Category: Funding

Funders are our friends!

Professor Martin Wilkins, Dr Shona Blair, Dr Declan Mulkeen (MRC Chief of Strategy), Dr Anna Kinsey (MRC Programme Manager), Dr Des Walsh, Professor Jonathan Weber

Dr Des Walsh, the Faculty of Medicine’s Director of Research Strategy, provides an insight into building relationships with funders.


Seems obvious really, we write good grants and they fund them – stimulating a beautiful friendship. But this is built on a transaction and not much else.  That’s why building a deeper relationship with our funding bodies benefits all.  Imperial recently hosted the Executive Chair and Chief Scientist of the MRC, the Executive Chair of EPSRC and has regular contacts with BBSRC and NERC.  However, these are either top-level or infrequent. 

So how does a jobbing researcher build relationships with their favourite funders?

  1. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and speak to a programme/project manager – direct contact means you can ask what you need to: does your research fit the remit of a scheme; are you at the right career stage; or just some basic pointers for what a Board may be looking for.
  2. Try to attend funder-sponsored workshops and events – funder-folk will be there in person so you can collar them.
  3. Ask the funder if you can observe part of a Board meeting. The regular MRC Boards all allow early career investigators to sit in on some of a Board meeting to get a sense of what Boards see as important.  Feedback from these is uniformly positive and it’s a great opportunity to talk with Board members during the coffee breaks.

As with all good friendships, we can’t just take take take – we need to give back too, and there are several ways we can do this. If asked, try to undertake peer-review. Currently our rate for peer review is somewhere around 32% with MRC. It is time-consuming but peer-review is one of the cornerstones of our funding system, supporting our peers to develop better projects through critical evaluation. It also helps us to refine our own skills.

Offer your services to sit on Boards and Panels. Again, can be hard work but it’s rewarding and fun! Don’t be disheartened if your offer is not accepted – the funders are rightly bound by tight equality but also geographical rules.  You will judge research applications for funding but will also get the opportunity to take part in the strategic conversations. Take part in public engagement events such as the MRC’s Festival of Science or the CRUK’s Revealing Research events.

Where funders put their cash is the subject of much debate; they need the right communities and constituents to advise them, and the Board/Panel discussions are often the start of this. In my experience, the funders do listen.

Imperial has a well-earned track record of attracting research funding. As the funding landscape changes, we must ensure we are at the heart of the research conversations too.

Imperial Confidence in Concept scheme funds 20 new projects

We are delighted to report the outcome of the seventh Imperial Confidence in Concept (ICiC) competition. The aim of the ICiC scheme is to accelerate the transition from discovery research to translational development projects by supporting preliminary work or feasibility studies to establish the viability of an approach. These awards ‘pump-prime’ the translation of novel therapeutics, devices and diagnostics towards clinical testing.

We had a fund of over £1.4million for the ICiC scheme this year, and this includes contributions from the MRC, NIHR Imperial BRC, Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund, EPSRC Impact Acceleration Accounts, and HEIF funding, as well as support from NIHR BRC at The Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research.

Professor Roberto Solari chairs our cross-College Panel, which includes Imperial academics from scientific, engineering and medical fields, as well as external industry experts. Over 70 applications were received this year, and the Panel was impressed with the high quality of applications. Proposals covered the full breadth of biomedical translational research across the College, including:

  • ‘Stem cell-derived hepatocytes for high throughput antimalarial drug screening’ (Jake Baum and Wei Cue – Faculty of Natural Sciences & Medicine)
  • ‘A device to prevent pressure ulcers using novel pressure equalisation technology’ (Spyros Masouros and Colin Boyle– Faculty of Engineering)
  • ‘Development of a Food Standards Agency approved Nutritional Milk with a Legume-base for children with severe malnutrition’ (Kath Maitland and Gary Frost – Faculty of Medicine)
  • ‘Novel, low-cost instrumentation for clinical histopathology of kidney disease’ (Paul French, Candice Roufosse, Terence Cook, Christopher Dunsby, and Mark Neil – Faculties of Natural Sciences & Medicine)

(more…)

Confidence in Collaboration scheme

London Advanced Therapies is seeking applications for its Confidence in Collaboration scheme, which offers a total of £1.5m funding to stimulate new research collaborations between two or more London academic partners in cell and gene therapy. This is the second of two calls for proposals.

Funding of up to £50K per project will be awarded to provide consumables and/or equipment to pump-prime new, exciting collaborative work that has the potential to go on securing more substantial funding from UKRI, charitable funders and/or Industry.

