NIHR Research Capability Funding
From April 2012, Research Capability Funding will replace Flexibility and Sustainability Funding.
As with Flexibility and Sustainability Funding, Research Capability Funding is allocated to research-active NHS organisations in proportion to the total amount of other NIHR income received by that organisation, and on the number of NIHR Senior Investigators associated with the organisation. Research Capability Funding is also allocated to NIHR Clinical Research Networks for their local research networks, via the NHS organisations that host each local network.
The purpose is to:
· Help research-active NHS organisations to act flexibly and strategically to maintain research capacity and capability.
· Support the appointment, development and retention of key staff undertaking or supporting people and patient-based based research.
· Contribute towards costs of hosting NIHR-funded or ‘adopted’ research that are not currently fully covered across NIHR’s programmes, and that are not met in other ways.
The aim is a quality-driven fund that allows for local discretion and management of people to support and develop patient and people driven research.
NIHR Research Capability Funding will provide for salary costs of NIHR Faculty members in clearly defined circumstances. It will only support salary costs, including direct (i.e. salary) and indirect (e.g. payroll and HR) costs. It will not fund running costs.
The NIHR briefing document, below, outlines the permitted uses of Research Capability Funding for recipient Trusts and NIHR clinical research networks. The main changes from Flexibility and Sustainability Funding are:
1. widening permitted uses of Trust and Network Research Capability Funding to allow some contribution towards sponsorship and governance costs and 'overheads' associated with Trusts hosting research (the briefing document explains how this will work for each Research Capability Funding stream).
2. enabling Trusts that recruit significant numbers of patients each year, who do not receive enough NIHR funding to trigger Trust Research Capability Funding, to qualify for a fixed basal amount (expected to be £20k in 2012/13).
3. allowing Trust Research Capability Funding to contribute towards maternity, paternity and long term sick-leave costs.
4. simplifying the rules for Network Research Capability Funding so that permitted uses follow those allowed for core funding (while avoiding funds being diverted into supporting the conduct of the research itself).
2012/13 Research Capability Funding allocations
Research Capability Funding (RCF) FAQs
NIHR briefing document: