NIHR GOSH BRC Junior Faculty Conference and Training Support Fund

The NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR GOSH BRC) Junior Faculty Conference and Training Support Fund provides an opportunity for early career researchers to apply for funding to support their attendance at a conference or to attend training. The fund is aimed at early career researchers working on translational research projects across Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH).

The GOSH BRC Junior Faculty has a small amount of funding to award for this call. Applicants to the fund should be actively participating in the conference (e.g. they have been invited to do an oral or poster presentation). The fund is also for training opportunities (e.g. a one-day training course), where it can be demonstrated that the training opportunity would allow the recipient to learn a new skill or knowledge, which could also be shared or implemented within the wider team at GOSH/ICH. In both scenarios, it would be necessary to demonstrate how the conference or training opportunity would benefit the recipient’s career development.

You can apply for the following costs in this call:

1. Registration fees associated with attending a conference/meeting or training course.
2. Travel, accommodation, and subsistence fees associated with attendance at an in-person conference.
3. Applicants can also apply for costs for a PPIE representative to attend the conference where the research due to be presented has been co-produced (i.e., the PPIE representative has collaborated with the researcher from the start to the end of the project, including the generation of knowledge).

For anyone who is interested in applying for the scheme, but circumstances make it challenging to access, please contact brc@gosh.nhs.uk.

Find out more about how awardees have benefited from the Conference and Travel Grant scheme.

• Applicants must be an early career researcher working on translational research projects that align with the BRC remit and hold substantive employment or a studentship contract with either GOSH or ICH, including clinicians, non-clinical, nursing, AHP, pharmacists and health care scientists and any others not mentioned here.
• For this funding call, an early career researcher is defined as a PhD student or someone who is within six years** of receiving their PhD (or equivalent), has ≤£250k in total grant income as Primary Investigator across their career (excluding their own salary e.g., a fellowship grant) and does not hold a tenured academic position.
  • **six years of full-time active research pro rata.
  • Eligibility can be extended for reasons such as caring responsibilities, illness, career breaks or change in profession, clinical activity and any extenuating circumstances that resulted in time away from research. Contact the brc@gosh.nhs.uk if you have any queries regarding your eligibility for this call.
• We expect applications to request no more than £250 (UK)/£500 (Europe)/£750 (beyond UK and Europe) and must be in line with the applicant’s employer’s expenses policy (find out more about UCL's and GOSH's policies). We will not be able to approve expense claims that are not aligned with the relevant policy.
• All applicants should explore and demonstrate whether matched funding from another source is available to attend the conference/meeting/training course.
• For conferences and meetings, applicants should proceed to apply for the fund when they have had an abstract accepted for a poster or an oral presentation. Conformation of this will need to be provided as part of the application form.
• Applicants are only eligible to receive one award from the Junior Faculty Conference and Training fund throughout the BRC term. Therefore, once an applicant has been awarded a Conference and Training fund grant, they will be ineligible to apply again until November 2027.
• Applicants should submit their application at least three months before the planned conference/training course start date. Applications cannot be made for retrospective reimbursement for conferences or training courses already attended.
• Costs associated with the conference or training event need to be fully expensed by 20 March of the financial year they were awarded, but attendance can be after this date.
• NIHR funding is formally not allowed to support any research using animals, the research you present must contain a substantial component of human translational research.
• Awardees must acknowledge the NIHR GOSH BRC in any presentations and produce a short report to feedback to the Junior Faculty on their experience of at the conference or training activity.

You do not need to have had any prior links with the GOSH BRC to be eligible to apply. If you would like to apply, please read and complete the Guidance and Application Form, which should be sent as a word document to the GOSH BRC (BRC@gosh.nhs.uk), along with a copy of your CV at least three months before the conference/training start date.

Applications will be reviewed every three months, the deadlines for applications are as follows:

• 01 February 2024
• 01 May 2024
• 01 August 2024
• 01 November 2024

Applications will be reviewed by a panel of researchers from the NIHR GOSH BRC Junior Faculty committee within 2 weeks of the application deadline. Applicants should expect to hear back on the outcome of their application within two weeks of the deadline. Please submit your application as soon as you know what support is required.

For any queries please contact BRC@gosh.nhs.uk.