Deadline: 1-Aug-23

Medical Research Council has launched the Applied Global Health Partnership Programme to support a partnership to enable research that will address global health challenges and inequities.

The applied global health research board funds research to address global health challenges and inequities. The remit includes applied research of direct practical benefit to LMIC populations.

They are looking to fund strategically important, original partnerships providing a distinct and important contribution to the research landscape. The partnerships should be driven by the research needs of the LMICs involved.

They will fund partnerships between diverse groups of researchers. These partnerships must:

• establish new, high-value collaborative activities or capabilities
• add value to high-quality scientific programmes that are already supported by grants from MRC and other funders

Areas

• Examples of topics partnerships may focus on include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • maternal and neonatal health
  • early childhood development
  • adolescent health
  • healthy ageing
  • sexual and reproductive health
  • infectious diseases, including neglected tropical diseases and COVID-19
  • non-communicable diseases, including mental health disorders
  • multimorbidity
  • nutrition and food security
  • snakebite
  • intentional and unintentional injury
  • urban health, including indoor and outdoor air pollution, road traffic accidents and healthy housing
  • planetary health
  • informal settlements, conflict zones and displaced populations
  • primary, secondary and tertiary prevention
  • detection and diagnostics
  • mobile health
  • treatment, including surgery
  • pain management and palliative care
• The MRC FCDO concordat supports global health partnerships funded through the Applied Global Health Research Board in specific strategic areas of mutual interest, for example:
  • infections
  • maternal and newborn health
  • implementation science
  • adolescent health
  • early child development

Funding Information and Duration

• They will accept proposals of all sizes up to approximately £1 million.
• They will fund projects lasting up to 5 years, although projects typically last 3 to 4 years.

Types of collaboration

• Collaborative activities can include:
  • networking and partnership activities to:
    • establish multidisciplinary collaborative partnerships or consortia
    • foster and enabling strategy in this area
    • enable knowledge sharing or creation across institutions
  • infrastructure support for establishing a unique shared resource or helping to exploit it, for example:
    • staff
    • systems
    • equipment
    • seminars
    • workshops
    • activities such as specialist data and software platforms or resources
• They may support small scale, pump-priming projects, but your focus should not be on specific research questions. These should be interdisciplinary, high-risk and high-gain projects that would exemplify your partnership’s novel capability.
• Successful partnership grants usually include a combination of these components. They will reject applications for funding only networking activities.
• They expect partnership grants to reach maturity by the end of the initial award. You should find alternative ways of funding any follow-on activities.

Eligibility Criteria

• To be eligible to apply for this funding opportunity you must be eligible as an individual.
• You must be based at an eligible research organisation. These include:
  • universities or higher education institutions based in the UK, and includes the following:
    • UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) approved independent research organisations or NHS bodies
    • public sector research establishments
    • MRC institutes
    • MRC units and partnership institutes (including those in Gambia and Uganda)
    • institutes and units funded by other research councils
• organisations in LMICs with degree-awarding powers recognised by the government in which the organisation is based
• research-focused institutes based in LMICs either funded by the government of the country in which the organisation is based, or by a not-for-profit organisation
• research-focused not-for-profit organisations based in LMICs with dedicated research capacity
• MRC particularly encourages applications from:
  • overseas researchers based in LMICs
  • researchers who are eligible to apply for MRC funding and work in equitable partnership with LMIC researchers

Ineligibility Criteria

• Researchers based in countries outside of the UK or an eligible LMIC research organisation are not eligible to be principal investigators.
• You are no longer eligible to apply as a principal investigator if you are a researcher based in India. However, you are welcome to apply as a co-investigator, with an eligible research organisation as the lead.
• China is no longer eligible to participate in applications to this funding opportunity.
• It is expected that researchers from India and any high-income countries make a significant contribution to their own research costs, including covering their own overheads.

For more information, visit UK Research and Innovation.