Pump-priming grants
**Round #3 is now closed**
The VALIDATE Network aims to accelerate vaccine research and development for complex intracellular pathogens that cause diseases significant to low and middle-income countries (LMIC), with an initial focus on Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Leishmania spp, Burkholderia pseudomallei and Mycobacterium leprae. The Network’s priorities lie in cross-pathogen, cross-discipline, cross-species and cross-continent research, with the aim of making step-change progress towards efficacious vaccines targeting these pathogens.
Grants are available for pump-priming projects of up to £50,000 (at 100% FEC), via competitive application to the Network Management Board (NMB). Projects should run for a maximum of 12 months and should lead to relevant and useful data for the field, or produce pilot data that will lead to a larger grant application to an external funder. Projects must be scientifically excellent, and fall within the VALIDATE remit. The NMB particularly encourage projects including any of the following: cross-pathogen research, cross-discipline research, projects promoting the One Health agenda, in vivo research, translational research, collaborative projects led by and/or involving LMIC researchers, new collaborations between VALIDATE members, projects led by and/or including Early Career Researchers, projects with industry involvement.
Awards are open to all VALIDATE Investigators and Associates, but projects must have at least one Investigator involved. Projects must include VALIDATE members (Investigator or Associate) from at least two different Institutes and all collaborators must be VALIDATE members. Awards in round 3 may include Affiliate members who were at the VALIDATE 2nd Annual Meeting Ideas Laboratory as collaborators*.
All awardees will be required to submit narrative and financial reports at 6 and 12 months. All awardees must agree to sharing unpublished project data via the VALIDATE portal (a secure area only accessible to Network members who have signed the VALIDATE CDA) to accelerate the progression towards development of efficacious vaccines for these pathogens.
The third VALIDATE pump-priming grant round is now closed. When a new round opens, please read our application guidance document (below) before drafting your application. Please submit your application form and associated documents as one pdf document by 4pm (UK time) on the closing date to our Network Management Team (Sam at validate@ndm.ox.ac.uk). Please also contact Sam with any queries about the grant call (see also FAQ document below).
Resources
UK Government information on ODA strategic objectives
List of LMIC countries
Pump-priming grant call deadlines
Round 4 - Upcoming
Call opens: July 2019
Call closes: October 2019
NMB review meeting: November 2019
Outcomes: December 2019
Round 3 - awarded
Call opens: 29 November 2018*
Call closes: 12 February 2019
NMB review meeting: March 2019
Outcomes: April 2019
Round 2 - awarded
Call opens: 06 April 2018
Call closes: 14 June 2018
NMB review meeting: July 2018
Outcomes: August 2018
Round 1 - awarded
Call opens: 04 October 2017
Call closes: 31 October 2017
NMB review meeting: 08 November 2017
Outcomes: by 22 November 2017
* Our round 3 pump-priming call was also open to Affiliates who were at Day 2 of the 2018 Annual Meeting. This is because we ran an Ideas Laboratory that day where we generated ideas for pump-priming projects, so it would have been unfair to exclude those Affiliates who were involved in these discussions. Other Affiliates were not eligible for the call, as per our usual rules.
