Additional guidance to applicants requesting support for the establishment, maintenance or use of cohort resources
In addition to the general criteria for assessment, applicants should take account of the following factors:
Scientific Potential and Importance
It is important that all grant applications which include elements of infrastructure support for new or existing cohorts make clear what new health research questions or hypotheses it will be possible to answer over the next five to ten years using the cohort resource. This is required regardless of whether or not the grant application is requesting funding towards investigating any of these specific research questions.
For existing resources, grant applications must also contain an explicit statement on what research has been done using the cohort, including publications, and what the impacts have been.
Applications must also detail:
- Why can this science be addressed using this cohort above other resources?
- What does this cohort offer that other cohorts do not (nationally and internationally) and how does it relate to other relevant cohorts? Applicants should either list the assets (measures, specimens, population group) as an Annex or reference the cohort website.
- What are the plans for establishing the cohort as a resource – how is it/will it be used by the wider research community?
Resources Requested
The grant application must make clear what new activities, including new data sweeps or new analysis of existing cohort data, will be carried out as part of the grant. Applicants must be clear which costs relate to de novo data collection, analysis of new data and/or maintenance or use of existing data.
There should be complete transparency in the funding being requested, particularly when resources are funded by more than one funder. Applicants must make clear which elements of the cohort resource and studies are funded by whom and over what period.
Data sharing and preservation
In line with MRC policy on data sharing and preservation, applicants must specify the proposed arrangements for data access, data sharing and curation. Appropriate costs to support these elements of the work must be included in the funding requested and applicants should take care to clarify exactly which costs are associated with data sharing, data curation and/or data access.
Applications should also outline:
- Governance arrangements for data sharing and data access by the wider research community. This should include the process by which third parties apply to use the cohort and how and by whom proposals are assessed.
- Where and how the cohort meta-data will be made available.
- The time-frame under which any new data obtained will be added to the cohort resource. Renewals must also demonstrate that previous funding for data sweeps has enriched the cohort.