The London Advance Therapies – Confidence in Collaboration projects will have the following attributes:

  • Supporting new research collaborations in cell and gene therapy between two or more  London Academic Institutions (with the aim of building cross-institutional teams)
  • Applicable to pre-clinical, clinical, manufacturing and underpinning technology research (and other similar areas)
  • Maximum of £50K, normally 12 months duration, supporting pump-priming/pilot research
  • Funding can support directly-incurred costs, including facilities use (but not salaries)
  • Applications must be led by an established academic at one of the London institutions and always involve a PI from  King’s College London, University College London and /or Imperial College
  • Submissions should be co-led by PIs working at two or more London Institutions.

Applications will be assessed by a cross-institutional expert panel.
Expression of Interest should be submitted by email to: advanced.therapies@kcl.ac.uk – contact us with a paragraph describing your project and we will send you an application form.

Deadline for full submission  will be on 12 September 2019please make sure you contact us well in advance with your expression of Interest.

Opportunities from the Clinical Academic Training Office (CATO)

Wellcome Trust/NIHR Imperial BRC/ICCIS clinical research fellowships 2019

‘4i’ programme, Immunity, Inflammation, Infection and Informatics

  • Applications are invited from exceptional medical graduates who demonstrate a commitment to a research career and aspire to become the next generation of clinical academic leaders to join our prestigious PhD Fellowship Programmes.  Successful candidates will be selected on the basis of academic potential to reach the highest standards of scientific research, regardless of clinical specialty.
  • The Fellowships will be full-time and fixed term for three years. The funding covers clinical salary, PhD registration fees at the UK/EU rate, College fees, associated project costs and general training costs.

(more…)

Imperial Confidence in Concept (ICiC) Scheme Awards Funding to 26 projects

The Faculty of Medicine is delighted to report the outcome of the sixth Imperial Confidence in Concept (ICiC) competition, which was instigated to support the College-wide development of novel devices, diagnostics and therapeutics for areas of unmet clinical need.

Funding

This year, a fund in excess of £1.6M was made available from the MRC (Confidence in Concept fund), NIHR Imperial BRC, Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund, EPSRC Impact Acceleration Accounts, and HEIF funding, as well as support from NIHR BRC at The Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research.

For the second year in a row we have also partnered with AstraZeneca to offer the AZ Innovation Fund as part of the ICiC call. The aim of the AZ Innovation Fund is to enable drug discovery by facilitating the development of new technologies and the exploration of disease biology.

Why is the ICiC important?

The aim of the scheme is to strengthen the College’s early translational research portfolio, providing funding to help with the translation of novel therapeutics, devices and diagnostics towards clinical testing and/or a marketable product. This is achieved by providing vital pilot-funding to bridge potential gaps between discovery research and applications for MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme or Developmental Clinical Studies Funding Scheme.

Since its inception in 2012, 117 projects have been funded, leveraging in excess of £61M in follow on funding, transforming the pull-through of discovery science to clinical application across the College.

The 2018 award winners

The cross-College panel, which was chaired by Professor Roberto Solari and included external members, was very impressed with the high quality of applications this year.

Proposals covered the full breadth of biomedical translational research across the College, and examples include:

  • Lipid A analysis by MALDI-MS on intact bacteria discriminates chromosomal and plasmidic resistance to last resort antibiotics (Larrouy-Maumus);
  • Using novel cytokines to accelerate wound closure (Higgins);
  • Development and testing of Novel Bio-orthogonally Modified Viruses as Vaccine Candidates (O’Hare);
  • Self-Homing Intelligent Needle Ecosystem (SHINE) (Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena).

We are also pleased to announce two co-funded projects with our colleagues at the NIHR BRC at The Royal Marsden and Institute of Cancer Research:

  • Autologous jejunal mucosal transplantation combined with topical lubiprostone to reduce xerostomia after chemoradiation (JETPROX): a pilot study in 5 patients
    • A collaboration between Dr Vinidh Paleri (RMH) and Dr Peter Clarke (Imperial)
  • Fluorescent Probes with Exceptional Brightness for Early Diagnosis of Breast Cancer by Direct Imaging
    • Led by Imperial’s Dr Fang Xie in collaboration with the Royal Marsden’s Dr Steve Allen and Dr Richard Sidebottom

(more…)

The Francis Crick Institute: Opportunities open for application

The Crick and its partner universities are launching two initiatives for staff from all departments:

  • The call for the 2018 round of attachments is now open with a deadline of 10 April 2018. The programme of attachments offers Imperial staff the opportunity for their research group to be seconded to the Crick, to establish a satellite group in a Crick lab or to spend up to a year with the Crick on sabbatical. Find out more and apply.
  • The new Networking Fund call for applications has a rolling deadline, the first of which is 23 February 2018. The Fund supports staff to develop connections across disciplinary boundaries with researchers in related fields and other world-leading biomedical scientists at the Crick. Find out more and apply.

