A new fund launched this week will give researchers from across King’s Health Partners the freedom to test out novel and untried approaches to addressing challenges in health and related sciences.

The King’s Health Partners Research and Development Challenge Fund aims to support researchers explore and develop innovative ideas that may lead to new discoveries with the potential to transform human health. The Fund is designed to help researchers build a body of evidence sufficient to enable them to apply for more substantial funding from established bodies such as the Medical Research Council or the Wellcome Trust.

From Wednesday 1 February 2012, the Fund will run for three years and has an annual budget of £1.8m. Trustees of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity, King’s College Hospital Charity, Maudsley Charity and King’s College London have invested this money to support research across King’s Health Partners.

Professor Simon Lovestone, Director of Research, King’s Health Partners said:

“This Fund will address an unmet need for support to ‘pump-prime’ novel research ideas which may be in their infancy or have a high degree of risk. We hope to encourage all researchers across the College and our NHS partners, but especially those clinicians who are looking to build a body of evidence which will allow them to apply for a larger funding programme, for example the NIHR.

“We are extremely grateful to the charities who have invested this money in King’s Health Partners in order to drive excellence in research and meet the health needs of our local population and beyond.”

The Fund is administered by King’s Health Partners and run by the Director of Research.  It is permanently open for bids, and applications for funding are considered at meetings of the Research Assessment Committee which take place three times a year.

Proposals for research from any biomedical or clinical discipline will be considered. This includes research proposals focused on public health and primary care. Projects should be limited in scope and no project should take longer than 12 months to complete. The maximum size of funding for each project is £100,000. It is expected that between 20 to 30 projects will be funded each year.

For more information and guidelines about how to apply, visit the following pages:
http://www.kingshealthpartners.org/info/research-and-development