Internal case for support deadline: noon on Friday 15 January 2020
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has launched a new fund for Global Health Research Centres in non-communicable diseases (NCD) for the direct and primary benefit of people living in one or more ODA-eligible countries. Funding awards of up to £10 million over five years (with an option to add two extra years) are available to consortia made up of one UK institution and up to four LMIC institutions. The bids must focus on more than one NCD and the NIHR Stage 1 submission deadline is 1pm on Wednesday 31 March 2021. Bids will support research capacity strengthening, and conduct high quality applied health research.
All applications must have two joint lead applicants (one at an eligible LMIC institution and one at an eligible UK institution). Each consortium will be led by an LMIC director (LMIC joint lead) supported by a UK co-director (UK joint lead) or deputy director, both research leaders in their field and based at institutions with substantial critical mass of existing expertise and capacity in NCD research. The other LMIC partner institutions – of which there can be up to three – do not need to have a strong track record in NCD research, but should be keen to build expertise in the area.
To manage demand for the call, NIHR have limited the number of applications that a UK or LMIC joint lead institution can submit to two bids, so a coordinated bids process will be managed by the Medical Sciences Divisional Office, from which the University will select two nominations to go forward to the NIHR.
If you wish to apply for a NIHR Global Health Research Centre grant you must submit a case for support in IRAMS by noon on 15 January 2020. The internal case for support requests similar information to the NIHR Stage 1 application form. Queries regarding this call can be directed to Jo Miller at research@medsci.ox.ac.uk.
Deadlines were chosen with the aim to allow enough time after the internal selection for the selected bids to work up to the external deadline.
Focus of the call
NIHR is seeking Global Health Research Centre applications that take an interdisciplinary approach across participating institutions to address research in the following areas:
- institutional research plans that focus on NCDs in LMIC populations, at any stages across the lifespan (ie from pregnancy and foetal development through childhood and adolescence to all stages of adulthood – including ageing adults)
- drive innovation in the development and evaluation of cost-effective, context-relevant interventions and strategies to improve the primary and secondary prevention, treatment, management and care of NCDs and multiple long-term conditions in LMICs, which could increase the global evidence base through research on (but not limited to):
- interventions to prevent NCDs in LMICs – focusing on more than one NCD across partner institutions
- interventions to improve screening, diagnosis, treatment, management (or lifestyle modification plans) and care of patients with NCDs prevalent in LMICs
- interventions for the prevention of the development, and treatment, of NCDs in children and young adults, driven by malnutrition and/or poverty
- scalable treatment and care approaches that integrate the management of NCDs with other diseases and multiple long-term conditions/co-morbidities (including infectious or communicable diseases and mental health), in LMICs
- new NCD treatment packages, or new models of care and community-based interventions that integrate both social and biomedical sciences, in order to scale up and maximise the impact of existing interventions
- research to strengthen healthcare systems and delivery models in low resource settings and increase health equity in LMICs, for improved diagnosis, treatment, management and care for those affected by NCDs
For additional information, NIHR ran a webinar detailing expected centre structure and scope of bid. You can watch the replay of the webinar recording on the NIHR YouTube channel. The slides from the webinar are also available to download.
