NIHR GOSH BRC Paediatric Excellence Initiative New Projects Funding Call 2025

Applications are welcome from all staff substantively employed by our Paediatric Excellence Initiative (PEI) partner hospitals, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital or Sheffield Children’s Hospital, including clinicians, non-clinical scientists, nurses, allied health professionals (AHPs), psychologists, pharmacists, health care scientist 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).

Applications submitted through this call should align with the BRC objectives and propose novel research ideas related to therapies, biomarkers, diagnostics, data or surgical innovations. This may include proof-of-concept studies, validation studies, new methodologies, novel uses of data, and/or Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) and/or Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) activities aligned with one or more of the BRC’s strategic research themes. Collaborative projects across PEI partner sites, Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (UCL GOS ICH) are also encouraged.

Projects may be based in the lab, the clinic, or be data driven, and can focus on human cells, tissues, participants, or data. Projects may be preclinical or clinical, however, basic science projects (i.e. not translational) or clinical projects supporting phase III trials are not eligible. This call does not permit research involving animals; therefore, research projects must not include any animal work.

Applicants can request for up to £25,000. Both non-pay costs and salary costs can be requested. You can apply for co-funding through this call where you have secured funding from another source for part of a project. We expect projects solely focused on PPIE or EDI activities to request between £250 - £2,000.

Applications from all career levels are invited. The call will prioritise applications from early career researchers to ensure it supports career progression as well as driving translational research. For the purposes of this call, an early career researcher is defined as someone who holds a PhD (or equivalent), has received no more than £250, 000 in total grant income as Primary Investigator across their career (excluding their own salary e.g. a fellowship grant), and does not hold a tenured academic or consultant position position.

The GOSH BRC team will be holding a webinar to outline the funding call, highlight expectations for applicants and share common areas of feedback from previous calls for successful and unsuccessful applications. We encourage all applicants to join the webinar where we can also answer and questions you may have. Please click the relevant Zoom link below to join a webinar.

• To apply please read and complete the Guidance and Application form and submit an electronic copy as a word document to brc@gosh.nhs.uk.
• The deadline for applications is Monday 08 September 2025 at 5 p.m.
• Applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application by early October 2025, and the funding will be available from mid-October 2025.
• 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.

Please contact brc@gosh.nhs.uk if you have any questions about the scheme.