Deadline: 17 December 2019
Application are open for Medical Research Council/Arts & Humanities Research Council/ Economic & Social Research Council (MRC/AHRC/ESRC) Adolescence, Mental Health and the Developing Mind: Engagement Awards that is focused on establishing new collaborations, exploring innovative new research directions and building relationships with key stakeholders.
Engagement Awards are awards of up to 12 months aimed at building and strengthening a cross-disciplinary community in the research area of Adolescence, Mental Health and the Developing Mind.
Since its establishment in April 2018, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has sought to promote ground-breaking national programmes in multidisciplinary research. This major new cross-council partnership in Adolescence, Mental Health and the Developing Mind will support multidisciplinary research and innovation that addresses an area of strategic importance aligned with UK government policy research priorities. The programme will be jointly delivered by the Medical Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council.
This call for Engagement Awards is the first investment to be made through this new cross-Council programme. Engagement awards will support the formation of new multidisciplinary collaborations, pilot funding for novel multidisciplinary research and methods development, and enable knowledge exchange between researchers, stakeholders, practitioners, policy makers, young people and those with lived experience of mental health problems.
Scope
Engagement Awards can be used by a multidisciplinary applicant team to fund pilot projects, strengthen existing collaborations and create new ones, build partnerships with key stakeholders and facilitate knowledge exchange. It is expected that this call will support a range of awards that are focused on key research challenges in Adolescence, Mental Health and the Developing Mind. This may include:
- Exploration of the dynamic and complex interaction of factors that impact during adolescence, to understand the high degree of inter-individual heterogeneity and the consequences of genetic, environmental and social interactions for life.
- Understanding the conditions that mitigate risk as well as enable resilience, both during and preceding adolescence.
- Identification of vulnerable young people in school and other settings, including health services and the youth justice system.
- Exploration of novel cross-cutting methods, tools, measures and multimodal datasets, and the basis for an open-science data infrastructure.
- Data collection and the evidence base for mental health support in schools, including understanding and enhancing the education environments that promote learning, healthy behaviours (and reducing antisocial behaviour), positive mental health and wellbeing, executive function and social-emotional skills development.
- How the digital environment influences brain development and function, mental health and mental health problems, risk behaviours, bullying, loneliness and social isolation. How digital technologies can be harnessed to promote positive behaviours and mental wellbeing.
Funding Information
- £1.6M is available to support a number of engagement awards, each of which will receive an award of up to £100k UKRI contribution and will have a duration of up to 12 months. Awards will have a fixed start date of 1st April 2020 and applicants must demonstrate in their proposal that they have plans in place to ensure an efficient start up.
- Funding is intended to cover the operating and supporting costs of the award as well as the pilot studies. Funding will be awarded at 80% FEC and can be requested to cover:
- Investigators Salaries – Investigators can request funds to cover their salary costs for the time spent managing the award. Co-investigators may be included in the application where individuals will have a clearly definable leadership role. Investigator costs should be reasonable and not constitute a significant proportion of the costs of the award. Estate and Indirect costs appropriate to the investigator time on the award can be claimed.
- Administrative support – dedicated resource for administration and coordination of the award may be requested. Costs should be reasonable and not a significant proportion of the total requested resource.
- Organisation of Activities –Funding can be requested for costs involved in running activities such as networking events, working groups, seminars, symposia, short term placements and visits, or people exchange.
- Travel and Subsistence – travel and subsistence enabling collaborations across organisations and geographical locations to develop, this could potentially include internationally and with policy makers, health, social and education sectors, young people and those with lived experience of mental health problems or industry (however, where possible industrial collaborators should meet their own travel costs).
- Pilot research – Pilot projects exploring innovative cross-disciplinary research and methodology ideas. Funds can be requested for post-doctoral and technical staff salary costs, consumables, travel and subsistence and any other costs usually under ‘Directly Incurred’ headings.
Eligibility Criteria
- MRC/AHRC/ESRC welcome proposals from a broad range of researchers with interests related to adolescence, mental health and the developing mind, including health and life sciences, social science, economics, arts and the humanities. MRC is administering this call on behalf of the three Councils, therefore proposals do not necessarily need to fall within the remit of the MRC.
- Standard MRC eligibility criteria apply for Principal Investigators and Co-Investigators. The Principal Investigator must be an eligible UK-based applicant from an institution eligible to receive UKRI funding.
- Public Sector Research Establishments (PSREs) are also eligible to apply. If PSREs wishing to apply have not previously applied for UKRI funding and are not currently designated IRO status they will be required to complete an eligibility form to ensure they have the required research capacity, systems and controls in place to manage the research and grant funding.
How to Apply
Applications should be submitted via single Je-S form given on the website.
For more information, please visit https://mrc.ukri.org/funding/browse/mrc-ahrc-esrc-adolescence-mental-health-and-the-developing-mind/adolescence-mental-health-developing-mind-engagement-awards/