MRC: UK-São Paulo/Brazil Neglected Infectious Diseases Joint Centre Partnerships, Jun 2018
The Medical Research Council (MRC) and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) are pleased to invite proposals to the UK-São Paulo/Brazil Neglected Infectious Diseases Joint Centre Partnerships Initiative under the umbrella of the Newton Fund.
This initiative will provide funding for high quality collaborative Joint Centre Partnerships focussed on addressing Neglected Infectious Diseases in Brazil.
Aim
Through this initiative, the funders are seeking to provide substantive support for UK-São Paulo collaborative joint centre partnerships to address neglected infectious diseases of relevance to Brazil. The funders wish to support proposals with the aim of:
- enhancing existing partnerships and developing new partnerships between the UK and São Paulo-Brazil in the area of Neglected Infectious Diseases
- supporting collaborative research
- supporting the mobility and exchange of UK and Brazilian researchers to enhance links between researchers in both countries
- strengthening the strategic relationship between the UK and Brazil.
Objectives
The objective is to deliver significant three-year research funding for internationally competitive and innovative collaborative partnerships between researchers from Brazil and the UK to enable the pursuit of shared research interests.
Scientific remit
Proposals may focus on, but are not limited to, the following disease areas:
- vector borne viruses including Dengue fever, Zika, Chikungunya, Yellow fever
- rotaviruses
- parasitic Infections including Leishmaniasis, Filariasis, Chagas disease, Schistosomiasis, helminth and giardiasis
- emerging viruses
- water-borne diseases
- neglected bacterial infections including Leprosy.
Proposals with a focus upon HIV, TB and Malaria have been excluded from this call.
The funders welcome proposals across the full spectrum of research including, but not limited to:
- basic, fundamental and exploratory research relevant to disease pathogens of immune response to infection
- epidemiology, aetiology, determinants of transmission, severity of disease etc
- human Disease relevant vector control research
- host pathogen response, development of protective immune responses
- development of diagnostics, predictive biomarkers
- development of novel preventatives, therapeutics and other interventions
- public health, prevention and implementation research.
However, the expectation is that proposals will tackle key research question(s) of relevance to addressing these diseases specifically in the Brazilian context.
Beyond the expected outputs regarding the publication of scientific articles, thesis and dissertations, projects funded under this scheme should have scientific outcomes of relevance to the development of approaches addressing the prevention, treatment, diagnosis or control of neglected infectious diseases in Brazil.
Given the funding available, it is not proposed that the research will involve large scale efficacy trials.
Joint Centre Partnerships
A Joint Centre Partnership (JCP) is not a physical entity, but rather an agreed collaboration and a way of working together. The Centre Partnerships will be jointly funded by the UK and FAPESP. Each JCP will have one node in the UK and one node in São Paulo-Brazil. The two nodes in each JCP may comprise of a group of investigators based in a single academic institution, or a wider group of investigators at more than one institution, but who will be co- ordinated through the national node. The JCP will ensure cohesive working to deliver the planned research through strong governance and a robust overall management strategy.
Both of the nodes in a JCP will provide intellectually stimulating environments and maximum knowledge transfer capabilities: facilitating excellent collaborative research. They will also have an important role in capacity development in a focused area, developing outstanding researchers with specialist and transferable skills.
Each JCP will deliver a core research programme supported by a range of partnering activities. Where applicable, project partners should align existing resources and infrastructure to augment their research programme. It is anticipated that the two nodes within the centre partnership will provide complementary skills and expertise and/or will jointly provide a coherent critical mass that will drive a step change in research. The JCP will ensure cohesive working to deliver the planned research through strong governance and a robust overall management strategy.
The types, and combinations, of activities which can be supported are flexible. Partnership activities will not be prescribed and a programme of activities should be developed and justified by the applicants. The following activities are examples of partnership activities which could be supported:
By MRC and FAPESP (alongside the collaborative research programme):
- Research staff exchanges, including short and longer term visits, exchange of PhD students, post-doctoral researchers and visiting fellows.
- Enabling the sharing of key resources across the partner centres (for example datasets, training guides, protocols for data collection and management) across the partner institutions.
- Supporting wider activities to strengthen links, for example holding symposia, workshops, seminars, meetings etc.
- Joint impact and knowledge exchange.
- Outreach activities, which may include engaging stakeholders, the public, decision makers, policy makers, industry etc.
- Open access of data and outputs.
By MRC only;
- Resourcing for programme management.
- The establishment of adjunct faculty positions at the partner centres.
- Establishment of specific faculty positions at partner centres or shared directors.
It is expected that the research effort on both sides should be comparable. We would not expect a centre partnership to request over £1.15m from the MRC. Projects must be three years in length.
For the full call text please visit the MRC grant call webpage.
