Guidance for applicants
These notes have been prepared to help you write your application. Please read through this guidance and refer to the following documents before commencing your application:
This form must be used for all full applications for Meningitis Research Foundation grants. Do not submit a full application unless you have completed the preliminary proposal stage.
- Use a standard font (no smaller than 10 point).
- Do not reorder the sections in the application form; it must be completed as laid out. Incomplete or incorrectly presented applications will be returned to the applicant and this will mean that consideration of the application will not be possible at the intended meeting.
- The original application plus ten paper copies are required.
- E-mail the completed application to gillianc@meningitis.org. This is to expedite review by external referees, especially those outside the UK. The e-mail version must be identical to the original paper version submitted. It should be no larger than 3 megabytes. Photos may be larger, but can be sent under separate cover.
- Signatures of applicants (section 9), Head of Department and Administrative Authority (section 10), and any collaborators on the proposed project (section 19) are required on the original, from which the paper copies are made (but not on the e-mail version). Please allow sufficient time for this.
A complete application to Meningitis Research Foundation consists of the following:
1. Research Grant Application Form (including a 6-page detailed account of proposed research, see 12)
Instructions for completing the application form are given in this document.
2. Supporting letters (if appropriate)
Applicants working in public sector research institutions, including the Health Protection Agency, Health Protection Scotland and the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, as well as research council units must submit a letter of support from the director of their unit or institution, and from the appropriate administrator at the research council's or institution's head office explaining that the proposal is outside their unit's/institution's remit for funding.
Before you submit your application, we would like to draw your attention to the Foundation’s Terms and Conditions of Grant Aid, and in particular, our policy on Intellectual Property Rights.
Return Application to:
Research Applications
Meningitis Research Foundation
Midland Way
Thornbury
Bristol
BS35 2BS
UK
Tel: 01454 280405
Fax: 01454 281094
Please note that applicants should not, under any circumstances, directly approach members of the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Panel in connection with their (or another’s) research application. The Panel’s judgments are final and no subsequent correspondence will be entered into. Applications which are rejected will not be reconsidered unless resubmission is specifically invited or permitted.
Instructions For Completing the Application (numbered according to section on form)
1. Applicants are expected to be actively engaged in the project (see section 10). Normally the Principal Applicant should be an established scientist and all applicants should have an assured source of support, but the Foundation will, under some circumstances, consider applications which request support for salary, or a portion of salary, for one or more applicants.
2. For applications involving more than one institution , the host institution of the Principal Applicant normally has responsibility for the administration of the grant on behalf of the other centres. For each institution a separate copy of page 1 should be completed, listing respective applicants (section 1) and indicating the address at which the work is done (section 2b). Each copy of page 1 should normally specify Institution/Authority administering the grant (section 2a) as that of the Principal Applicant.
3. The title should not exceed 120 characters including spaces.
4. The start date of the grant is defined as the first date an individual directly supported by the grant starts to work. A realistic starting date should be chosen, allowing time for Terms and Conditions to be signed and returned, paperwork completed, and new staff to be recruited to work on the project.
5. Please give a summary of the research you propose to do (to be published on the Foundation's website), and outline your research hypothesis and study design. The Foundation also requires a summary of the proposal in layperson's language to form the basis for publicity and information materials. This should explain the problem being addressed, summarise the actual work proposed, and set out the objectives and expected benefits of the project in relation to the prevention, diagnosis or treatment of these diseases and their complications. Grant-holders are expected to refer to these objectives and expected benefits when discussing outcomes of the project in their final report.
6. This section should summarise the support requested in section 13. As well as a breakdown of costs by project year, the Foundation's finance department requires a breakdown by financial year (our financial year runs from 1 April to 31 March). Please note that amounts should be indicated in pounds sterling and rounded to the nearest £ .Please ensure that all the totals in the final column are filled in.
7. Ethics Committee approval is required for research that involves human subjects (patients or healthy individuals) or tissue, and the Foundation needs to have evidence of this approval. It is important that such evidence shows that approval applies specifically to the research proposed in the application. If the research you are proposing involves human material, copies of your submission to the local research ethics committee (or multi-centre research ethics committee where five or more sites are involved in the research) should be included with your application, along with the letter of approval, if this is available at the time of applying. If not, please forward this as soon as possible. Where ethics committees will not consider applications until funding has been secured, the Foundation expects a copy of the ethics approval letter to be forwarded within six months of notification of grant.
