17 December 2019, 4pm
[31 October 2019, 4pm EoI to register for Workshop to be held on 22 November 2019]

MRC/AHRC/ESRC Adolescence, Mental Health and the Developing Mind: Engagement Awards
https://mrc.ukri.org/funding/browse/mrc-ahrc-esrc-adolescence-mental-health-and-the-developing-mind/adolescence-mental-health-developing-mind-engagement-awards/
£1.6M is available to support a number of engagement awards, each of which will receive an award of up to £100k UKRI contribution and will have a duration of up to 12 months.
Awards will have a fixed start date of 1st April 2020 and applicants must demonstrate in their proposal that they have plans in place to ensure an efficient start up.

Individuals may be the Principle Investigator on only one application, however individuals can act as Co-I on any number of applications.
Applications may be single or multi institutional.

Engagement Awards are aimed at building and strengthening a cross-disciplinary community in the research area of Adolescence, Mental Health and the Developing Mind.
These are flexible awards focused on establishing new collaborations, exploring innovative new research directions and building relationships with key stakeholders.
This £1.6M call is intended to underpin the development of larger scale research projects and collaborations, as well as build capacity and networks that will add value to future investments to be made through this new cross-Council programme.

This call for Engagement Awards is the first investment to be made through this new cross-Council programme.
Engagement awards will support the formation of new multidisciplinary collaborations, pilot funding for novel multidisciplinary research and methods development, and enable knowledge exchange between researchers, stakeholders, practitioners, policy makers, young people and those with lived experience of mental health problems.

A facilitated workshop is being held in parallel with this call to engage the breadth of relevant research communities and stakeholders and support the development of networks (attendance at the workshop is encouraged but is not a prerequisite for funding under this call). Both activities are intended to underpin the development of larger scale research projects and collaborations in this important area, as well as build capacity and networks that will add value to future investments to be made through this cross-Council programme.

Please note, involvement in an awarded Engagement Award is not a pre-requisite for eligibility to apply for future funding under this Programme.

Remit and scope
Engagement Awards can be used by a multidisciplinary applicant team to fund pilot projects, strengthen existing collaborations and create new ones, build partnerships with key stakeholders and facilitate knowledge exchange. It is expected that this call will support a range of awards that are focused on key research challenges in Adolescence, Mental Health and the Developing Mind.
This may include:
• Exploration of the dynamic and complex interaction of factors that impact during adolescence, to understand the high degree of inter-individual heterogeneity and the consequences of genetic, environmental and social interactions for life.
• Understanding the conditions that mitigate risk as well as enable resilience, both during and preceding adolescence.
• Identification of vulnerable young people in school and other settings, including health services and the youth justice system.
• Exploration of novel cross-cutting methods, tools, measures and multimodal datasets, and the basis for an open-science data infrastructure.
• Data collection and the evidence base for mental health support in schools, including understanding and enhancing the education environments that promote learning, healthy behaviours (and reducing antisocial behaviour), positive mental health and wellbeing, executive function and social-emotional skills development.
• How the digital environment influences brain development and function, mental health and mental health problems, risk behaviours, bullying, loneliness and social isolation. How digital technologies can be harnessed to promote positive behaviours and mental wellbeing.

Funding will be provided to establish new, high-value collaborative activities/capabilities, including those that add value to high quality scientific investments that are already supported by the funders. It is not designed to fund stand-alone, hypothesis-driven research projects, or continuation/extension of existing grants, which may otherwise be eligible for standard research grant type funding from the partner Councils.
N.B. Funding to support studentships is not eligible.

For full details of eligible costs and how to apply, please see the web link above.