or more of the following themes:

  • Hazard and Risk: Hazard and risk as concepts and lived experience are ripe for significant interdisciplinary and international collaboration, which the Academy hopes to encourage in applications. The direct impacts of hazard and risk, such as the economic and physical are well-known, however, they are often not linked with indirect impacts, such as mental health and people’s broader well-being. Applications that aim to re-imagine hazard and risk to help build preparedness and awareness and to create new co-produced knowledge collaborations and participatory approaches are particularly welcome. The Academy is keen to support the development of novel interactions, including with local communities, and/or new interfaces for the understanding and perception of hazard and risk that bring together different forms of lived experience, storytelling, evidence, data and models.
  • Cultures of Forecasting: Uncertainty is not novel to our current time and neither is the desire and ability to forecast into the future. Understanding, however, of different cultures of forecasting in our current uncertain times needs further exploration. The Academy wishes to encourage applications that aim to bring together different communities of expertise – academic, professional, business, lay, community for example – to further understand the interactions between nature, culture and human endeavour that lead to contested futures in the present and further develop this contestation or could provide grounds for collaboration between, for example, faith, rituals, lived experience, modelling and data science.
  • Meaning of Resilience: Resilience as a concept has gained considerable resonance in recent years but remains ambiguous in its meaning and thus lacking in utility. For too long, resilience has been thought of as a uniform social property, rather than as a collaboration between humans and non-humans, or as a situated cultural practice. The Academy wishes to harness new thinking on narrating human experience of resilience by exploring how meanings, values and cultural expressions shape societal interpretations of resilience as well as individual and community forms of preparedness to adversity in a variety of forms. The Academy aims to help improve understanding of how resilience is formed, or not, in different societies and how this is understood and embedded in culture, historical practice, and socio-technical infrastructures.

Previous awards can be seen here:

For 2018 https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/programmes/knowledge-frontiers-international-interdisciplinary-research-projects-2018

For 2017 https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/programmes/knowledge-frontiers-international-interdisciplinary-2017

 

Hands-on genetic engineering workshops 2/9/16 September

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This is a gentle reminder that we are running a hands-on genetic engineering workshops on the 2nd, 9th and 16th of September. In the workshops, you can learn how to use a version control system for cell engineering, we have been building, to accelerate your research. The workshops are especially aimed at all PhD students and Postdocs operating in the wet labs. It would therefore be great to forward this email to all students and researchers who are not in the email list.

To register for the workshops, please go to https://tinyurl.com/portabolomics. 

The workshops will take place in the Devonshire building on Monday, September 2nd/9th/16th from 11:00 to 15:00 in room G20.

NERC Standard Grant Submissions – Application Support for January 2020 Funding Round

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The next submission round for Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Standard Grants, including New Investigator Awards, will be in January 2020 (http://www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/available/researchgrants/standard/).

As many of you will be aware, in February 2015, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) introduced ‘Demand Management’ measures to limit the number and size of applications submitted to its standard grants competitions: www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/available/researchgrants/demand/.  This resulted in NERC restricting the number of Newcastle University applications and the University subsequently implementing an internal selection process.

As of July 2019, NERC removed the cap on the number of applications Newcastle can submit for the July 2019 and January 2020 rounds. This is because Newcastle’s success rate over the previous six rounds had risen above 20%. Now the cap has been removed, we’d like to encourage more applications to NERC. To ensure that we maintain success rates above the 20% threshold the NERC Application Support Panel continue to be committed to supporting the University in ensuring that we have the highest quality NERC applications as possible.

The intention of the process is not to select a limited number of proposals from the pool of applications submitted to the internal NERC support panel. The focus will be on maintaining the quality of a larger number of applications to the NERC than was possible previously. The aim is to increase our research activity in areas of NERC science while ensuring we avoid being placed under demand management in the future.

If you would like to be considered for the January 2020 round, you will need to do the following:

  1. Inform Holly Davidson (holly.davidson@ncl.ac.uk) of your intent to apply and provide the names of 3 Newcastle University members who could review your proposal by Monday 16th September;
  2. Submit your full NERC proposal by Tuesday 1st October. This should be the JeS print-out of your full proposal, including all costs, JeS sections and attachments (case for support etc.).  This is so that our reviewers and panel can give you the best possible feedback. For support with the costing on your proposal, please engage with the SAgE Projects Team as soon as possible by completing the Project Initiation Form. A member of the Projects Team will then be in contact with you to help. If you are from the HaSS or FMS Faculties, please contact your local support for costing support.

Internal peer review will be carried out at the beginning of October. You will then be given the opportunity to respond to your reviewers’ comments towards the end of October. The Newcastle NERC Application Support Panel will then meet during the week commencing 11th November.

You will be given feedback as soon as possible after the meeting. You will then have until the NERC deadline in January 2020 to refine your proposal. The timings of this support process have been set following feedback from previous applicants that they needed as much time as possible to refine their proposal in response to the reviewer and panel feedback.

Details of the Newcastle NERC Application Support Panel and how it works are given in the attached document.

Newcastle University NERC Application Support – January 2020 round

If you have any questions about the support process please contact Holly Davidson (holly.davidson@ncl.ac.uk).