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National Prevention Research Initiative Phase 4

This call is now closed for applications and is available for reference purposes only.

The National Prevention Research Initiative (NPRI) funds research aimed at improving health and at preventing diseases or conditions such as cancer, heart and circulatory diseases, diabetes, obesity, stroke and dementia. The initiative supports research on behaviours associated with significant risks to health, such as poor diet, physical inactivity, smoking and alcohol consumption, and on the environmental factors that influence those behaviours.

Further information about the NPRI, including previous calls and research funded, can be found in the research initiatives section.

If you have been invited to submit a full application to Phase 4, please refer to your invitation letter and guidance and apply using the Je-S system.

 

NPRI phase 4 is supported by the following funding partners:

 

Funding landscape

The funders of health and medical research in the UK aim to work together to expand and advance the evidence base in order to improve health and decrease disease. A number of complementary programmes exist to support interventions and evaluations in population health sciences research, and the following link clarifies and highlights four key schemes.

Strategic aims

The NPRI has three strategic aims:

  • To provide additional funds and infrastructure support to increase the amount of high-quality research aimed at improving health and preventing the incidence of new cases of major preventable diseases or conditions;
  • To encourage and facilitate cross-disciplinary collaborations in UK preventative research; and
  • To encourage research aimed at risk reduction, especially in communities or social groups with a high incidence of preventable diseases or conditions, and explore approaches to reduce inequalities in incidence of these diseases or conditions.

 

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Focus of the phase 4 call

Phase 4 will support cross-disciplinary research which develops, tests or evaluates interventions that can potentially have a major impact on population health, using the full range of evaluation methods, including experimental and quasi-experimental (or observational) designs and natural experiments. (Projects could include technical, engineering or physical sciences research approaches).

 

Research funded through the call will be translational and must be relevant to, or directly impact on, policy and/or practice.

 

Research will:

  • develop interventions (including work to understand the underpinning basis);
  • test efficacy of interventions;
  • evaluate effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions; and/or
  • evaluate methods for encouraging the uptake or implementation of interventions known to be effective.

 

Interventions with a strong element of joint or communal exposure - characteristic of population-level and community-level interventions - are especially welcome but applications will also be received for individual-level interventions.

 

In the context of this call, a population-level or community-level intervention is one that is delivered to the entire population or a well-delineated community except where the community is defined by an existing biomarker, health status or health outcome. The key element is that exposure to the intervention is communal. Examples include public bans, legal or fiscal measures such as price increases, advertising restrictions or warning labels, public or community-based education campaigns or the provision of public or community-based guidance.

 

An individual-level intervention should be considered one where the mechanism of exposure is not communal and is determined by selection on the basis of an existing biomarker or health status. Examples include one-to-one counselling or personalised guidance.

 

The following multiple example explores differences between intervention types.

  • An intervention in which vouchers for healthier food options (from Supermarket X) are posted to everyone in the country would be a population-level intervention;
  • An intervention in which vouchers for healthier food options (from Supermarket X) are posted to everyone in a specific city using the postcode address file (say, perhaps to focus on a specific deprived community), would be a community-level intervention;
  • An intervention in which vouchers for healthier food options (from Supermarket X) are available to all shoppers at the entrance of outlets in a specific city, would be a community-level intervention; but
  • An intervention in which vouchers for healthier food options (from Supermarket X) are offered to any individual, or any family with an individual member, who has been selected because of a specific biomarker (for example, Body Mass Index) or health status (for example, overweight), would be an individual-level intervention.

 

Studies that focus on long-term behaviour change are particularly welcomed, and applicants should be able to indicate they have considered societal factors, health inequalities and the diversity of human culture and condition. Applications relating to multiple health behaviours or health outcomes will be received positively. Outcome measures must be clearly stated and justified, although it is not necessary that specific disease endpoints are measured or available.

 

Applicants will wish to reflect on intervention feasibility, replicability, scalability, specificity, acceptability and sustainability as well as comparability with other interventions.

 

Researchers are encouraged to involve relevant users in the development of their applications. Partnerships are encouraged where possible, for example between or among academia, national government and agencies (for example, the NHS), local government and agencies (for example, local education departments), community groups and industry. Applicants should explain what organisations would be approached and how they would be involved.

 

The proposed research must be relevant to multiple funding organisations and meet the strategic aims of the NPRI.

