NIHR RDSYH Public Involvement in Grant Applications Funding Award

REPORT OF FUNDING CALL 14

Background and process

The RDSYH Public Involvement in Grant Applications Funding Awards are available to researchers in the RDSYH region working in health and health related social care, to support the involvement of the public in developing grant applications for projects that will form part of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Portfolio. Awards of up to £500 are available. Four calls are held each financial year, and the RDSYH normally funds up to five awards per call, on a competitive basis. A sub-group of the RDSYH’s Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Forum reviewseach application received per call, and approves the specific amount of funding requested for the top rated applications.

Applications received in response to Call 14

Six applications were received in response to Call 14, and the RDSYH agreed to fund4 of these applications.The total amount of funding allocated at Call 14 was £1814.

Summary of the successful applications to Call 14

Lead applicant / Employer / PPI funding allocated / Funding scheme being applied to
Saba Balasubramanian / Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust / £425 / NIHR Health Technology Assessment
Henry Smithson / University of Sheffield / £489 / NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research
Annalena Venneri / Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust / £500 / N/A – funding awarded to establish a PPI panel for dementia research for South Yorkshire
Martin Wilkie / Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust / £400 / NIHR Health Technology Assessment and NIHR Research for Patient Benefit

Characteristics of successful and unsuccessful applications received between Call 1-Call 14

Successful applications have the following characteristics:

  • A clear description of the grant application being planned, with the likely impact on patients and the NHS well justified
  • A good mix of clinical and methodological co-applicants involved in the development of the grant
  • Full details were provided of the specific contributions that patients and the public will be asked to make during the development of the grant (e.g. commenting on the choice of outcomes and outcome measures, method and timing of participant recruitment etc.)
  • Costings were detailed and fully justified
  • Consideration was given to issues of burden and fatigue – i.e. the method and length of involvement activities were appropriate to the type(s) of patients and members of the public that the applicant intends to involve in the development of the grant

Unsuccessful applications had one or more of the following characteristics:

  • Insufficient detail provided of the grant application being planned
  • No named co-applicants, suggesting that a team has not yet been assembled to develop the grant
  • Poor attention to detail – numerous typos, use of jargon and evidence that the application had not been proof-read prior to submission
  • Incomplete, inaccurate or unjustified costings. For example, some applications included a costing for venue hire within the lead applicant’s host institution, without any justification of why a charge for room hire would be levied
  • Failure to convince the reviewers of the value of the proposed research to the NHS or to patients
  • Failure to convince the reviewers that the applicants have the necessary skills and experience to work with specific population groups (e.g. children, people from black and minority ethnic groups)
  • Failure to convince the reviewers of the potential success of the future grant, or the research experience of the applicants.
  • Lack of detail regarding how PPI would form a part of the research assuming the grant was successfully awarded
  • A lack of clarity as to the specific type of patient/public to be actively involved in the grant
  • The intention to use the grant to collect pilot data
  • The intention to use the grant to provide continuity funding for a PPI panel already in existence
  • A lead applicant submitted more than one application to the same call (only one application per lead applicant per call will be accepted).
  • For applications to establish topic-specific PPI panels, the topic area for the proposed panel was considered to be too wide, meaning that there was a danger that the public would be asked to review applications about which they had no first-hand experience
  • The applicant has applied to the RDSYH for PPI funding having already submitted their grant application
  • The reviewers questioned the appropriateness of the funding scheme being targeted for the proposed research
  • The application was not in scope

Dr Jonathan Boote

Research Fellow, NIHR Research Design Service for Yorkshire and the Humber

23rd July 2013

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