Imperial Clinician Researcher Fellowship scheme

Imperial AHSC Support for Clinical PhD/MD(Res) Fellows

Over the coming months the Clinical Academic Training Office (CATO) will be introducing a programme of support for clinical PhD fellows across the Faculty of Medicine and wider AHSC partnership.  The aim of the work is to gain a clearer picture of the range of clinical PhD fellows, even-out and improve their experience (complimenting the support provided already by each department/Trust), establish a visible central liaison hub for supporting clinicians as they undertake PhD programmes, and support them to progress their clinical academic careers into intermediate fellowships and beyond.

The CATO programme will include collecting enhanced feedback from clinical PhD training fellows, a series of Masterclasses covering researcher development and career development topics, fact sheets on common problems/issues, delivering individualised career guidance and enhanced working with the Imperial College London Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre.   Currently there are 2 Masterclasses that PhD/MD(Res) fellows can book on to, details below:

Wednesday 28 February 2018: Improving use of genomic information, including accessing the 100,000 Genomes project

5:30 – 7.30 pm, W12 Conference Centre, Hammersmith Hospital. This Masterclass will explore the cutting-edge use of genomic information both in clinical practice and clinical academic research, and will give an update on the 100,000 Genomes project and how clinical academics can use/access 100,000 Genomes. To book a place please complete this online booking form.

Monday 26 March 2018:  Advancing your academic career with an Intermediate Fellowship: how to win one!

5:30 – 7.30 pm, Paul Wood Lecture Theatre at the Royal Brompton Hospital Campus. The content is most suitable for late-stage PhD training fellows, Clinical Lecturers and other Post-Doctoral Fellows, but anyone interested in furthering their clinical academic career after a PhD is welcome. To reserve a place please complete this online booking form.

Further details about the CATO programme will be posted on the CATO website in due course, queries can be directed to: cato@imperial.ac.uk

Medical Education Research Unit launches 2018 programme

The Faculty of Medicine Medical Education Research Unit (MERU) launches its 2018 programme of events today, and all are invited to the launch event this evening to find out more about MERU’s work and to network with current members.

Medical Education Research Unit event

Now entering its fourth year, MERU conducts and supports innovative educational research activity to evaluate and enhance Imperial’s teaching and curriculum.

It aims to build a community, including both staff and students, uniting them through an interest in medical education research. Made up of a multidisciplinary group of staff from Imperial, its NHS partners and sister unit at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine in Singapore, the Unit also recruits and encourages interested students to become involved in existing research projects and to consider conducting their own research.

The Unit also supports members by offering financial support to those attending medical education conferences, and advises on ways to develop research questions into feasible studies that yield publishable data, as well as guidance on ethics applications.

Over the past three years, MERU has funded more than a dozen original research projects, made 64 travel awards allowing members to attend conferences, and delivered monthly meetings and workshops to small groups of interested staff. The Unit also offers one-to-one support to any members requiring it, and brings together those with similar research interests to allow them to assist and advise one another in their various projects. (more…)

2017 Call for Applications: DPhil/PhD Transition Fellowships

EIT Health partners Oxford University, Imperial College London, Coimbra University and University of Lisbon are collaborating on an exciting competitive funding scheme focused on closing the gap between completion of the doctoral thesis and obtaining seed funding for innovative ideas, products and services based on the research.

From now until 16 June, Imperial College London is seeking applications from suitable Imperial DPhil/PhD candidates, whose innovative work would benefit from such a pre-seed (spark) award.

Find out more at: http://eithealth.eu/2017-call-applications-dphilphd-transition-fellowships/

Faculty Fellowships and Wellcome Trust visit

Faculty Fellowships

Faculty Fellowships are a new Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund opportunity, providing flexible funding for up to 18 months for early career researchers who have not yet submitted a Fellowship application but for who an award is in the pipeline because of the quality of the applicant, supervisor and project.

These fellowships are open to researchers across all Faculties. Postdoctoral researchers from disciplines outside of biomedicine can apply for funding to apply their expertise to the goals of understanding health and disease, provided the proposed area of research is within the remit of the Wellcome Trust.

