Health Spotlight ECR Small Grant Scheme
Health Spotlight - ECR Small Grant Scheme 24/25
Health Spotlight ECR Small Grant Scheme 2024/25
The Health Spotlight is hosting a new initiative to support early career researchers to develop interdisciplinary approaches to health research.
Our Spotlight Themes
Autumn Round (last application to be submitted by 4/12/24 - outcomes can be expected by 17/12/24)
We interpret the term ‘early career researchers’ broadly, including PhDs students, assistant professors, those new to research, new to working at Warwick, or returning to research following a period of leave e.g. parental/sick leave. If you are unsure of your eligibility for this scheme, please contact the health spotlight before applying.
The ECR small grant scheme from the Health Spotlight offers funding for pump-priming, dissemination, small scale data collection, networking activities or skills development projects up to a maximum of £2,000. These projects need to be conducted in collaboration with a researcher from another discipline and funds must be spent by 31st July 2025.
Whilst we encourage applications that sit within our four overarching themes, we will accept applications from any area of interdisciplinary health research.
Projects funded by this scheme might include:
- exploratory data collection or secondary/pilot analysis of existing data
- data contextualisation, interpretation, or visualisation work
- workshops, co-development activities or networking events to develop diverse pathways to impact
- data dashboard creation
- app building to reach a broader audience
- writing/testing software packages involving student (UG or PG) research assistants
- skills training/Master classes for interdisciplinary research
Projects should be designed to develop an interdisciplinary collaboration either internally or externally, with the expectation that it will lead on to further research focused activity (e.g. external grant applications, ongoing collaborations or partnerships).
To help early career researchers make connections outside of their departments, and prepare an application to the small grant scheme, we are launching a parallel scheme called Café Collaborate. We recognise that early career researchers (and those new or newly returned to Warwick) can struggle to identify potential collaborators in other departments and schools at the University, and there can also be barriers to approaching them. We have therefore introduced Café Collaborate to facilitate this process. Café collaborate will ‘match’ early career researchers with appropriate academics/researchers in different disciplines. The Café Collaborate team will approach a potential partner on behalf of the ECR and support an initial meeting. This meeting will allow the early career researcher to explore and develop their small grant idea collaboratively with the other researcher.
To register for Café Collaborate, please fill in this online form, and let us know what type of researcher (discipline/department/methodology/topic area) you would be interested to meet, and we will try to match you. If you would like to be matched with an external collaborator or stakeholder, please let us know, and we will investigate any existing relationships at the University that could support an introduction. Early career researchers who want to initiate contact with the researcher themselves can do so.
Applications to the small grants scheme will be assessed by members of the spotlight leadership team, using the following criteria:
Essential:
1) The interdisciplinary nature of the collaboration. The ECR should involve a researcher from another discipline.
2) The potential of the project to lead on to further research or collaborative activities (e.g. new relationships or networks established, external funding bids, dissemination or public engagement activities, new techniques or technologies developed that can be taken up by other researchers)
3) The role of the ECR. The ECR needs to lead the project and assume the role of a PI or joint PI. Development opportunities for the ECR (e.g. leadership experience, skills development) should be demonstrated.
Desirable:
1) The novelty of the collaboration or activity. We are keen to fund new or fledgling collaborations rather than those that are already well established (e.g. through existing external funding)
2) Cross-departmental/cross-faculty working, or working with external collaborators. Whilst it is recognised that interdisciplinary work can occur within departments and faculties at Warwick, we encourage applicants to be bold in their pursuit of interdisciplinarity.
Please note: Early career researchers funded through the ECR small grants scheme will need to complete a short feedback form to describe the way the funding was used, and another 12 months after its completion to report on any further outputs or impact initiated by the grant. All projects funded through the scheme will be posted on the health spotlight webpages. Funding needs to be spent by end of July 2025. Deadline for application to the autumn round: Wednesday 4th December. Outcomes by 17th December, with the expectation that projects will commence in January 2025.