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Eligibility

APPLICANT ELIGIBILITY

Researchers must apply for their own bridging salary. It is expected this will give some early career researchers the opportunity to hold their first award in their own name.

Eligible applicants must:

  1. Hold a Chancellors, Masters and Scholars (CMS) contract of employment with the University of Oxford, with an affiliation with a Department within the Medical Sciences Division, where the majority of their time is spent on research, and
  2. Hold a fixed term (or open-ended) externally-funded contract where funding is due to end within 9 months of the call deadline, and
  3. Be no higher than Grade 08S Stage 10 (or the equivalent academic/clinical academic grade based on Total Employer Cost), and
  4. Have submitted, and either be awaiting or have received the outcome of, an external funding application that will fund their salary for at least two years after the end of the bridging period.

Additional notes on eligibility

  • Current DPhil students looking for bridging salary to their first post-doctoral position are not eligible to apply. The fund is only open to current employees of the University.
  • It is a PI’s responsibility to manage their grants and ensure that funding is in place to support their team. The Bridging Salary Scheme is intended to bridge short gaps in funding, particularly those arising due to unforeseen circumstances. It is not a replacement for good financial management of a PI’s grants portfolio.
  • Depending on the demands on the scheme’s budget, MSD may refuse to fund multiple applications received from staff under the same Unit or Group Leader

Eligible costs

In the initial two rounds of the MSD Bridging Salary Scheme, MSD successfully funded 12 researchers across 10 MSD departments at 100% of the required bridging salary. However, the demand for support from the scheme has greatly outpaced the available budget.

Therefore, going forward from the third round (deadline 11 September 2024) departments are asked to contribute 50% of the total cost of the employee’s salary for the bridging period as match funding, enabling more researchers to benefit from the scheme. Further information on how to present this contribution in the application is available on the How to Apply Page.

In exceptional circumstances the percentage of the departmental match funding to be committed may be reduced. To request a reduction, the department’s Head of Administration and Finance (HAF) or their deputy must contact research@medsci.ox.ac.uk on behalf of a potential applicant at least one week before the round’s deadline.

Where the bridging period is less than 6 months, or where the applicant works less than 1 FTE, the MSD Bridging Salary Scheme will fund the amount required to cover the bridging period based on the end and start dates of the applicant’s confirmed funding and the FTE in the applicant’s current contract.

If some or all of a bridging award is not required the unspent budget will be reclaimed to the fund and recycled for another award. Budget cannot be repurposed by the applicant. Non-staff costs are not eligible.

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