The closing date for applications is 12.00 on 19 June 2017. Please note that within the Faculty of Medicine, the Departmental deadline is 1 June. Further details regarding these Fellowships can be found on the ISSF webpage. (more…)

Imperial Clinician Researcher Fellowship (Post-doc, Post-CCT) scheme

The new Imperial Clinician Researcher Fellowship (Post-doc, Post-CCT) scheme is now open for applications.  The purpose of the 2-year Fellowship is to draw on the research strengths of Imperial and attract the highest quality early stage clinical academics finishing clinical training to work towards Clinician Scientist, Wellcome Trust or other externally funded clinical research mid-level awards. (more…)

MRC ‘Confidence in Concept’ scheme

The College has been awarded £840,000 from the MRC ‘Confidence in Concept’ scheme to pump–prime the translation of novel therapeutics, devices and diagnostics, including “repurposing” of existing therapies toward clinical testing within the Imperial Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC). Included in this award is a ring-fenced fund of £125,000 for projects addressing the aims of the Global Challenges Research Fund. (more…)

Wellcome Trust Institute Strategic Support Fund

The College has been awarded £5M from Wellcome for the next five years, continuing the Institute Strategic Support Fund which has been instrumental in supporting wellcome-logo-blackbiomedical research across the College over the past 5 years.  The scheme has previously funded numerous internal funding streams targeting the enhancement of multidisciplinary research, the support of early career researchers, strategic initiatives enhancing support for priority themes and public engagement activities. Through strategic allocation of £7.5M funding since 2011/2012, the scheme has supported more than 380 investigators through 185 awards across the College and in turn leveraged a further £53M in follow-on funding.

In 2016/2017, the ISSF scheme will support Clinical Research Careers through Global Health Fellowships and Clinician Researchers schemes and non-clinical researchers through Faculty Fellowships.  The scheme will also support key initiatives to promote collaboration and will ensure the College is supporting an inclusive research environment. All opportunities for funding will be advertised on the internal funding opportunities webpage.

Dr Sarah Wagstaffe
Head of Research Strategy
Faculty of Medicine

NHLI creates videos for British Lung Foundation #BreatheEasy campaign

NHLI videos

As part of the British Lung Foundation’s campaign to raise awareness of what breathlessness may mean for your wider health, we highlighted the work of Dr Jennifer Quint and her team here at NHLI. We supported the #BreatheEasy campaign by doing a series of short videos where Jenni and her PhD student, Ann Morgan, talk about their BLF funded research.

The series of videos we created on this research is from the Respiratory Epidemiology group, and is using anonymised patient records to look at respiratory disease. By using simple questions on what the research was about, why it is important and its potential impact we hoped to make the research accessible to the wider public. We found the greatest engagement on twitter was with the simplest questions – “What is COPD?” was only beaten into second place by the promoted tweet pinned at the top of our homepage “Can you tell us what your research is about?”.

Watch the videos on YouTube

Helen Johnson
Communications and Website Officer
NHLI

Imperial Confidence in Concept (ICiC) Scheme Awards Funding to 25 projects

The Faculty is delighted to report the outcome of the fourth Imperial Confidence in Concept (ICiC) competition to support the College-wide development of novel devices, diagnostics and therapeutics for areas of unmet clinical need. A fund in excess of £1.6million was made available from the MRC (Confidence in Concept fund), NIHR Imperial BRC, Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund, EPSRC and BBSRC Impact Acceleration Accounts, as well as support from NIHR BRC at The Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research. The ICiC scheme provides vital pilot funding to bridge the potential gap between discovery research and well-developed applications for MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme / Developmental Clinical Studies Funding Scheme support.

The Panel, including external members and chaired by Professor Roberto Solari, was delighted with the high quality and wide range of applications. Examples of the breadth of funded proposals include: ‘Preclinical assessment of a lead NMT inhibitor as a novel anticancer agent’ (Tate); ‘Development and validation of a 2 gene RNA test to detect bacterial infection’ (Levin); ‘A ‘smart’ ultrasonic focus for brain drug delivery’ (Choi); ‘GM-CSF gene therapy for pulmonary alveolar proteinosis’ (Griesenbach). We are also pleased to announce two co-funded projects with our colleagues at the NIHR BRC at The Royal Marsden and ICR; ‘The development of a high-throughput breathomics platform for oeosophago-gastric cancer’ (Hanna) and ‘The use of innovative spectroscopy technologies (i-Knife and DESI) for the improvement of the management of women with abnormalities in cervical screening’ (Kyrgiou). The first project is a collaboration between Prof George Hanna (ICL), Dr Andrea Romano (ICL), Prof David Cunningham (ICR), Mr Asif Chaudry (ICR), and Prof Paris Tekkis (ICR). The second project led by Dr Maria Kyrgiou involves collaboration with the Royal Marsden gynaecological oncology team (Mr Butler, Mr Ind, Mr Barton).

