Restricted call: MRC Enhance Human Nervous Tissue Resources (internal deadline: 11 November 2021)

MRC invites applications for a new funding opportunity to establish a national human nervous tissue sample resource.

This opportunity for funding is to support an innovative pilot demonstration for a national human sample resource. The resource should support neuroscience and mental health research. MRC are planning to fund between two to four projects from a total fund of £5 million. Proposed projects may last up to 36 months.

To be within scope, proposals are required to:

• show evidence for broad engagement with stakeholders (including donors, those living with neurological and mental health conditions and members of the public) across neurosciences and mental health research communities;
• provide evidence of an understanding of the needs of academic and industry researchers and explain how approaches taken in the pilot could address these;
• describe how the resource is aligned with (or complements) prior or currently planned UK research investments;
• demonstrate feasibility with initiation of sample collection and associated data and their distribution.

It is anticipated that these awards will build new capacity by linking expertise and resourcing from multiple disciplines including (but not restricted to): neurosurgery, neuropathology, developmental neuroscience, epidemiology, mental health, bioinformatics, and health informatics.

For more information, including the key strategic themes for the call, please see the funder’s guidance notes on the funder’s website HERE.

University Internal selection:

The University can lead on only one application to this funding opportunity. Therefore, this call will be managed according to the University’s restricted calls procedure.

To take part in the internal selection process, please submit the following documents to researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk by 11 November 2021:

1. The attached internal selection form.
2. A support letter from the Head of the Department / Centre / Institute that will hold the grant, confirming their support for the proposal, and their recommendation for the project.

Funder deadlines:

• Mandatory expression of interest: 02 December 2021
• Institutional approval from the Research Operations Office will be required at this stage.

Full proposals: 01 February 2022

NB1: MRC will require indicative budget at the Expression of Interest. Although this detail is not required at the internal selection stage, if you are interested in this funding opportunity, please contact your departmental administrators/research grant administrators at your earliest convenience to develop the costing of your application in good time.

NB2: We realise that the internal deadline for this call is quite tight – this is driven by the funder’s timelines. Please accept our apologies for this. Please be assured that we always do everything we can to give applicants as much time as possible to prepare strong applications – but we are also constrained by funder’s timelines.

If you have any questions, please contact us at researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk and we will be more than happy to help.

Best wishes

Magda, on behalf of researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk

Posted on 01/11/2021