Application development support grant application guidance

The person who the grant is for and who has overall responsibility for the management of the grant and the primary contact. The applicant will sign the award letter and ensure the grant terms and conditions are adhered to. The applicant will also be responsible for reporting to the charity.

The title should be descriptive while accurately reflecting the project.

The start date should be within a reasonable period of the notification of outcome. The date should be realistic to allow enough time for any necessary activities or approvals. The start date can be changed if your application is successful, within reason.

Projects are for up to six months.

Indicate the location of the project. Tick all that apply.

This will be in GBP and will be up to £10,000.

You should outline how the application complements or aligns with the RFL research and development strategy. 

Describe your research experience to date. This can include any grants, taking part in a research study, involvement in drafting research manuscripts, attending research conferences and undertaking research. 

Describe how you will use the time allocated to develop a prospective research application to a funder. 

Consider how you would best make use of the time allocated. You may wish to include a breakdown of the time you will spend on different activities, such as desk-based research, attending training and meetings and time spent on writing an application. 

You should include key milestones as well as a timeline. 

A Gantt chart or simple diagram can be included if desired. 

Outline the support that will be provided by your research supervisor/​mentor. You should include details such as frequency of meetings and specific areas where support will be provided. 

Give details of any other sources of support, such as colleagues you can approach for guidance with specific areas. 

Identify any relevant courses you require and explain why these are needed. 

You should mention any training support your host institution will provide and how this will be delivered, as well as any facilities you will have access to.

Include any conferences, shadowing, and other relevant items in this section. Give a brief justification for how these items will contribute to your development and development of a prospective application.

Provide a short summary of your planned area of research. This should briefly summarise the background and the importance of the topic, and the broad research techniques you would employ. 

Describe the challenge you’re seeking to address through research, the current state of knowledge and the work leading up to this application, if any. You should include why the research is needed referencing any gaps in knowledge and how your future research might contribute to addressing such gaps.

Describe what the impact may be from a future research project. In addition to the potential patient benefit, this can also include academic impact, such advancing knowledge and understanding. You should also include any wider benefit, such as to RFL or potentially the NHS, if applicable.

Outline how you would approach your research topic and the main methodological approaches. You should explain how these methodological approaches might help you answer your research question. Statistical methods should be included if these are already known, and you may also reference relevant supporting data. 

The research approach described does not need to be detailed but enough information should be presented to help the panel make an informed decision.

Applicants are encouraged to outline any significant risks to delivering the research, and what steps will be put in place to help mitigate or resolve them.

You may include figures, such as graphs, charts or diagrams, if desired. 

Include the references to the research outlined in this application. Full author citations must be included so they are easily accessible.

Describe your project in a one sentence summary that sums up the project.

The summary should include the clinical challenge you’re seeking to address through research and a broad outline of the project you hope to develop, and its possible impact. 

Please do not include any confidential information as this abstract may be published on our website. You should refer to the guides above on plain English summaries.

Patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE) in research helps ensure that research is focused on outcomes that are important to patients and people with lived experience. It also makes the research more relevant by helping to identify and prioritise wider research questions that researchers may not have considered.

Involvement in research is defined as research being carried out ​‘with’ or ​‘by’ members of the public rather than ​‘to’, ​‘about’ or ​‘for’ them. Involvement does not refer to the recruitment of patients or the public in a clinical trial. 

More information is available in NIHR’s briefing notes for researchers who are new to PPIE or have limited experience.

If appropriate and given the diverse communities served by RFL, applications should demonstrate consideration of diversity and inclusion that are relevant to the research aims. You should take into account whether characteristics such as sex, gender, age and ethnicity are relevant. If diversity is not considered, the outcomes of the research may have limited applicability.

Provide details of any additional support, financial and non-financial, for this application. It can include support from RFL or other sources. If you have access to a special purpose fund that is contributing to this application, please include the details.

This can include providing specific expertise, materials, access to patients or specialised equipment. If collaborations are in place, provide details of the collaborator(s).

Please include grant scheme name, funder, and other details such as grant round dates and funding amounts if known. Please include all schemes you are considering. 

