MRC Impact Accelerator Account - Round 4
About the Funding
The Tropical Infectious Disease Consortium (TIDC) has been awarded £1.6 million from the Medical Research Council (MRC) via the Impact Acceleration Account (IAA). The TIDC is a strategic partnership between Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), UK Health Security Agency (formally PHE), London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the University of Oxford and has been expanded for this call to include the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Pirbright Institute (TPI).
The fund will provide awards, typically in the region of £50k (higher award values will be considered for those projects that incur higher running costs), for projects (lasting between 6 and 12 months) that accelerate the transition from discovery science into the early/late stages of therapeutic, diagnostic and vaccine development by supporting key feasibility studies to establish the viability of an approach or generate the materials/technologies for ongoing translational activity.
The fund is intended to accelerate relevant translational activities so projects should aim to provide sufficient preliminary data to establish the viability of an approach and the market need for its outputs – i.e., to provide confidence in the underlying concept that would leverage more substantive funding from external funders. Please note: Ineligible costs include administration costs (FEC & Overheads), industrial partners’ costs, staff between posts (bridging funds), PhD studentships, Open Access fees, and continuation of normal research grants.
Eligibility
- Applications are required to have a Principal Investigator (PI) from one of the Consortium’s partner institutions. The PI would typically be a research active member of staff that meets the following criteria:
- Contract duration longer than IAA project
- MIN 4years PDRA experience or equivalent
- Previous experience/evidence in securing funding OR in research project leadership role (evidence required in application form)
Eligible individuals can submit multiple applications but, if successful, only their top scoring project will be funded.
A weighting will be added to the GPA if the project involves collaborations with SMEs/Pharma, and/or that involve collaboration between more than one partner institution, but these must be led by an eligible individual from one of the partner institutes.