The investigators who will receive awards of up to £85,000 are:

  • Professor Eric Aboagye (PI), Dr Laurence Carroll, & Dr Kathrin Heinzmann (Department of Surgery & Cancer)
  • Dr Geoff Baldwin (PI) & Professor Edward Leen (Departments of Life Sciences and Medicine)
  • Dr Andrew Blagborough (PI) & Dr Fiona Angrisano (Department of Life Sciences)
  • Dr James Choi (PI) & Dr Matthew Williams (Department of Bioengineering and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust)
  • Dr Armando Del Rio Hernandez (PI) (Department of Bioengineering)
  • Dr Andrew Edwards (PI), Dr Thomas Clarke, Dr Thomas Webb, Dominic Marshall (Department of Medicine)
  • Dr Matthew Fuchter (PI), Prof Simak Ali, & Dr Geoff Baldwin (Departments of Chemistry, Surgery & Cancer, and Life Sciences)
  • Dr Nicholas Glanville (PI) & Professor Sebastian Johnston (National Heart & Lung Institute)
  • Professor Uta Griesenbach (PI) & Professor Eric Alton (National Heart & Lung Institute)
  • Professor George Hanna (PI) & Dr Andrea Romano (Department of Surgery & Cancer)
  • Dr Mark Isalan (PI) (Department of Life Sciences)
  • Dr Angela Kedgley (PI), Ms Donna Kennedy, Dr Tonia Vincent, & Dr Fiona Watt (Departments of Bioengineering and Surgery & Cancer and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust)
  • Dr Maria Kyrgiou (PI), Professor Zoltan Takats, Dr Sadaf Ghaem-Maghami, Professor Phillip Bennett, & Dr David Macintyre (Department of Surgery & Cancer)
  • Dr Gerald Larrouy-Maumus (PI), Professor Francis Drobniewski, Dr Brian Robertson, & Dr Vahid Shahrezaei (Departments of Life Sciences, Medicine, and Mathematics)
  • Professor Mike Levin (PI) & Dr Pantelis Georgiou (Departments of Medicine and Electrical & Electronic Engineering)
  • Dr George Mylonas (PI) & Professor Ara Darzi (Department of Surgery & Cancer)
  • Dr Alexandra Porter (PI), Professor Charles Coombes, Professor Mary Ryan, & Dr Fang Xie (Departments of Materials and Surgery & Cancer)
  • Professor Robin Shattock (PI) (Department of Medicine)
  • Professor Roberto Solari (PI) & Dr Andrew Bell (National Heart & Lung Institute and Department of Chemistry)
  • Professor Ed Tate (PI), Professor Eric Aboagye, Dr Andy Bell, & Dr Laura Kenny (Departments of Chemistry and Surgery & Cancer)
  • Dr Vasso Terzidou (PI), Dr David Macintyre, & Professor Phillip Bennett (Department of Surgery & Cancer)
  • Dr Ross Walton (PI), Professor Sebastian Johnston, & Dr Aoife Cameron (National Heart & Lung Institute)
  • Professor Peter Weinberg (PI) & Dr Mengxing Tang (Department of Bioengineering)
  • Professor Ramesh Wigneshweraraj (PI) & Dr Daniel Brown (Department of Medicine)
  • Dr Lan Zhao (PI) & Professor Martin Wilkins (Department of Medicine)

Dr Kimberley Trim
Research Strategy Coordinator
Faculty of Medicine

Call for 1-Year Clinical Training Fellowships in Global Health Research

We are looking to support outstanding early-career clinical professionals wishing to undertake research, at least in part overseas, to improve the health of people and reduce health inequalities in developed and developing countries. Through the provision of clinical training fellowships in global health, we aim to provide opportunities for the most promising clinical academics, at the very beginning of their careers, to develop bids for independent fellowship funding. We anticipate that each fellow will be supported by two mentors, one based at an Imperial Campus, and one based overseas. All fellowships must commence by 1 September, 2016.

How to apply?

Please refer to the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund webpage for application forms and guidelines.

If you have an Imperial and overseas sponsor, please contact ISSF@imperial.ac.uk for an application form and further information. Should you be an interested applicant looking for a sponsor, please provide a max 500 word summary of your interests, brief summary of project and research experience to ISSF@imperial.ac.uk by 25 January 2016. We cannot guarantee that all interested applicants will be matched with an overseas sponsor. Full applications would need to be submitted by 4 March 2016 to ISSF@imperial.ac.uk. Interviews for shortlisted candidates are expected to take place the week commencing 2 May 2016.

