Project Grants

The purpose of a Project Grant is to support a UK osteoporosis researcher to lead a strong research team to undertake a ground-breaking and innovative research project.

For the duration of our four-year strategy, Breaking the Silence Strategy (2022-2026), the charity is focusing its grants programme on pioneering studies which have a clear and tangible path to benefiting patients by helping to drive system change that can help close the osteoporosis care gap and reduce health inequalities.

A proposal can cover one or both:

Research - a process of investigation with the aim of identifying generalisable new knowledge that could lead to changes to treatments, policies or care.
Innovation - activity leading to the development and delivery of something new (e.g. processes, products, services or methods of delivery) for patient benefit with potential for impact on a national scale.

Applications are encouraged from researchers at every career stage. Early Career Researchers (i.e. normally no more than five years post PhD or have not previously led a grant before) will have the opportunity during the application process to highlight the impact the grant could have on their career development.

Eligibility

Principal Applicants must be based at a university, postgraduate institute, medical school, NHS trust or Health Board in the UK or other British Islands. However, co-applicants and collaborators may be based at institutions outside the UK.
Principal Applicants must hold an employment contract at the institution that they are applying from, which covers the proposed duration of the grant.
Applications for any one grant round will be restricted to one per principal applicant.
If the project requires ethical approval, the award is dependent upon the requisite approvals being granted.

What is offered

Apply for up to £100,000 over a maximum of three years

The charity will only fund direct costs in line with the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) policy. This may include: salaries (applicants, scientific/technical assistant but excluding PhD students), material and consumables, collaborative travel and essential equipment. All costs must be fully justified within the application.
The charity will consider “top up” funding, when a grant is awarded to supplement funds that have already been secured by another funder in order to support ambitious projects.
This scheme is not designed to cover phase II/III clinical trials and drug discovery or development.
The charity does not fund animal research.

How to apply

The application process consists of two stages.  In the first stage an expression of interest is submitted, in the form of a short outline application. Successful applicants at this stage will be invited to Stage 2 and asked to complete a more detailed application. Please read the following Royal Osteoporosis Society documents before completing a full Stage 1 application:

All our grants are reviewed by people affected by osteoporosis, so we recommend applicants involve the perspective of people affected by the condition in developing their application and have a clear plan for public and patient involvement and engagement, for the best chance of success.

The indicative costs section is intended to be an approximation and does not require institutional approval at this stage. However, please ensure that the costs are realistic as large differences between Stage 1 and 2 applications may reduce the likelihood of the Stage 2 application being funded.

All Stage 1 applications must be submitted using the Stage 1 application webform prior to the submission deadline. Completion of the webform must be done in one sitting. To help with preparation offline, please use the word version of the form which is available in the useful downloads section below.

Useful downloads:

Deadlines and key dates

Deadlines	Dates
Project Grants scheme launch	April 2023
Stage 1 application deadline	6 June 2023
Applicants notified of a Stage 1 decision	July 2023
Stage 2 application deadline	11 September 2023
Applicants notified of a final decision	December 2023

To register your interest in the next ROS Grants Round e-mail research@theros.org.uk

NIHR Non-commercial Partner

The studies that we fund may be eligible to access the NIHR Study Support Service which is provided by the NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN). Find out more here.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about your eligibility or whether your research proposal is within scope please e-mail research@theros.org.uk or call us on 01761 473125

Research

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