I would be grateful if you could circulate this call aimed at mid-career researchers seeking their first grant (excluding fellowships) in lupus or lupus-related conditions

The Medical Research Foundation (MRF) is inviting applications from mid-career researchers who have the potential to be the research leaders of the future, to support research that will increase understanding of the disease mechanisms underlying Lupus.

https://www.medicalresearchfoundation.org.uk/grants/lupus

Researchers whose work may lead to better understanding of prevention, treatment or management of Lupus and Lupus-related conditions (such as vasculitis, myositis, Sjögren’s syndrome, autoimmune thyroid disease and serositis) are welcome to apply.

The Medical Research Foundation will make up to £900,000 available in this competition. Applicants may apply for up to £300,000 to support their research, over a maximum of a three-year period.

This competition is open to all UK researchers at eligible institutions (UK HEIs, Research Council research institutes, hospitals, and other independent research organisations). Applicants must hold a PhD, DPhil or MD and be in the process of, or be ready for, transition to research independence. It is expected that applicants will be seeking, as principal investigator, their first peer-reviewed grant of three years or longer from a funding body (excluding personal fellowships).

Timeline

–Deadline for submission: 12:00 Wednesday 10th April 2019

–Shortlisting notification: August 2019

–Interview: August/September 2019

–Funding decision: October 2019

UKRI GCRF Health and Context call 2019 – outline

https://mrc.ukri.org/funding/browse/ukri-gcrf/ukri-gcrf-health-and-context-call-2019-outline/

Deadline: Outline stage – 02^nd April 2019, Full stage (invited only) – 12^th September 2019

Amount: Minimum of £1m and maximum of £2m

Duration: 3 years

UKRI has made up to £20 million available for the UKRI GCRF Health and Context call.

The UKRI GCRF Health and Context call is seeking proposals for interdisciplinary research addressing wider contextual factors contributing to the burden of infectious and non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

These factors may include social, cultural, historical, and religious beliefs and practices, or wider biological, ecological and environmental factors.

This call is being led jointly by the MRC, ESRC, AHRC, NERC, and BBSRC, and applications may fall within the remit of any of, or across, these councils.

UKRI want to fund consortia conducting ambitious research that:

• goes beyond description to determine causal relationships between contextual influences and health
• develops or tests feasible interventions that are sensitive to or mitigate contextual influences on health.

Applications from across the spectrum of basic to applied research are eligible for this call.

Subject areas may comprise, but are not limited to:

• contextual drivers of non-communicable or infectious disease risk (such as contaminated drinking water, agriculture and food production, hygiene, sexual behaviours, air pollution, work practices, wider land-use and environmental changes)
• contextually driven barriers to management and treatment of infection/NCD, which may include altered diagnostic, vaccine or drug efficacy
• feasible interventions that take account of or mitigate contextual drivers of increased rates of infection/NCD
• identification and management of clusters of coexisting health conditions (multimorbidities) that are particularly prevalent in a particular community.

Projects may seek to determine the extent to which contextual factors influence rates of NCD/infection, and/or how this influence can be accounted for or mitigated through culturally-sensitive intervention.

UKRI encourage applications where the contextual factors identified are common to multiple locations within or across LMIC settings.

Where appropriate, applicants should engage with communities in the research planning process, and for applied research, engage with local, regional, and national stakeholders to maximise impact.

UKRI encourage the engagement of community stakeholders in the development and implementation of proposals to allow a deep understanding of context.

To help maximise impact, applicants should ensure that research questions, methods and outcomes are relevant to the communities in which they are working.

Successfully addressing the above challenges will require an understanding of:

• the influence that society, history, culture, religion, and the environment might have on risk behaviours and care seeking behaviour, and culturally sensitive approaches to addressing these
• community centred approaches to data collection and sharing to enable better management and prediction of infectious diseases and NCDs.
• The research team can be drawn from any relevant academic discipline. This call is open to UK-based PIs and applications directly from PIs at LMIC research organisations.

Given the scale of the awards and the need to demonstrate tangible impact, applicants are required to provide evidence of substantial, relevant preliminary work, existing relationships with stakeholders in the location where the project will take place, and existing partnerships with other named researchers. These existing partnerships may be added to by the proposed work to create a consortium of varied expertise.

Awards funded through this call will build and strengthen UK-LMIC partnerships and should incorporate research training and capacity building activities.

Please ensure to read the full call text, guidance, and FAQ available through the link above.

Anyone who would like to know more about GCRF, ODA or the work that Newcastle University is doing in this area is advised to contact Dr Elisa Lawson: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/work-with-us/support/people/profile/elisalawsonnclacuk.html#background

Further information on GCRF can be found here: https://newcastle.sharepoint.com/hub/fundingtoolkit/Pages/globalchallenges_funding_globalchallenges-researchfund.aspx

This currently is a one-off initiative but they tell me that it may become an annual call.

31^st March 2019

Rosetrees Trust 2019 Young Enterprise Fellowships (YEFs)

http://www.rosetreestrust.co.uk/young-enterprise-fellowships/

The vision: Young Enterprise Fellowships (YEFs) are aimed specifically at recently qualified postdoctoral researchers primarily in the fields of engineering, computer science, maths and physics who wish to develop a long-term programme of biomedical research.
Successful projects will be truly innovative and not merely an extension of your current research.
We expect you to apply your skills to address an important unmet clinical problem, to develop your scientific independence and establish new collaborations across disciplines in the field.
We’re looking for dynamic and motivated scientists who have the vision to address an important clinical problem with a novel and potentially transformative approach.
A key consideration will be the candidate’s likelihood of developing as an independent scientist.

We believe that Rosetrees anticipate funding 2 or 3 fellowships.

Eligibility: Applicants must either be in the final year of their PhD studies or be an early-career researcher with a maximum of 3 years post-doctoral experience (excluding career breaks).
Applicants must not yet have held a full-time permanent academic post in a UK university or be in receipt of another stipendiary fellowship.
All candidates must hold a doctorate by the time they take up the fellowship.

Funding: Awards are for 3 years and are for up to £60k per annum to include the salary of the fellow only and research expenses.

Please note that Letters of Support from the host supervisor and head of department are required.

Applicants should seek support from the Institute/School research support officer for costing and for the internal authorisation of submission process.

They should also seek support from their academic colleagues and the funding development team.

https://newcastle.sharepoint.com/hub/medical/Pages/fellowships.aspx