This Fellowship program is funded through the Global Health Stream of the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund, and lead by the Imperial Wellcome Trust Global Health Research Centre in conjunction with the Institute for Global Health Innovation.

For further information please contact:

Dr Kimberley Trim, Faculty of Medicine,
Imperial College London SW7 2AZ UK
Tel: 020 7594 9826
E-mail: ISSF@imperial.ac.uk

Committed to equality and valuing diversity. We are also an Athena SWAN Silver Award winner, a Stonewall Diversity Champion, a two Ticks Employer and are working in partnership with GIRES to promote respect for trans people.

New research to investigate models of child health care in Europe

Professor Mitch Blair and Professor Michael Rigby from the Section of Paediatrics of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial, together with European colleagues, have been awarded almost 7 million Euro by the European Commission – Directorate General for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 programme to study and evaluate models of child primary care in Europe.

Professor Mitch Blair
Professor Mitch Blair

The project: MOCHA Models of Child Health Appraised will see Imperial College project staff working with 19 scientific partners from 10 European countries, plus Switzerland, the United States and Australia; as well as with country agents in 30 European Commission and European Economic Area countries.

The project began on 1st June with a three-month preparation phase, including creating a project website, prior to an active research programme commencing on 1st September 2015 continuing until the late autumn of 2018.

Principal Investigator Professor Blair explained:

“Children are an important population group in their own right, but also are the future of Europe, its society and its workforce. Thus children’s health is vital to children and for a healthy Europe”.

“However, there is no consensus on the best way of providing primary health care for children. Different countries favour different models, of which two main ones are generalist general practitioners seeing the child in the family context, and primary care paediatricians with focused expertise. Until now there is no research which shows which model is most effective, which also implies that some children are likely to be receiving sub-optimal care.”

MOCHA will obtain and analyse key information on a range of child primary care topics, such as:

  • Models of primary care delivered to children (including urgent care)
  • Delivery of care across organisational boundaries (with secondary care, social care, education and so on) including complex care, and services for child protection
  • School health services, and direct access services for adolescents
  • Identification of innovative measures of quality and outcome
  • Identification of derivatives from large data sets to measure quality and outcome
  • Economic and Skill Set analyses
  • Ensuring Equity for all children
  • Use of electronic records in child health
Professor Michael Rigby
Professor Michael Rigby

An independent Expert Panel from 10 countries and 15 different organisations or paediatric and public health associations will validate the scientific enquiries made of country agents, and review the findings. Views of service users will be sought throughout the project, and there will be an active engagement and dissemination programme.

The project will be managed from Imperial College, coordinating the work of 11 separate work packages run by experts from European research institutions, including researchers from Imperial College.

This will be one of the largest and most ambitious project to look at child health services in Europe. Focusing on prevention and wellness, its results will demonstrate the optimal model(s) of child primary care. Alongside the results, the MOCHA project will analyse the factors (including cultural factors) which might facilitate the adoption of recommendations, and indications for policy makers of both the health and economic gains possible. Throughout its life, the project will have a strong dissemination programme, ensuring that dialogue with the public, professionals, policy makers and politicians is maintained and taken into account during the research.

Within its 42-month timescale, the MOCHA project will deliver major awareness and potential benefit for European children’s health and a healthy society.

For further details contact:

Leaders: Prof. Mitch Blair – m.blair@imperial.ac.uk ; Prof. Michael Rigby – m.rigby@imperial.ac.uk or
Research Fellow (Scientific Coordinator): Denise Alexander – d.alexander@imperial.ac.uk

Waljit Dhillo awarded prestigious NIHR Research Professorship

Professor Waljit Dhillo
Professor Waljit Dhillo

Waljit Dhillo, Professor in Endocrinology & Metabolism and Consultant Endocrinologist, has been awarded a prestigious National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Research Professorship, in the 2015 competition.

NIHR Research Professorships aim to fund leaders in the early part of their careers to lead research, to promote effective translation of research (‘bench to bedside [T1] and ‘campus to clinic’ [T2]) and strengthen research leadership at the highest academic levels. NIHR Research Professorships are prestigious awards for researchers who have an outstanding record of clinical and applied health research, and its effective translation for improved health.

Speaking about his project, entitled ‘Using hormones to improve reproductive health’, Professor Dhillo said:

Disorders of reproductive health affect millions of patients worldwide. The hormones kisspeptin and neurokinin B have recently been identified as potential novel targets for the treatment of infertility and menopausal flushing, respectively. My programme of work aims to develop novel treatment protocols based on kisspeptin and neurokinin B to treat patients with disorders of reproductive health.

