Funding Opportunity: New collaborations to Support Eating Disorders Research in the UK

Deadline: 16-Nov-22

Apply for funding to work with other researchers to support eating disorders research and increase capacity in the field.

They expect a clear commitment to involving people with lived experience of eating disorders. This should be demonstrated through the development and implementation of the proposed collaborations.

What they are looking for?

The aim of this funding opportunity is to support novel collaborations in eating disorders research.
They want to increase capacity in the field by funding collaborations across diverse groupings of disciplines, including fields adjacent to or not previously involved in eating disorders research.
They will support teams that will enable the exploitation of existing resources, including cross-sectional and longitudinal datasets, as well as the development of new hypotheses and novel approaches.
They aim to improve the underpinning capability for research on the understanding, prevention and treatment of eating disorders across demographics, leading to reduced impact on those with lived experience of eating disorders and their families in the long term.
Applications may be broad in scope or focused on a particular aspect of the broad spectrum of eating disorders, including disordered eating. However, it is expected that all applications will appropriately acknowledge the complexity and variability of these conditions.
Applications should specifically consider the diverse presentation of eating disorders, and the inclusion of underrepresented groups in respect to ethnicity, social class, neurodivergence, gender and sexual orientation.
A key objective of this opportunity is to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration by mobilising academia, industry, the charity sector, local authorities and service providers from associated areas to align their interest to eating disorders research including, but not limited to:
- Mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, as well as overlapping symptoms without clinical diagnosis
- Neurodevelopmental disorders
- Addictive disorders
- Physiological disorders, such as diabetes and obesity
- Socio-cultural risk and protective factors, including body image and social media
- Health inequalities, including lifecourse approaches which draw on longitudinal data
- Integration of creative and arts-based therapies into diagnoses and treatment
- The role and potential of real and virtual community-based approaches.
Examples of the variety of ways the award could be used are described below. However, this list is not exhaustive, and they welcome further ideas that fit within the overall scope:
- Establish practises and methodology that bring medical, biological and social science, arts or humanities together
- Establish a unique shared resource or help to exploit it, for example staff, systems, equipment, seminars or workshops
- Establish a coordinated set of needs-led and complementary networking activities across disciplines, including outreach work, with a defined output, for example between:
  - Clinicians or practitioners and academic researchers
  - Researchers utilising biological, psychological or sociocultural methods, including creative and arts-based therapies
  - Researchers working on different conditions
Enable knowledge sharing or creation across disciplines and organisations (including research, public and charitable organisations)
Establish activities focused on increasing the potential or novel analysis of existing data in this area. This might be through data linkage or addition of measurements to existing cross-sectional and longitudinal data sets, or activities to promote the use and understanding of existing data
Foster or enable a national strategy across the field
Establish standardisation of measurements, tasks or models across the broad range of eating disorders
Develop approaches to eating disorders research that are firmly embedded in the experiences of people with lived experience (PWLE), including family or carers. This could include supporting connections between groups of PWLE of eating disorders with researchers and clinicians
organise training, career development and capacity building for researchers, service providers, clinicians and healthcare students as well as PWLE involved in research.
Funds to support small scale, pump-priming projects may be considered, but specific research questions should not be the focus of the collaboration. These projects should be interdisciplinary, high risk or high gain projects which will demonstrate the novel capability of the collaboration or generate novel
Hypotheses and approaches to further eating disorders research. This includes through secondary analysis of existing data.
Applications taking the below topics into consideration are encouraged, however this is not an exhaustive list and they welcome further ideas that fit with the overall scope:
- Qualitative and quantitative research to increase data on under-represented groups living with eating disorders, such as:
  - Males
  - Middle-aged and older people
  - Ethnic minorities
  - LGBTQ+ individuals
  - neurodiverse people
Qualitative and quantitative research to improve understanding of the large and specific impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on eating disorders, taking into account the intersection with socioeconomic factors and ethnicity.
All areas of research relevant to the UK Research and Innovation (MRC, ESRC and AHRC), Medical Research Foundation and NIHR remit will be considered. Applicants are encouraged to explore how awards could be used to develop interactions across different topics.

Funding Information

Total fund: £4,250,000

Eligibility Criteria

They welcome proposals from a wide range of disciplines, including:
- Medical
- Biological
- Social sciences
- Behavioral sciences
- Arts and humanities.
They particularly encourage applications that encompass disciplines not traditionally involved in eating disorders research to facilitate collaborative novel thinking with regard to the understanding, prevention and treatment of eating disorders.
This funding opportunity is open to applicants from eligible UK-based organisations in accordance with standard UK Research and Innovation practice.
Principal and co-investigators must be based at an eligible research organisation and have a verified Je-S account to apply.
Applications involving early and mid-career researchers are encouraged.
Principal investigators and co-investigators must hold a position at their institution for the duration of the grants. Early and mid-career researchers that do not fit the eligibility criteria may be included in the collaboration as researcher co-investigators.
The funding is not intended to support the continuation of existing research grants or groups, staff between posts or funding (as ‘bridging’ funds), or MSc or PhD studentships.
They expect a clear commitment to involving people with lived experience (PWLE) of eating disorders, including carers, both in the development and implementation of the proposed collaboration.
Recognising the value of regional research and leadership and to encourage capacity building across the UK, applications coming from a single organisation are not permitted. However, for administrative purposes, proposals will be led and submitted by a single UK academic institution or independent research organisation eligible to receive research council funding.
Furthermore, only one application as lead is permitted per applicant institution. Additional involvement in other applications is permissible.
Collaborations with industrial partners should be managed through an MRC Industry Collaboration Framework.
You may also include international co-investigators if they provide expertise not available in the UK. This must be discussed with the programme manager before submission of the application.

For more information, visit MRC.

For more information, visit https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/new-collaborations-to-support-eating-disorders-research/