Inclusive research funding application guidance

  • Published: 27 November 2024
  • 10 min read

Read this inclusive research funding application guidance when applying for a funding opportunity. Here you can find out what we require from applicants and how to embed inclusion in your application. You will also find links to resources that can help you develop this aspect of your application. 

Please read this guidance alongside our working with people and communities guidance. Both have related but distinct sets of requirements. You will also need to read any information signposted in the funding opportunity.

This inclusive research guidance applies specifically to funding for domestic programmes and career development funding. These funding requirements do not currently apply to global health or infrastructure funding. The requirements and associated guidance for global health and infrastructure funding will follow in the coming years, with the exception of applied research collaborations which has separate guidance.

In your funding application you must show how your research aligns with:

You must detail how your research contributes towards these commitments. For funding opportunities that opened from 27 November 2024, this is now a condition of funding. If you have applied or are applying to a funding opportunity which opened before 27 November, you will not need to apply research inclusion retrospectively to your proposal.

Our expectations for inclusive design

We appreciate that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to inclusive health and care research. We understand that inclusive design elements will and should differ from study to study. You will need to detail if and how your research addresses inequalities relevant to your research area, and how your research considers inclusion across the whole research lifecycle. You must design your research inclusively from the outset. This ensures that diverse participants are included and retained. 

You should address each of the points covered in this inclusive research funding application guidance. If you do not satisfactorily justify your approach to inclusion and the associated costs for this, funding will not be awarded. Where you have to submit a training plan you should describe any research inclusion-related training needs.   

We recognise that there are costs associated with developing, conducting and disseminating research inclusively. We will fund reasonable and justifiable costs as part of your award. This is to ensure you can embed research inclusion throughout the whole research lifecycle.

If you are applying for ethics approval via the Health Research Authority (HRA), the research inclusion information you provide in your application to NIHR can also be used to meet HRA’s expectations. We have worked with HRA to ensure NIHR requirements and HRA expectations are mutually reinforcing.

Your research team

We will not assess the diversity of your research team in terms of their characteristics and demographics. However, it is beneficial to include a diverse research team. This is because it helps to address research problems from a range of different vantage points, and can generate more creative and innovative solutions. It can also widen your team’s cultural and linguistic competence.

We will assess whether your proposed research team has sufficient experience and skills to deliver the proposed research. This includes your ability to deliver the inclusive design elements of the research.

Domestic research programme applications

If you are applying for a domestic programme funding opportunity, this information will help you complete your application. 

We recognise that character count limits in the application system may restrict what you can say in your application. This may make it difficult to provide full details of all research inclusion elements across the research lifecycle. To help with this, we have described what you must include in your outline application below. Though we encourage you to add in further detail wherever possible.

As a minimum, we expect to see the following information in relation to inclusion and the impact on under-served groups, and health and care inequalities:

  • background and rationale
  • target population
  • inclusion and exclusion criteria 

Irrespective of the information you provide in your application, you should consider all elements listed in the ‘Full applications’ section below, in your planning from the outset.

Research plan

When completing the research plan upload, you should provide details for the points below.

Background and rationale 

  • Clearly outline how your proposed research expands on existing evidence. Describe how it responds to gaps in knowledge around health and care needs or inequalities or under-served groups - or all. You must detail how existing literature and evidence supports your sample selection and inclusion approach. Use literature, and data where available, to demonstrate where there is differential prevalence, outcomes, concentration, or need for the relevant characteristics or groups.
  • For commissioned funding opportunities, some of the points in the previous bullet may be stipulated in the research specification. Where this is the case, please only include information on any points not addressed in the research specification.

Methodology/plan 

  • Where studies recruit participants, you should explain how your sample is representative, and if and how your participant selection considers the needs of diverse, communities typically under-served by research; geography; and health and care inequalities.
    • While we encourage you to think about researching specific populations with the highest need, you can still do research with groups who are not typically under-served by research. No groups are excluded from NIHR funding. If not targeting a specific group, then you should consider how your sampling approach is representative. For example, your sample could be representative of one of the following:
      • the general population
      • the population with the disease or condition of interest
      • the care user or carer community targeted by the research
      • a target population within the disease or condition population 
    • Your sampling approach will depend on the scientific question(s) being addressed. This may consider several factors, such as the prevalence of the disease; condition or issue under investigation in specific groups; gaps in scientific knowledge; and inequalities in health, risks or outcomes.
    • If you are planning to conduct research with a demographic group who frequently take part in research, then you would need to provide clear justification for this in your application.
  • Explain what you will put in place to recruit and retain participants.
  • When describing inclusion and exclusion criteria, please give a clear justification for excluding any groups. This includes for example, if excluding those with multiple long-term conditions, impaired capacity to consent, or those for whom English is not a first language.

If you are completing a full application, you will need to give a detailed breakdown of how your research is inclusive. This should be included in the detailed research plan part of the application form. 

