Medical Sciences Internal Fund: Pump priming

 Eligible applicants must:

• Be early career researchers who are looking to establish their own research niche, but who are not yet driving their own independent research. Applicants can hold the job title of Post-doctoral Researcher, Clinical Research Fellow, Research Scientist, or equivalent.

• Hold a contract of employment with one of the departments within the Medical Sciences Division

• Have completed their DPhil/PhD. If you have completed your doctoral project but not yet graduated, you must have been granted leave to supplicate at the time of submitting a funding application.

You are not eligible to apply if you are:

• A student
• An honorary or visiting member of a department
• A Principal Investigator/Group Leader, or if you hold an equivalent 'independent' research position that includes responsibility for developing and leading your own research agenda. Independent researchers should consider the John Fell Fund as a source of internal funding.

Eligible costs

The maximum application value is £12,000. All costs must be well-justified in meeting the project objectives.

Any directly incurred non-staff research costs, including equipment, are eligible for funding. Travel and subsistence may be funded where they are essential for achieving the project's objectives. Travel to conferences or costs for hosting meetings (e.g. room hire and catering) are unlikely to be funded. Applicant salary costs to conduct the project, bridging salary and article processing charges (APCs)/Open Access fees are NOT eligible costs. 

Staff costs may only be requested to pay salary of support staff providing a specialist service, for example, Research Nurses, Pharmacists, Animal Technicians, etc. It is expected that any staff costs requested will represent a percentage of the staff member’s working hours for the period of the project and be for a specific purpose (for example one day per week of Research Nurse time for three months to collect blood samples). Salary for a research assistant to conduct the research project is NOT an eligible cost. If you are applying for staff costs, you must ask your Department Grants team to prepare an X5 costing and attach an X5 Admin Output to your application.

If you are not sure if the costs you want to request are eligible, please contact mrf@medsci.ox.ac.uk before submitting your application.

Letters of Support

All postdoctoral researchers applying to the scheme must have a letter of support attached from their line manager confirming that the applicant has time to complete the project on top of their normal responsibilities. 

Additional letters of support, particularly that detail department support, facilities, and/or the environment underpinning the project, are recommended. 

Please submit your application online via the Internal Research Award Management System (IRAMS).

Guidance on using IRAMS for applicants, departmental approvers, and administrators can be found on the Research Support pages.

Applications to all scheme categories are considered in parallel and applications to one category are not prioritised for funding over another.

Post-doctoral researchers who are eligible to apply for a Goodger and Schorstein Scholarship are recommended to select that category on the application form. Only one G&S Scholarship is usually awarded per round to the top-ranked applicant for the Scholarship. All other applications for G&S Scholarships will be considered alongside the other applications to the MSIF Pump Priming scheme and if selected will be awarded from the other source of funds.

Note that some departments may have set an earlier internal deadline so please check with your local admin team and prepare your application well in advance of the advertised deadline date. Applications must be reviewed online for eligibility and departmental support by departmental approvers and, where approved, submitted to the Committee for review. 

Please complete the application form (Case for Support template) that is available for download from IRAMS. You must include a maximum two-page summary of the research proposal using the headings in the Project Description section. Please include a list of references where appropriate, which is addition to the 2-page limit for this section.

Submit the completed Case for Support template combined with a one-page CV for the Lead Applicant, an X5 Admin Output (only if the budget includes eligible staff costs) and a letter of support from your line manager as a single PDF.

Applications, scores, and reviewer comments may be shared with other internal University panels to ensure maximum value for money.

To check for the next deadline and to apply to the Scheme, please search for the Medical Sciences Internal Fund: Pump-Priming in the Internal Research Award Management System (IRAMS).

Outcomes for each round will be announced approximately 6-8 weeks after each application deadline. Application rounds will be advertised through the University's communications channels and will be visible in IRAMS.

For more information on the MSIF Pump Priming scheme, please contact mrf@medsci.ox.ac.uk

Chair: Professor Paul Klenerman

Secretary: Adelyn Wise

Members:

Dr Goylette Chami (Big Data Institute)

Dr Claire Edwards (Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences)

Dr Roman Fischer (Nuffield Department of Medicine)

Professor Paul Klenerman (Nuffield Department of Medicine)

Dr Rogier Mars (Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences)

Dr May Ee Png (Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences)

Professor Ellie Tzima (Radcliffe Department of Medicine)

A representative of the Clinical Academic Graduate School