This award provides funding to develop and test solutions to data challenges and make them available to the whole data-driven research community.
Lead applicants must be based at a UK research institution such as a university or research hospital. Lead applicants and co-investigators should have a permanent position or be in a fully-funded position that will continue for the duration of the award.
The lead applicant must be one of our research data community leads. This is not a requirement for other members of the team, including joint-lead applicants. The inclusion of early-career investigators as part of the team is encouraged.
The lead applicants’ host institution will be the ‘lead host institution’. Lead applicants and lead host institutions must also be able to comply with our terms and conditions and will be responsible for all reporting.
We encourage collaborations, but institutions outside of the UK and commercial partners are not eligible to directly receive Cancer Research UK funding.
Remit
This scheme builds on the foundations of our Research Data Strategy and our commitment to building a collaborative and supportive cancer data science community. We do not expect to fund research proposals through this award, but rather an array of approaches to solving challenges that people doing data-driven cancer research face. Each approach that is funded through this award should benefit the whole community undertaking data-driven cancer research, rather than be specific to a single research project or programme.
Examples that could be considered might include but are not limited to:
improving access to, sharing of and/or interoperability of data and samples for cancer research
unlocking previously unavailable data for cancer research
improving understanding of and/or levels of diversity in data for cancer research
Mechanisms through which solutions could be developed might include but are not limited to:
development of tools, resources, services, templates, position papers, guidance, or standards
partnerships with other organisations
patient and public involvement and engagement activity
in-person meetings and workshops relating to the proposed solutions
We expect to see proposals that align with our Research Data Strategy and will develop new, scalable and generalisable solutions to cancer research data challenges. We also expect proposals to include a plan for evaluating and embedding any solutions across the cancer research data community.
See our cost guidance for more information about eligible costs. Additional scheme specific cost information is provided below.
networking costs, such as reasonable expenses for cross-site meetings for the project team
project-specific equipment or data infrastructure costs
project-specific meeting or workshop costs
What the award can’t support:
PhD studentships
How to apply to this scheme
Application process
You are welcome to contact us at any time for an informal and confidential discussion of any aspect of your proposal before submitting your application.
To apply for this scheme, you must inform your host institution that you intend to apply. Your application will only be submitted to us once they have approved it.
You can open an application through our Flexi-Grant system. Please ensure you complete all online sections of the application and upload the required documents, including a patient and public engagement plan where this is relevant.
Your submitted application will be reviewed by a panel of experts in data science, as well as some patient representatives, and we will invite you to a virtual panel meeting to discuss your proposal with them and answer any questions they may have.
The review panel will judge your proposal based on:
Cancer data relevance and impact – potential value of the proposed work in advancing cancer data-driven research for the benefit of patients and/or the public and providing solutions to common challenges.
Excellent team and collaborative environment – suitability of the team members to carry out the proposed work, with access to the resources and facilities required for the successful fulfilment of the project. This also includes the added value of the proposed collaboration and the individual contributions, as well as the steps taken to ensure effective collaboration.
Alignment with strategy and evidence of capacity/capability building – extent of alignment with our Research Strategy and Research Data Strategy, and evidence that new, scalable and generalisable solutions to cancer research data challenges will be created and embedded across the cancer research data community.
Resources requested – the costs requested in an application should be for the direct costs of the research and be reasonably justified in line with the experimental plans, leveraging existing resources where appropriate.
Cancer Research UK contact details
Once you have read these guidelines, please contact us at researchdata@cancer.org.uk if you have any questions. For help with opening and completing your application in Flexi-Grant, please contact our grants helpline (grants.helpline@cancer.org.uk).