Imperial Confidence in Concept (ICiC) scheme awards funding to 22 projects

The Faculty is delighted to report the outcome of the third Imperial Confidence in Concept (ICiC) competition to support the College-wide development of novel devices, diagnostics and therapeutics for areas of unmet clinical need. A fund in excess of £1.3million was made available from the MRC (Confidence in Concept fund), NIHR Imperial BRC, Imperial Innovations, Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund, EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account and as well as support from NIHR BRC at The Royal Marsden and The Institute of Cancer Research and Chelsea & Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. This is the first year that Chelsea & Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has taken part in the scheme.  The ICiC scheme provides vital pilot funding to bridge the potential gap between discovery research and well-developed applications for MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme / Developmental Clinical Studies Funding Scheme support. The Panel, including external members and chaired by Professor Roberto Solari, was delighted with the high quality and wide range of applications. 22 Awards were made.

The investigators who will receive awards of up to £70,000 are:

Professor Andrew Amis (PI), Professor Justin Cobb, & Dr Ferdinando Rodriguez Y Baena (Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Surgery & Cancer)

Dr Reza Bahmanyar (PI, Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering)

Dr Jeffrey Bamber (PI) & Dr Mengxing Tang (Division of Radiotherapy & Imaging, Institute of Cancer Research and Department of Bioengineering, ICL)

Dr Paul Bentley (PI), Professor Etienne Burdet, & Dr Michael Mace (Departments of Medicine & Bioengineering)

Professor Thomas Brand (PI) & Dr Katie Chapman (National Heart & Ling Institute and Domainex Ltd)

Dr Graham Cooke (PI), Professor Chris Toumazou, & Professor Myra McClure (Departments of Medicine & Bioengineering)

Dr Ernesto Cota Segura (PI), Dr Nathan Brown, Professor Ed Tate, & Dr Chiara Recchi (Departments of Life Sciences, Chemistry, Surgery & Cancer, and CRUK Cancer Therapeutics Unit, Institute of Cancer Research)

Dr Christina Fotopoulou (PI) & Dr Paula Cunnea (Department of Surgery & Cancer)

Professor Gary Frost (PI), Dr Rohini Sharma, Professor Mark Thursz, & Dr Edwards Chambers (Department of Medicine)

Professor George Hanna (PI), Dr Tanzeela Khalid, & Dr Melody Ni (Department of Surgery & Cancer)

Dr David Hodson (PI) & Professor Guy Rutter (Department of Medicine)

Professor David Klug (PI) & Dr Oscar Ces (Department of Chemistry)

Dr Christoph Lees (PI) & Professor Phil Bennett (Department of Surgery & Cancer)

Professor Nicholas Long (PI) & Professor Guy Rutter (Departments of Chemistry & Medicine)

Dr Stepan Lucyszyn (PI) & Professor Anthony Chu (Departments of Electrical & Electronic Engineering and Medicine)

Professor Danilo Mandic (PI) & Dr Sudhin Thayyil (Departments of Electrical & Electronic Engineering and Medicine)

Professor Jane Mitchell (PI), Dr Nicholas Kirkby, & Dr Mark Paul-Clark (National Heart & Lung Institute)

Dr Christopher Rhodes (PI) & Professor Martin Wilkins (Department of Medicine)

Professor Andrew Rice (PI) & Dr Kenji Okuse (Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, Departments of Surgery & Cancer and Life Sciences)

Professor Molly Stevens (PI), Dr Anthony Gordon, & Dr Robert Chapman (Departments of Materials, Bioengineering, and Surgery & Cancer)

Professor Ed Tate (PI), Professor Sebastian Johnston, & Dr Aurelie Mousnier (Department of Chemistry and National Heart & Lung Institute)

Dr Paul Turner (PI), Dr Mohamed Shamji, & Dr Robert Boyle (Department of Medicine and National Heart & Lung Institute)

 

Dr Kimberley Trim
Research Strategy Coordinator
Faculty of Medicine

Antimicrobial Research Collaborative (ARC) Early Career Research Fellowships

The Antimicrobial Research Collaborative (ARC) is a new Imperial network of researchers, primary care specialists and allied health professionals established to advance basic research in AMR and to translate research to novel prevention strategies and healthcare interventions. The ARC Early Career Research Fellowships scheme aims to attract and retain the most promising early career scientists to undertake multidisciplinary research projects in antimicrobial research within the College.

How to apply?

Full details of the ARC Early Career Research Fellowships and how to apply will be announced on 5th June, and will be available from: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/funding-opportunities/internal-funding-opportunities/issf/ There will be an opportunity to ask questions about the Fellowships at the ARC launch on 5th June (please see https://eventbrite.co.uk/event/17028140627/ for details of the event and to register). The closing date for ARC Fellowship applications will be 5pm on 3rd July 2015.

