Guidelines – Research Excellence (RE)
Awards
Concept
BHF will recognise a small number of centres
of cardiovascular research excellence in UK Higher Education
Institutions (HEIs) by awarding a sum of money over a 6 year period
for that centre to use flexibly.
Objectives
- To allow flexibility of approach to a group
of internationally renowned scientists to pursue imaginative
cardiovascular research.
- To recruit high quality individuals to
training programmes (PhD or postdoctoral).
- To encourage scientists outside traditional
biomedical research to engage in cardiovascular science.
The award
BHF will commit up to £1.5m a year to each
centre for a period of 6 years, subject to a satisfactory midterm
review of progress. Awards will be made to the institution
hosting the Award Director (principal investigator) and will be
subject to BHF conditions of grant and any specific conditions to
the award. The administering institution will be responsible
for the proper disbursement and accountability of all monies
received.
Expectation of the Award
Director
It is expected that the Award Director will
perform the following duties:
- Manage the award, to secure maximum value for
money from BHF’s investment, ensure all activities comply with
appropriate governance, ethical frameworks and regulations.
- Provide intellectual leadership and training,
to ensure the scientific quality of the developing research agenda
is as high as possible.
- Provide a lead on engaging with researchers
outside traditional cardiovascular biology to ensure that the
research approach is as diverse as possible.
- Control and record how the money is
spent.
Criteria for application
Essential
- A critical mass of established
internationally recognised principal investigators;
either across a broad range of clinical and basic
scientific disciplines, or within a specialist
field of expertise (funding requested should be scaled
appropriately).
- A nominated scientific director (Award
Director) who will be responsible for administering the award.
- Involvement of non biomedical scientists, for
example from the physical sciences, mathematics, computing,
engineering.
- If undertaking clinical research, a clearly
demonstrated commitment from the relevant Trust(s) to foster and
promote clinical research.
Highly Desirable
- A multidisciplinary scientific environment
with an ethos of collaboration between bioscientists from different
fields, e.g. cancer, developmental biology, immunology etc.
- An established 4 year PhD training
programme.
What the award may be used
for:
- Salaries (at standard university/NHS rates)
at all levels from studentships to chairs (subject to BHF approval
of CVs).
- Research consumables.
- Small items of research equipment.
- Modest travel expenses to support
collaborations or attend international meetings.
What the award may not be used
for:
- To fund buildings, renovations and large
items of equipment (normally).
- To support out of hours clinical duties.
- To support NHS costs of clinical
research.
- To purchase consumables/equipment not wholly
used to support cardiovascular research.
- To support institutional overheads.
Process
- Applicants are advised to discuss eligibility
to apply with the Medical Director, Professor Peter Weissberg
first. (email research@bhf.org.uk).
- Closing date for submission of completed
application forms: by noon 14 June 2007 (17
copies).
- Applications will undergo international peer
review and will be shortlisted by a specially convened Panel.
- Shortlisted applicants will be notified by
mid September and site visited in October. A final meeting of
the Panel will make its decision by the end of October 2007.
- Successful applicants will be able to use
their award without further peer review, but CVs of proposed
research personnel will be subject to BHF’s prior checking and
approval (BHF reserves the right to decline approval if judged
not to be within the spirit of the grant objectives).
Award Directors will need to account for expenditure incurred.
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