Detailed research plan

In the detailed research plan, you should address the points described in the ‘Outline Applications’ section above, as well as the following:

Methodology/plan 

  • Detail how you have considered inclusion in the whole research lifecycle. This includes, but is not limited to:
    • the research design (including the development of the research question)
    • patient and public involvement
    • the research methods
    • data collection and statistical analysis
    • the knowledge mobilisation and dissemination of findings 
  • Describe what relevant characteristics or demographic data you will collect and analyse from the sample you will study. You should include characteristics such as age, sex, gender, and ethnicity as well as other characteristics that may impact health and care inequalities and outcomes relevant to your research. It is important you collect, report and interpret this data:
    • to improve the accuracy and application of your research findings, and 
    • so that it can be fully considered in future studies and secondary research

You should include characteristics such as age, sex, gender, and ethnicity as well as other characteristics that may impact health and care inequalities and outcomes relevant to your research 

  • Explain how you will collect the characteristics or demographic data. If you intend to collect data from existing sources, it is important that you critique what is available and in what format. If the data is not available or of sufficient quality, you should add in additional primary data collection wherever possible. If this is not possible, you should make this clear in your applications
  • NIHR will not require you to design studies that produce statistically significant results for each characteristic or group where they are not part of the primary outcome analysis. We encourage you to carry out and report exploratory subgroup analyses or summary statistics. Describe how data will be used and analysed, in the statistical plan, where relevant. You should also consider how you will include this data in evaluating recruitment and retention. For more information on data and analysis, see the Research Support Service EDI toolkit
  • For research involving the use of secondary data: 
    • include a description of the characteristics and demographic data you plan to report on from the original datasets. For example the characteristics identified by PRO-EDI 
    • consider how these characteristics will be addressed when analysing and interpreting the data

Career development applications

If your career development application includes a research plan, you should follow the guidance in the ‘domestic research programme applications’ section above. 

Where career development programmes ask you to complete a training and development plan, you should consider what training is needed from an inclusion perspective. Base your needs on your current knowledge and experience of working inclusively and developing inclusive research. You should also consider your career stage, future goals and research area. 

We will consider inclusion training needs broadly, and we encourage you to be innovative where appropriate. However, you should clearly justify and relate the training to your needs. Some examples may include, but are not limited to: 

  • health and care inequalities 
  • inclusive research design
  • inclusive leadership training 
  • cultural sensitivity 
  • communication 
  • inclusive mentoring 
  • training on a specific group or community that you intend to work with 
  • methods training on a technique relevant to research in a specific group
  • statistical analysis training, for example to enable disaggregation of data by specific groups
  • equitable knowledge mobilisation

Costing for research inclusion

Please see our finance guidance for details about what research inclusion costs we will cover. We are encouraging innovation around costs and have kept our finance guidance relatively broad to allow for this.

It is not mandatory to cost for a research inclusion specialist. However, if it strengthens your team’s expertise and provides assurance of your ability to deliver the research inclusively, it could be beneficial. Your research team may already have the relevant expertise to deliver on the inclusion aspects of the study. If so you should make this clear when describing the ‘Proposed role’ in the ‘Research team’ section of the application form. You may also want to include costs associated with training to upskill your team in this area.

For outline applications: 

  • please estimate and include appropriate costs in the ‘Total cost to NIHR’ part of the application

For full applications:

  • please attribute costs as best as possible. Where research inclusion costs could fall within other cost categories, we understand that it may not be possible to split these out easily. For example, where costs relate to recruitment
  • if you do not need to request any research inclusion costs, you are still required to explain your approach to research inclusion in your detailed research plan. You must include how you will achieve inclusive research without additional NIHR funds 
  • if funded, research inclusion costs cannot be moved to other cost areas

Contracting

Once you have funding you will need to demonstrate that you are conducting your study in line with the research inclusion elements described in your funded proposal. This is part of the NIHR monitoring process. You will need to include specific finance reporting on research inclusion expenditure as part of this. We will provide further information on monitoring at the contracting and start-up phase.

Knowledge mobilisation, dissemination and impact

Once you have funding you will be expected to develop and deliver your knowledge mobilisation and dissemination plans with a diverse range of stakeholders and knowledge users. You should fully describe and evaluate your knowledge mobilisation and dissemination strategies. Your strategies should relate to the requirements set out in NIHR Journals Library and Open Research. We would also strongly encourage you to report on your strategies in external publications.

Inclusive research resources and application support

If you would like more help with how to make research inclusive, you might find the following information useful.

These resources can help you develop, perform and disseminate your research inclusively: 

Our Research Support Service offers free and confidential support to help researchers develop and design high-quality research proposals. It helps you meet the required criteria and clearly articulate this in your proposal. 

You can access this service if you are working with a project partner based in England. If you are based in the UK but outside of England and are not partnered with an organisation based in England, you may wish to explore the below services:

Applicants from Scotland may access support from:

Applicants form Northern Ireland may access support from:

Applicants from Wales may access support from:

For more information on how to complete the rest of your application, please see our funding application guidance for domestic and career development programmes.