Funding opportunity

Pre-announcement: Health Technologies Connectivity Awards

• Opportunity status: Upcoming
• Funders: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
• Funding type: Grant
• Total fund: £4,000,000
• Maximum award: £500,000
• Publication date: 14 March 2024
• Opening date: To be confirmed
• Closing date: To be confirmed

Apply for funding to spend time in a different research or user environment to build new connections within health technologies. Novel Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPS) research contributing to the delivery of the Health Technologies Strategy must comprise a proportion of the placement.

You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funding.

In this pilot scheme, researchers will develop new skills and collaborations to progress their research in health technologies.

The full economic cost (FEC) of your project can be up to £500,000. EPSRC will fund 80% of the FEC.

This is a pre-announcement, and the information may change. The funding opportunity will open in May 2024. More information will be available on this page by then.

Who can apply

Before applying for funding, check the Eligibility of your organisation.

EPSRC standard eligibility rules apply. For full details, visit EPSRC’s eligibility page.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has introduced new role types for funding opportunities being run on the new UKRI Funding Service.

For full details, visit Eligibility as an individual.

International applicants

Under the UKRI and Research Council of Norway Money Follows Cooperation agreement a project co-lead (international) (previously co-investigator) can be based in a Norwegian institution.

Resubmissions

We will not accept uninvited resubmissions of projects that have been submitted to UKRI or any other funder.

Find out more about EPSRC’s resubmissions policy.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.

We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:

• career breaks
• support for people with caring responsibilities
• flexible working
• alternative working patterns

Find out more about equality, diversity and inclusion at UKRI.

What we're looking for

Aim

The principal aim of this scheme is to provide researchers with an opportunity to spend time in a different research or user environment to better understand unmet health needs, how engineering and physical sciences research can contribute to developing new health technologies approaches and solutions, and how this research can be translated.

This scheme also aims to address a ‘supporting knowledge and skills in health technologies’ strategic enabler described in the 2023 EPSRC Health Technologies strategy. This strategy sets out a mission to support and attract people from a diverse population to build capacity for future skills requirements across all three health technologies challenges.

Scope

This pilot scheme is targeted at researchers who wish to develop their research in health technologies by developing new skills and collaborations with other disciplines and end users.

Researchers may come from core EPSRC research fields and spend time in other relevant disciplines, user fields, or both (users may include industry, clinical or public sector environments).

Researchers in other disciplines or organisations that hold appointments that make them eligible for EPSRC funding may also apply for funding to immerse themselves into an Engineering and Physical Sciences environment again, with the aim of developing new collaborations leading to research which will contribute to the delivery of the EPSRC Health Technologies strategy.

Novel Engineering and Physical Sciences research must comprise a significant proportion of the placement. Research projects should address one or more of the three challenges listed in the Health Technologies Strategy. We are particularly interested in projects which address our ‘Population Health and Prevention’ challenge.

This award could be used to:

• gain skills and knowledge to open up a new cross-disciplinary research area or answer a specific cross-disciplinary research question
• develop new or strengthen existing collaborations, or both, and work together on a pilot research project
• learn a new technique, tool or method that you can apply to your own research

This scheme is open for teams as well as individuals to apply.

Duration

The duration of this award is up to 36 months.

Funding available

The FEC of your project can be up to £500,000.

We will fund 80% of the FEC.

Supporting skills and talent

We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.

International collaboration

If your application includes international applicants, project partners or collaborators, visit UKRI’s trusted research and innovation for more information on effective international collaboration.

Find out about getting funding for international collaboration.

How to apply

We are running this funding opportunity on the new UKRI Funding Service. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.  We will publish full details on how to apply when the funding opportunity opens.

How we will assess your application

Assessment process

We will assess your application using the following process.

Expert panel

We will invite experts to review your application independently, against the specified criteria for this funding opportunity. They will then rank it alongside other applications at a panel meeting.

You will have the opportunity to respond to experts’ comments prior to the panel discussion.

In the event of this funding opportunity being substantially oversubscribed as to be unmanageable, EPSRC reserves the right to modify the assessment process.

Further details of the assessment process and assessment criteria will be published when the funding opportunity opens.

Contact details

Get help with your application

If you have a question and the answers aren’t provided on this page.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Helpdesk is committed to helping users of the Funding Service as effectively and as quickly as possible. In order to manage cases at peak volume times, the Helpdesk will triage and prioritise those queries with an imminent opportunity deadline or a technical issue.

Enquiries raised where information is available on the Funding Finder opportunity page and should be understood early in the application process (for example, regarding eligibility or content/remit of an opportunity) will not constitute a priority case and will be addressed as soon as possible.

Contact information

For help and advice on costings and writing your proposal please contact your research office in the first instance, allowing sufficient time for your organisation’s submission process.

For questions related to this specific funding opportunity, please contact healthcare@epsrc.ukri.org

Any queries regarding the system or the submission of applications through the Funding Service should be directed to the helpdesk.

Email: support@funding-service.ukri.org

Phone: 01793 547490

Our phone lines are open:

• Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 5:00pm
• Friday 8:30am to 4:30pm

To help us process queries quicker, we request that users highlight the council and opportunity name in the subject title of their email query, include the application reference number, and refrain from contacting more than one mailbox at a time.

Find information on submitting an application.

Sensitive information

If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, please contact TFSchangeEPSRC@epsrc.ukri.org

Include in the subject line: [the funding opportunity title; sensitive information; your Funding Service application number].

Typical examples of confidential information include:

• individual is unavailable until a certain date (for example due to parental leave)
• declaration of interest
• additional information about eligibility to apply that would not be appropriately shared in the ‘Applicant and team capability’ section
• conflict of interest for UKRI to consider in reviewer or panel participant selection
• the application is an invited resubmission

For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read UKRI’s privacy notice.

Additional info

Health Technologies Strategy

All applications to this funding opportunity should clearly demonstrate their alignment to one (or more) of the three challenges identified in the EPSRC health technologies strategy.

Webinar for potential applicants

We will hold a webinar. This will provide more information about the funding opportunity and a chance to ask questions. Further information on how to register will be shared once the opportunity opens.

Research disruption due to COVID-19

We recognise that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major interruptions and disruptions across our communities. We are committed to ensuring that individual applicants and their wider team, including partners and networks, are not penalised for any disruption to their career, such as:

• breaks and delays
• disruptive working patterns and conditions
• the loss of ongoing work
• role changes that may have been caused by the pandemic

Reviewers and panel members will be advised to consider the unequal impacts that COVID-19 related disruption might have had on the capability to deliver and career development of those individuals included in the application. They will be asked to consider the capability of the applicant and their wider team to deliver the research they are proposing.

Where disruptions have occurred, you can highlight this within your application if you wish, but there is no requirement to detail the specific circumstances that caused the disruption.