Deadline: 01-Mar-23
The Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) is currently accepting applications for the 2023 Impact Research Grants Program.
Many promising health promotion research projects gain support to be initiated and piloted, but later on, due to a lack of available funds – or other reasons beyond their control – they are discontinued or disrupted. These interruptions mean that the potential of hard-won health promotion knowledge, community efforts, and investments are not fully realised. These losses are especially significant when research projects have already established an impressive track record for impact and have high translational value for supporting evidence-informed policy and practice.
In 2023, their Impact Research Grants round aims to focus their investment on this gap. They will fund research proposals that can build on an already initiated body of work and catalyse its potential to create greater health promotion impacts in the real world.
Priority Themes
- Healthy and sustainable food systems: Place-based systems interventions focusing on increasing equitable access to nutritious and affordable food from sustainable food systems
- Active communities and sport: Improvements in the built and social environment to promote physical activity in geographic areas or communities that experience greater systemic inequities
- Social connection and mental wellbeing: Community-centred, strength-based models to improve mental wellbeing of people and communities facing significant systemic inequities
- Climate, environment and health: Place-based research to support improved community health, wellbeing, and resilience in areas in Victoria that are more vulnerable to climate change impacts
What’s on offer?
VicHealth has invested in seventeen Impact Research Grants since 2018 and they are excited about expanding this program in 2023. Some key benefits of the 2023 round include:
- Funding between $180,000-$230,000, for research projects to be conducted over 18 to 24 months. They anticipate that up to five grants will be given in this round, with projects to commence by July 2023.
- Access to their Victorian Health Promotion Hub – co-located with VicHealth’s offices in Melbourne’s CBD. As a grant recipient and VicHealth partner, you’ll be able to book a range of workspaces and meeting rooms and connect with other health promotion partners, researchers, and the VicHealth team.
- Access to training opportunities to enhance the knowledge translation and health communications potential of your project.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applications must be submitted by researchers based in Victoria, from:
- A Victorian Administering Institution
- An Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander-led organisation, as long as the application includes an academic partner with an affiliation to a Victorian Administering Institution. The academic partner must provide a Letter of Support confirming their support as part of the application
- The following are additional mandatory eligibility criteria for organisations applying for VicHealth Impact Research Grants.
- Organisations must:
- Have an Australian Business Number (ABN) and a bank account for Electronic Funds Transfer of grant funds
- Undertake research activities solely in Victoria, with a primary focus on undertaking health and wellbeing activities that achieve positive outcomes for the Victorian community
- Be able to work in partnership with VicHealth and others
- If applicable, have satisfactorily fulfilled the requirements of any previous and/or current grants from VicHealth
- Hold all necessary insurances, including Worksafe certificate of currency and public liability insurance of $2 million per event for the proposed project, or, if insurance is not currently held, commits to purchasing all necessary insurances before commencing the project
- Agree to provide insurance certificates when requested by VicHealth
- Not be subject to any current or impending legal action which could impact its financial viability
- Must not have a relationship with the tobacco industry within the past five years.
- VicHealth will consider Impact Research Grant proposals that:
- Address the research priorities
- Demonstrate active engagement with policy makers, practitioners and/or communities
- Do not just describe a health problem, but work towards potentially having a direct influence on health promotion or primary prevention policy and/or practice to ultimately improve the health and wellbeing outcomes of the Victorian community
- Preferred proposals will:
- Include PhD students or early career researchers, thus supporting the development of the next generation of researchers with applied ‘industry’ experience
- Organisations must:
Criteria
- Build on a successfully initiated research project
- Embed equity considerations throughout all stages of the research project
- Actively work in partnership with policy makers, practitioners, and communities
- Specify how the research findings will be strategically disseminated and communicated to communities, policy makers, practitioners and the public more broadly
For more information, visit VicHealth.