Enough information should be included in each application to enable Meningitis Research Foundation to evaluate any physical or medical hazard to which subjects may be exposed. The nature, purpose and duration of the investigation should be specified and information provided on proposed techniques. Each proposal should also specify the number, sex, age range, and state of health of the human subjects, and indicate if informed consent will be obtained and whether the subjects are, for example, hospital patients, members of the armed forces, medical students, or volunteers.
If you are applying from outside the UK, please explain what measures have been taken to comply with your country's regulations regarding ethical approval for research projects involving patients. Please attach copies of any documents that show compliance with your country's research ethics procedures, along with translation into English for documents in other languages.
Note: Meningitis Research Foundation reserves the right to refuse on ethical grounds alone to make an award even if the agreement of the local ethical committee has been obtained.
8. Other Research Grants and Grant Applications
Meningitis Research Foundation needs to know about grants you hold on similar topics, whether you are applying for support elsewhere for the same, or similar work, and about previous support from the Foundation along with resulting publications or other outcomes. The Foundation also needs to know whether you receive any other grant support
9. Declaration
Applicants must read the Foundation’s Terms and Conditions of Grant Aid and agree to abide by them if a grant is made. If an applicant will not be actively engaged in the project, the particular circumstances should be explained in a separate letter accompanying this form.
10. Signatures of support
The complete application and the Foundation’s Terms and Conditions of Grant Aid must be read by your Head of Department and the appropriate university, research institute, or medical school administrator, who must then sign the complete application. Please allow sufficient time for this.
12. The statement of proposed investigation should be printed (or typed) using a standard sized font (no smaller than 10 point) on separate pages. It should be self-contained so that reference to any papers cited is not essential to understanding the proposal. It should be set out under Title, Purpose, Background, Plan, Methods and Techniques, and Justification for Support Requested. Text should not exceed six pages . Please integrate these pages into the application form, rather than sending them as a separate document. Additional pages may be used for the reference list, as well as data tables, graphs, photographs and pilot data where these are included. Any colour photographs (e.g. electron micrographs or photographs of histological sections) should be photocopied in colour.
The Title: should match that in section 3 of the application form.
Purpose: should include a brief description of the immediate and longer term objectives of the research.
Background: should be a concise description of the relationship of the proposed research to the present body of knowledge on the subject, including previous work carried out by the applicant(s) and/or other workers. In particular the result of any pilot experiments undertaken should be stated.
Only essential references to published work should be included; where reference is made to papers submitted for publication or 'in press', a summary of the work in question should be given and copies of relevant manuscripts or preprints enclosed.
Plan, methods and techniques: The plan of the project should be outlined and the experimental design, methods and techniques to be used during the course of the project should be indicated. When the use of survey, questionnaire or protocol is an integral part of the research these should be attached to the original and each copy of the application form. Where appropriate, power calculations should be shown to justify the proposed size, duration and design of the study.
Detailed justification for support: The particular type of support sought, eg: items of equipment, travel, staff, etc. should be justified in relation to the demands of the work. For each member of staff requested, please state their role in the project and justify the level of funding sought. Justification of equipment requests in excess of £50,000 should include details of similar equipment in the applicants’ department and adjacent departments and reasons why it cannot be used for the proposed project.
13. Details of support requested: Grants are intended to cover all the direct costs attributed to a research project apart from premises costs and the costs of established academic staff. Provisions may be made for the following:
i) Salaries for research staff and/or technical staff to work full-time or part-time on the research; salaries for other staff (e.g. secretarial, clerical and administrative) may be provided on the same basis. All costings should take account of expected salary increments. The Foundation will not cover recruitment costs.
ii) Consumables required to carry out the research including laboratory materials and animals
iii) Equipment including computers and software. The Foundation will not cover the cost of insurance, which is the responsibility of the host institution. If the Institution is a registered charity, it should be possible to obtain exemption from the payment of VAT within the UK for equipment donated for medical research. The Foundation will not normally reimburse for VAT, but will reimburse for delivery costs if specified in the approved application. Equipment requested should be essential to the research outlined in the application. The Foundation reserves the right to require a full or partial repayment of this request should the equipment cease to be used for research into meningitis and associated infections.
iv) The cost of inviting a named senior scientist, from a recognised centre elsewhere in the UK or abroad, to give full-time advice or assistance for up to one year on research in the field in which he/she is eminent, in relation to a specific research project or a number of research projects
v) Travel funds for working visits for scientific collaboration on a specific project or the learning of special techniques.
