Environment and Health Theme host workshop on NIHR funding for non-clinicians
On Monday 8th June, the Environment and Health Research Theme hosted Beyond Clinical Research, a half day workshop to support the Sussex research community in taking advantage of the broad range of non-clinical health orientated research funding opportunities within the remit of the National Institutes for Health Research (NIHR).
The event sought to challenge the idea that health research is only for clinicians and health care providers. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is a UK Government funder which seeks to make improvements to all aspects of Health and Social Care by including academic input from social work, education, psychology, law, sociology, policy and humanities in addition to clinicians and practitioners.
Talks were given by Sarah McDonald, from Research and Enterprise Services, Professor Valerie Hall, Director of NIHR Research Design Service South East and Professor Peter Davidson, director of the NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme.
Sarah McDonald opened the workshop with a whistle-stop tour of the NIHR funding streams available and offered advice on the schemes that would be most suited to non-clinicians. This was followed by Professor Davidson who discussed opportunities for collaborative funding and highlighted what the NIHR is looking for in a project, as well as the main reasons that projects are not awarded funding.
Professor Valerie Hall gave an overview of the services offered by the Research Design Service to academics looking to apply to the NIHR. Based at the University of Brighton, the RDS South East is able to offer free advice and support to NHS researchers as well as advice on all aspects of preparing grant applications.
This event brought together a diverse network of academics from Sociology, Law, International Relations, Social Work, Psychology, Maths and BSMS who are interested in developing health orientated funding bids and building collaborations. Further information on NIHR is available here and information on the Research Design Service can be found here. Sarah MacDonald’s powerpoint is available here.