e-Pathway: Applying for Funding

Feasibility of sponsorship & insurance

Ensure sponsorship is feasible for your project before submitting the grant application. 

The University will be able to act as the Sponsor for projects where the Chief Investigator (CI) is a member of staff or a student. In specific circumstances the University will also sponsor projects where the CI is not an employee, but the project is supported by one of the UoB Clinical Trials Units. 

It is important that you contact the Research Governance Team as soon as possible to ensure that your project can be sponsored by the University as we will need to check insurance/ indemnity cover. You will need to ensure that insurance cover can be obtained for your project prior to submission of the grant application. Please see Research Governance for more information.

The Research Governance Team will be happy to support you throughout the process if you have any queries or issues. See Applying for University of Birmingham Sponsorship for more information.

Further guidance on project methodology and project types can be found in the 'From Idea to Proposal' section of the e-Pathway. 

Preparing your budget, including excess treatment costs and grant submission

Colleagues in the Research, Strategy and Services Division (RSSD) provide support for funding applications.

The University’s online platform for developing and costing research bids is called Worktribe. This system needs to be used for all research bids being made to any funding body or organisation.

Who needs to approve the budget? 

It is essential that you consult stakeholders who are essential for the delivery of your project as early as possible to ensure that colleagues and institutions are in a position to support your project. 

  • Institute within the university that would host the grant
  • Sponsor
  • NHS and Social Care Partners
  • CTUs 

The NIHR website has further guidance on excess treatment costs and SoECAT. It is important to ensure that these costs are agreed with NHS partners before the grant application is submitted to funders.

Patient & Public Involvement (PPI)

Patient and public involvement (PPI) in the design, management, conduct and dissemination of your project will help you carry out better research. 

Involve patients and service users with lived experience of the researched condition and carers of those with first-hand experience. Involve them as early as possible in the research-planning process, garner a breadth of views and feedback, and engage with PPI at every stage of the project. This will help to:

  • make your research more relevant
  • understand what is acceptable to participants
  • provide participants with clear patient-facing information
  • improve the recruitment and consent process
  • provide participants with a better experience of research
  • better communicate results to participants at the end of the project.

 Want to find out more?

The HRA offer  further guidance on their website, explaining the four principles for meaningful involvement of patients and the public in health and social care research.

The HRA’s checklist provides information about public involvement to researchers applying for REC review.

The UK Standards for Public Involvement are a framework for what good public involvement looks like in all types of research activity.

The NIHR offers guidance for researchers new to public involvement in research.

Research Design Service (RDS) West Midlands has a public involvement fund available to researchers applying for funding.  

Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) team

The PPIE team at UoB offers training, support and resources for research teams. Support is available at any stage of research and all levels of experience. Together with colleagues at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, the PPIE team run twice monthly drop-in advice sessions for researchers keen to talk through how best to plan and carry out involvement and engagement for their projects.

More information can be found on the PPIE website. Get in touch by email at: ppi@contacts.bham.ac.uk

PPI Groups at the UoB

There are a number of established patient and public advisory groups associated with specific health conditions. These include, but aren’t limited to, cancer research, nursing, ageing research.

The Birmingham 1000 Elders group is a group dedicated to bringing researchers and older adults over the age of 60 together to carry out research into how we can age more healthily.

Institute for Mental Health Youth Advisory Group take part in a range of activities including conducting one-to-one consultations with researchers about their proposed research.

More information about PPI groups at UoB can be found by visiting the PPIE website.

Roadmap

Accessible version in the last accordion titled 'e-Pathway index'.  

Quick links

UoB Clinical Research QMS  Glossary of Terms  FAQs

Your Feedback

Developing these pages will be ongoing and, if you share your views and ideas, it will help us to continue to improve this important resource. Therefore, your feedback will help us to improve these page and ensure that it covers everything that you need it to cover. Please complete this feedback form to submit any comments or suggestions. 

e-Pathway index

The clinical research e-Pathway provides a roadmap to the various stages and sub-stages that a researcher may follow during the lifetime of their research project. Click on a link to take yourself to the stage that is of interest, or you can use the roadmap image on each page to navigate through the process.  

From Idea to Proposal

Applying for Funding (current page)

Project Setup

Green Light - Ready to Go?

Project Management

Project End

Need help with your project? See the 'who can help?' section. 

For an overview of the e-Pathway, return to the homepage.