Meningitis Research Foundation will not make a contribution to the indirect costs of the research project. This includes:
- Central institutional libraries
- Departmental services: administrative and secretarial (where not included under direct support), local finance, minor consumables, printing/photography (where below threshold limits), minor store items and laboratory and workshop support
- Financial services (finance, accounting, tendering, marketing)
- Personnel services
- Public relations
- Recruitment costs (advertising etc.)
- Staff development (including training)
- Staff facilities (transport, health and safety, welfare services, laundry)
- Part-time staff effort on research projects which cannot easily be identified or allocated to the research project but are assumed to contribute a general background level of departmental administrative/secretarial/technical support.
For Institutions Applying from within the UK
When calculating research budgets, UK universities are expected to consider the Full Economic Costs of their research. Full Economic Costs are composed of Directly Incurred Costs, Directly Allocated Costs, and Indirect Costs. In line with other AMRC charities Meningitis Research Foundation does not provide Full Economic Costs: we pay Direct Costs (Directly Incurred Costs) and may exceptionally contribute to Directly Allocated Costs in particular circumstances. Charities do not pay Indirect Costs. The government has introduced an additional stream of funding to support charity research, the Charity Research Support Fund (CRSF) in England and there are similar funds in the devolved administrations. As an AMRC member charity, Meningitis Research Foundation meets the eligibility criteria for the CRSF.
http://www.amrc.org.uk/HomePage/Default.aspx?Nav=815,554,562
Research expenses outside the scope of the project
Meningitis Research Foundation as a rule will not meet costs associated with:
- employment of established academic staff
- general premises costs including:
-
- construction and maintenance of the building
- animal houses and glass houses
- land purchase/lease
- refurbishment/renovation/adaptation
- basic services and utilities
- office furnishings
- lease/rent/rates
- insurance
- cleaning/portering/security/safety
- the cost of unspecified research work
- the cost of work already done or the cost of writing up such work
- the cost of literary surveys
- remuneration of undergraduates (other than payment for vacation work under an existing award if such earning are allowed by the host institution)
- the cost of host facilities to which the investigator normally has free access
- removal costs incurred in filling posts
- costs associated with travel to conferences
- PhD studentships, tuition fees (although staff employed on Foundation research grants may register for higher degrees as appropriate)
14. A CV is required for each applicant on the proposal as well as any named staff for whom salary support is being requested in section 13. Once appointed, CVs of persons subsequently employed on the grant must be forwarded. CVs should be restricted to one page per person, but their respective lists of publications may be carried on to a second page if necessary.
15. For research proposals involving animals , section 16 of the application form must be completed and a copy of the front page of the Home Office Project Licence, authorising the proposed experiments, should be attached. Where a Project Licence has not yet been secured, this must be obtained and a copy sent to the Foundation before any grant funding will be issued. If you are applying from outside the UK, please explain what efforts have been made to comply with your country's regulations regarding approval for research projects involving animals, if these pertain to your proposal, and include copies of any relevant documents along with translation into English for documents in other languages.
If your project does not involve the use of animals, you need only fill in question 16.1.
16. Scientific Integrity
Host institutions in the UK and Republic of Ireland are expected to have in place a policy on scientific integrity. This must comply with the Association of Medical Research Charities’ Guidelines on Good Research Practice ( http://www.amrc.org.uk/temp /AMRCsp Guidelinessponsp Goodsp Researchsp Practicehs1hs.doc). Please direct us to the precise URL on your Institution's website where the policy on good research practice/scientific integrity is located (and ensure that the URL is not password-protected). Otherwise, please attach one copy of your institution's policy. If attaching the policy document, please send it as a separate file and do not integrate it into the text of this application form. The policy document does not need to be included in the paper copies of the application form that you send to us. If you are applying from outside the UK and Republic of Ireland, please either direct us to the relevant URL(if in English), attach your institution's relevant policy document (in English), or explain on a separate sheet what measures are taken to promote scientific integrity.
17. Dissemination The Foundation’s ability to award research grants is dependent upon voluntary donations. Disseminating and publicising research is essential to achieve the profile needed to attract support and reassure existing supporters that their money is being spent constructively. Meningitis Research Foundation’s support must be acknowledged in all published communications, publications, presentations and posters arising from work on the grant. Plans for dissemination must involve liaison with the Charity’s Research and/or Communications staff. Such plans must also adhere to the conditions relating to the protection of intellectual property.
19. Collaboration on a grant A copy of this form must be completed and signed by each collaborator named in the application (it is not intended to be signed by applicants).