The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is inviting applications for funding for research evaluating interventions for the diagnosis and treatment of autoimmune diseases.
The funding programme is designed to build on its existing portfolio by encouraging applications that utilise novel or efficient study designs. Suggested topics include the repurposing of existing interventions, including pharmaceuticals, cell therapies, diagnostics, and studies evaluating biomarkers for diagnosis, to guide treatment, to monitor treatment response or to predict relapse/remission. The discovery of novel biomarkers is excluded from this round of funding. Areas of interested are not limited to these examples.
Ineligible studies include the following:
- Large effectiveness studies that test the effect of the introduction of an intervention in the wider NHS.
- Hypothesis-generating studies based on sample or data collections from patient cohorts.
- Confirmatory studies, equivalence studies, 'confidence in effect' studies or studies of incremental modifications to existing interventions.
- Research into areas where the health need is primarily outside the UK.
- Any research involving animals or animal tissues.
The closing date for stage 1 is April 16, 2020. Applications will be assessed and considered for shortlisting at the Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation Programme (EME) Funding Committee meeting in June 2020. If shortlisted, applicants will be invited to submit a stage 2 application for consideration at the EME Funding Committee meeting in October 2020. It is expected that applicants will be informed applicants of the outcome within a month of the meeting and contracts will be signed within approximately nine months after the date of the outcome letter.
Full details of the application process and the qualifying criteria are available on the NIHR website.