Creating new opportunities for collaboration – pharma speed dating

On 30th January 2015, the breakout space at the Wolfson Education Centre at Imperial’s Hammersmith campus was buzzing with more than 100 dates between 40 Imperial academics from different faculties, and representatives from 7 major Pharma companies.

The first Pharma speed dating @ ICL event was part of the launch program for the Imperial Confidence in Concept funding scheme, and was organized by the Corporate Partnerships team. Jonathan Weber, Vice-Dean of Research and Imperial College AHSC Director said

“The Pharma speed dating event fits with our strategy to strengthen Imperial relationship with the Pharmaceutical industry and to provide young PIs an opportunity to have their first industrial interactions”.

Academics had only 20 minutes to pitch their ideas to company representatives and discuss common interest for collaborations.

Both academics and company representatives enjoyed a day of interesting and open scientific discussions.

Silvia Santos, a starting group leader at the Imperial MRC-Clinical Science Centre said:

It was very informative to understand what a therapeutic target is to Pharma companies and the path to get into having a potential interesting target. But perhaps even more exciting was realising how complementary our approaches in the lab are with some of the companies and start discussions for potential collaborations.”

Following on from the event, the Corporate Partnerships team is busy following up with several companies who have opened opportunities for collaboration with the College.

The Corporate Partnerships team is expecting to run this event again next year. If your company is interested in participating in the next speed dating @ ICL event, please get in touch with us at enterprise-fom@imperial.ac.uk.

Call for Experimental Medicine Proposals 2015: NIHR Imperial BRC Institute of Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT)

With the launch of ITMAT the NIHR Imperial BRC is pleased to announce an inaugural call for experimental medicine proposals to exploit ITMAT’s core platform technologies. It aims to promote and encourage the ‘pull-through’ of discovery science from the Faculties of Medicine, Engineering and Natural Sciences within Imperial College London into potential clinical applications.

The intention of this call is to provide seed funding support to pilot experimental medicine projects that are based on a workable hypothesis and can demonstrate reasonable promise of success. Our aim is to provide a boost to these promising projects, to provide the additional data and evidence that will support Imperial researchers to apply for larger, follow-on grants from other funders within a period of 12-15 months.

 

Applications should be made on the downloadable application form and submitted by 12pm on 4 May 2015 to brcofficer@imperial.ac.uk

View guidance documentation for this call

Find answers to Frequently Asked Questions about this call

 

What is ITMAT?

The Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics (ITMAT) at NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) is virtual institute built upon core facilities across the College and Trust. Its aim is to support the acceleration of fundamental discoveries into improvements in human health and economic benefit.

ITMAT includes platforms in genomic (and metagenomic), metabonomic and imaging technologies and health informatics, as well as the NIHR Wellcome Trust Imperial Clinical Research Facility (ICRF) and one of the largest tissue collections in Europe. ITMAT offers BRC co-funding for proof-of-concept studies across the translational divide, and postgraduate programmes at the interface of basic and clinical sciences. The Institute particularly promotes multidisciplinary research, pulling through biomedical applications from engineering and physical sciences discovery science, and strategic commercial partnerships.

More information about the core platforms of ITMAT is detailed in Annex 1 of the guidance documentation.

Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF) Networks of Excellence

Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF) Networks of Excellence
Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF) Networks of Excellence

We are seeking to support novel biomedical research collaborations across disciplines and departments. Proposals for pilot or feasibility work for high risk projects, to support collaborative cohesion, to test or develop new methods, or proof of concept studies are encouraged through this call. It is envisaged that the outcomes of supported work will then form the basis of a major grant application. Whilst funding is available to support any research within the remit of the Wellcome Trust, networks undertaking interdisciplinary research in the themes of Biomedical Engineering, Global Health and Development (including Epidemiology, Prevention and Control) and Infection Research (including Antimicrobial Strategies and Resistance) are particularly encouraged.

How to apply?

If you wish to submit a proposal you should complete the project application form and submit it to ISSF@imperial.ac.uk by the 12noon, 8 May 2015. As we wish to fund a range of applications, a researcher cannot be principal investigator on more than one application, though this will not preclude applicants from being co-applicants on additional proposals. For further information please email ISSF@imperial.ac.uk or see the Networks of Excellence guidelines available at http://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/funding-opportunities/internal-funding-opportunities/issf/

 

Dr Kimberley Trim
Research Strategy Coordinator
Faculty of Medicine