Describe how you have considered the environmental impact of this grant and the measures, if any, in place to reduce the impact on the environment. This can include alignment with RFL’s relevant policies. You should also consider:

• The impact of travelling to meetings and whether this is essential
• How will you reduce consumable and plastic wastage? Examples include using glass instead of plastic and recycling instead of using disposal single use items
• How will research team members contribute to sustainability?

Please note that if two applications are judged to be equal by the research review panel, further weight will be given to the answer to this question.

If any part of the grant intended to pay a third-party, please provide details. Please note this refers to a third-party delivering a service or supplies that requires a specific contract between RFL or UCL and the third-party for this project. We are not referring to a third-party supplier of general consumables or general supplies. 

If anyone named on this application is conflicted with the third-party, please provide details. Please also provide details of any potential conflict of interest (CoI) with any RFL/UCL member of staff connected with the third-party. Conflicts include outside employment contracts (including pharmaceutical companies), shareholdings, directorships, advisory roles, gifts and hospitality. The list is indicative and you should refer to the relevant trust or UCL CoI webpage for further details. 

If any patient identifiable data being used in any part of this project or moved to any third-party, anonymised or otherwise, please provide details. You should explain what assurances are in place in relation to the retention of the data.

If you have answered ​‘yes’ to any of the above questions, please confirm you have read the relevant conflicts of interest policy. For RFL applications: Trust’s conflict of interest policy and for UCL applications: UCL’s conflicts of interest policy.

If you answered yes to any question in this section, please confirm that the conflict of interest relevant to the application has been registered on the trust or UCL platform. For RFL applications you must attach the trust Declaration of Interest Notice approval e‑mail when submitting your application. For UCL applications, you must attach UCL’s e‑mail confirming that the conflict has been approved or it has been determined there is no conflict.

Please also confirm that a contract exists between any third-party supplier and either the trust or UCL, and has been approved by the relevant contracts department and signed by an authorised signatory. If this can only be progressed after the grant is awarded, confirmation will be required at a later date. RFC will not make payments to a third-party without confirmation that the contract has been approved. 

The trust/​UCL is ultimately responsible for fulfilment of the contractual agreement. If needed, please insert clause below into any contract:

“The Royal Free Charity is acting as the recipient of these funds. The Royal Free Charity holds no liability, and it is the RFL/UCL (delete as appropriate) that is ultimately responsible for the fulfilment of the contract and holds all liability. This includes delivery and financial contractual obligations.” 

List your present and last employment position. Include any further positions that you think are relevant to the application.

Provide the details of any completed qualification(s) and education, and where relevant, the details of any qualifications or training you are currently undertaking.

List any professional bodies that you are a member of, such as royal colleges, societies and professional organisations.

If applicable, list all your current grants and any other closed grants that you think are relevant to the application. 

If applicable, list your most important research publications that are relevant to the application and any others you think would aid your application.

Provide details of any prizes, awards or achievements that would be relevant to your application including details of what the award was for.

Provide the details of your line manager.

Provide details of your research supervisor/​mentor.

The research supervisor/​mentor will support the applicant during the award and provide guidance on the research project. In addition to providing research support, the supervisor/​mentor should have an understanding of the relevant clinical and research sector the application is based on.

The supervisor/​mentor should provide a supporting statement providing details of their commitment to supporting the applicant to undertake the research project, how they will supervise the applicant and assess progress. 

The supervisor’s research CV should also be attached when submitting the application. 

You must include the salary cost contribution for up to 0.2 FTE (1 day per week), for a maximum of six months. 

You can include costs for research training and this cost should be included and itemised.

If you are only requesting salary costs, you do not need to complete this section.

Provide a detailed justification for the costs requested in this application, clearly outlining how these relate to the objectives and proposed timescales. The justification should be sufficiently detailed to allow the panel and charity to have an informed opinion on the need of the costs requested.

If this application is associated with any additional funding from another funder or other source, provide details including whether the funding has been granted or an application has been submitted. You should also outline how the matched funding complements this application.