NIHR GOSH BRC New Projects Call 2023

The NIHR GOSH BRC is a collaboration between Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH). In 2022, we secured £35 million for our fourth term until 2022 - 2027.

The NIHR GOSH BRC has five strategic research themes: genomic medicine, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, gene, stem and cellular therapies, accelerating novel therapies and applied child health and informatics. Alongside our themes, our Central Development Hub supports our career development academy, business development and patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) activities. Essential to delivering the BRC’s strategy is our newly created Paediatric Excellence Initiative, a partnership between the BRC, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital and Sheffield Children’s Hospitals.

To begin activities in the BRC’s first year of funding, we are launching a New Projects Funding Call. The call invites researchers to apply for funding to pump-prime innovative new projects across our strategic research themes and in collaboration with our associated partners within the Paediatric Excellence Initiative. GOSH Children’s Charity has also provided funding to support projects within the call. Around £550k is available in this call to support several projects across our five strategic research themes. Please read the Guidance document carefully before applying, which can be found at the bottom of this page.

Applications submitted through the call should seek to propose novel research ideas around therapies, biomarkers, diagnostics and surgical innovations, including proof of concept, validation studies, new methodologies, novel uses of data and/or PPIE activity related to the BRC themes. We would expect successful applicants to generate preliminary data to support future grant applications and patent applications, and ultimately to accelerate the likelihood of the new interventions delivering patient benefit in future. Projects may be based in the lab, the clinic, or be data driven, but they must focus on human cells, tissues, participants, or data. NIHR funding is not allowed to support any research using animals; therefore, the research project must not involve animal work.

Applications are welcome from all staff substantively employed by either GOSH/ICH, or our partner hospitals Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital or Sheffield Children’s Hospital, including clinicians, non-clinical, nursing and AHP staff and any others not mentioned here. Honorary employees of our partner hospitals may be considered where they are primarily working with the relevant Trust for the majority of their employment (please contact the BRC to discuss). You do not need to have had prior links with GOSH BRC to be eligible to apply and we are keen to receive new ideas from a broad spectrum of research areas across GOSH, ICH and our associated partner sites within the Paediatric Excellence Initiative. We welcome applications from both independent researchers and early career researchers from all backgrounds – applications will be judged anonymously on the strength and feasibility of the research idea. Collaborative projects across GOSH/ICH and our associated partner sites are also encouraged.

Projects must be within the remit of one or more of our research themes, which will need to be listed and justified in the application. Cross-theme projects are also encouraged as well as collaborative projects across GOSH/ICH and our associated partner sites. Projects may be preclinical or clinical, but NIHR rules for BRCs mean basic science projects (i.e. not translational) or clinical projects supporting phase III trials are not eligible. The individual remit for each of the themes has been proposed by its leadership team. Each theme has also outlined the type of funding you are able to apply for (e.g. non pay and/or salary funding), the upper limit for the amount requested and the duration of the project/funding request. A summary of remits, call structures and budgets available for each theme is indicated in the Guidance and Application Form document.

You can also apply for a project focused solely on PPIE activities through this call, where the project is aimed at supporting researchers to actively involve and/or engage patients and the public in research which is translational and aligns with one of our research themes.

Project funding will be available from 1st April 2023 so your project start date must be after this date. All funds awarded will need to be spent within the financial year (by 31st March 2024 for one-year projects and by 31st March 2025 for two-year projects). If any new approvals are needed for your project, please ensure you’ve factored sufficient time to obtain these into your timelines (e.g. R&D approval can take up to six months to receive).

Due to the complexity of this call, the GOSH BRC team will be holding a webinar on Tuesday 31st January from 1.00pm – 1.30pm and will present briefly about the funding call, expectations for applicants and common areas of feedback from previous calls for successful and unsuccessful applications. We encourage all applicants to join the webinar and the Zoom details for the call can be found below.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86355692831?pwd=UDZqUUU5ZkJEeXFUQzFCZnV1T1Zodz09

Meeting ID: 863 5569 2831

Passcode: 666385

• The deadline for applications is Wednesday 15th February 2023 at 5pm.
• Applications from GOSH/ICH must be registered with the R&D office and formal costings obtained. Please ensure this is done in sufficient time as they require at least 15 working days to provide costings.
• Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application at the beginning of March 2023 and the funding will be available from 1st April 2023.
• A Review Panel, the membership of which will include representatives from the BRC’s Leadership Team, each BRC Theme, the Paediatric Excellence Initiative and the BRC Junior Faculty, in addition to external and internal members of academic staff, will assess applications using criteria outlined in the guidance document.
• A lay member of the Panel will review the plain English summary and PPIE section of each application form to ensure patient/public views are considered in the selection process.
• Applications will be anonymised before being sent to the Review Panel.
• To apply please complete the application form below and submit an electronic copy as a word document to brc@gosh.nhs.uk.

Please read the Guidance document carefully before applying, which can be found here alongside the application form:

If you have any questions about the call, please contact brc@gosh.nhs.uk