 

To be relevant to primary prevention research should focus on healthy individuals or target individuals at particular risk of chronic non-communicable diseases or conditions such as some cancers, heart and circulatory diseases, diabetes, obesity, stroke and dementia (for example, obese individuals, or patients with impaired glucose tolerance). In addition, prevention of a disease or condition within a specific patient group where the preventable disease is either unrelated to or may be a future sequela of the patient’s current condition is also within the remit (for example, prevention of cardiovascular disease in diabetic patients with no current cardiovascular disease diagnosis).

The call excludes aetiological studies.

 

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Funds available and types of awards

Approximately £10 million is available through this call and awards will be made on the basis of full economic costs (fEC) at approximately 68 per cent to reflect collaborative funding from research councils, charities and government departments.

 

The financial support requested on individual applications should be calculated at 100 per cent FEC and determined on the basis of the proposed research and fully justified. Individual applications may be of any size, including ambitious high-value applications including those which might not normally be supported by a single organisation.

 

Awards will be for a maximum of five years.

 

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Application process, timetable and assessment procedure

The MRC will manage the call and administer the awards on behalf of the NPRI funding partners.

 

If you have been invited to submit a full application to Phase 4, please refer to your invitation letter and guidance and apply using the Je-S system.

 

Key dates are indicated below. Outline applications will be short-listed by the scientific committee and only invited full applications may be submitted. Feedback to the applicants of unsuccessful outlines will be minimal.

 

The full applications will be internationally peer-reviewed and assessed by the scientific committee which will make funding recommendations to the funding partners. The decisions of the funding partners will be final.

  • Launch of call for outline proposals: 3 September 2010;
  • Deadline for receipt of outline proposals: 3 November 2010;
  • Scientific committee meeting to assess outlines: early February 2011;
  • Notification of outcome (outlines): early March 2011;
  • Deadline for receipt of invited full applications: 10 May 2011;
  • Scientific committee meeting to assess applications: late Sept 2011;
  • Funding partners to make funding decisions: early November 2011;
  • Notification of outcome (full applications): mid November 2011;
  • Earliest possible start date of projects: January 2012.

 

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Eligibility

The initiative follows standard MRC eligibility criteria with respect to individual applicants and is open to any UK-based researcher who can demonstrate that they will direct the proposed research and be actively engaged in carrying it through. Please see the applicant handbook for further details.

 

An eligible individual may submit a maximum of either (i) one proposal as a PI and one as a co-applicant, or (ii) two proposals as a co-applicant. An individual may be a collaborator on any number of proposals in addition to the above.

 

Eligible institutions include UK higher education institutions, Research Council institutes, and eligible Independent Research Organisations (IROs). All IROs listed on the RCUK web page are eligible to apply. For this initiative only, eligibility is extended to government departments and their agencies.

 

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Case for support

Invited full applications will be submitted via the MRC Je-S and include a detailed case for support and refined budget. Details will have been given to invited applicants. 

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Terms and conditions of award

Awards funded through NPRI will follow the standard MRC terms and conditions with a small number of additions or amendments relating to: the provision of annual reports; attendance at annual scientific meetings or other meetings as requested; publication and acknowledgement of support; and intellectual property and revenue sharing.

 

The MRC terms and conditions spell out the responsibilities of the principal investigator and the host institution which will be required to agree to these as part of the award process. The principal investigator will be required to signify acceptance of these terms and conditions before an award is made. It will be a condition of all awards that any data originating from the study will be made publicly available.

 

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Monitoring and performance

Grant holders will be required to submit information to the MRC’s evaluation and monitoring tool, MRC e-Val.

 

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Guidance and queries

In the first instance please refer to all documentation relating to the call, especially the guidance notes, MRC applicants handbook and the J-eS system help pages which will guide you through the standard processes for preparing a proposal and costing your proposals.

 

If you still have a query specific to this call, please contact

Dr Marlie Ferenczi
Telephone: 020 7670 5485
Email: marlie.ferenczi@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk

 

Queries relating to J-eS should be directed to the J-eS Helpdesk

 

The MRC website provides useful documentation and links relevant to ethics and research governance policy and guidance including, for example, those relating to clinical research governance; data access open; data sharing initiative; ethics; good research practice; open access publishing; and the Regulatory Support Centre providing toolkits and guidance.

 

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