These are the Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) Programme, guidance notes for applicants submitting an Expression of Interest (Stage 1 application) via the REsearch Awards Lifecycle Management System (REALMS) to the call 22/58 HSDR Technology enabled monitoring - rapid evaluation of innovation team.
The ‘Add New Ticket’ button towards the top of the screen can be used to raise a support ticket if you have any questions relating to the call or completion of the online application form. Please regularly press the ‘Save Draft’ button, found towards the bottom of the screen to save your progress.
We would like to draw your attention to the 'Info still required' button at the bottom of the application page. We encourage you to click this before submitting your application - it will bring up a list of all the sections that still need completing and any errors the system has detected (if any) - these can then be corrected in good time before the submission date.
Summary information
Contracting organisation
Please give details of the organisation who will be the contractor if the project is funded. Your primary organisation will be shown by default. If this is not the contracting organisation search for the correct contracting organisation by typing the name of the organisation in the search box. If the organisation you require does not appear in the search box, you can request to add a new contracting organisation. New organisations need to be approved by the REALMS team prior to submission of you application. Please contact us if this request is being made within two weeks of the call close date.
Applicants must talk to their R&D offices, or equivalent, and follow their host organisation's application review and sign off procedures before submitting an application.
Research title (limit: 300 characters)
The project title should state clearly and concisely the proposed research. Any abbreviations should be spelled out in full.
Research type
Select the appropriate research type: for this award please select ‘Primary Research’.
Start month
Note this will be from first of the month regardless of whether this is a working day or not. Please enter January or February.
Start year
Please enter 2023.
Research duration (months)
This is expected to be 36 months.
End date
This field will automatically populate once you have saved the research duration information.
Estimated research costs
Enter the total amount of research costs requested (not including NHS Support and Treatment costs). Please ensure that any costs attributable to higher education institutions (HEIs) are included here at 80% of the full economic cost, which is the rate at which these costs will be awarded. This should be estimated based upon the team you expect to employ and their FTE commitments. If shortlisted, you will be asked to provide a fully detailed budget in the stage 2 form. The maximum award will be £2 million for this call.
Open Access costs - Applicants should no longer include open access costs as part of their stage 1 application estimated Research Costs. From the 1st of June 2022 all eligible awards contracts issued across NIHR Programmes, NIHR Personal Awards and NIHR Global Health Research Portfolio will have an Open Access Envelope allocated to them on top of the award value, which is ring-fenced for open access costs of peer reviewed research articles that arise directly from the research funded by the award in question.
For further information please access the NIHR Open Access Funding Guidance.
Estimated NHS support costs
Please enter £0 - – any costs required will be managed during the contract.
Estimated NHS excess treatment costs
Please enter £0 - – any costs required will be managed during the contract.
Estimated non-NHS excess treatment costs
Please enter £0 - – any costs required will be managed during the contract. Further information is available with the AcoRD guidance on how to allocate the costs of your proposal to each of the above categories.
Research team
Lead Applicant
Information on your name, Main and Other affiliated organisations and contact details will be automatically populated from your contact profile. Degrees and professional qualifications can be added to your contact profile. Update your contact profile to complete any missing mandatory information or make any updates here - you can do this via the 'My Profile' icon on your home page whilst in the application form by first clicking the 'Update' button alongside your details in the Research Team section and the clicking on the 'Update Contact Profile' button. Your contact profile will need to be validated prior to your application submission.
ORCiD ID
Please note: You (and joint lead applicant – if included) are required to obtain a free unique ORCiD ID number and update your REALMS user contact profile with this before you can submit your application. By clicking the link ‘Create or connect your ORCiD ID’ within the ‘ORCID’ section of your user profile you will be taken to the ORCiD website where you will need to register or sign.
Once logged in to ORCiD and following acceptance of T&Cs, you will need to click on the ‘Continue to import your ORCID Data’ button which will update your profile with your ORCiD ID number and other associated data (e.g. publications and grants) which can be used to populate your application. The ORCiD ID number is a mandatory requirement.
If additional publications and grants need to be added to an application, and you would like these available to select for other applications, you will need to update your ORCiD account first and the click 'Re-Import ORCiD Data' on your realms 'My Profile'.
Equality and diversity monitoring information
NIHR is committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in research and asks applicants to provide equality and diversity monitoring information (age, sex, ethnicity and race, and disability). By answering these equality and diversity monitoring information questions, you will help us to better understand the different groups of people that apply to us for funding and their experiences of the funding process – particularly the groups protected by UK equality legislation. Although it is mandatory to answer these questions, it is possible to select “prefer not to say” as a response. However, the more information you provide, the more effective our monitoring will be. This information will not be used to make decisions about funding.
Research team
The research team table will update automatically as joint lead applicants and co-applicants are added. Use the update button to enter the following information:
- Role (Limit 200 characters) – Explain the role that the applicants will be undertaking in the research, e.g co-ordination and project management, analysis, methodological input etc.
- Commitment – percentage of the applicant’s time that will be committed to this project (%FTE).
- Organisation – Your main organisation and any other affiliated organisations that you have already added will be listed by default. Select your primary organisation for the purpose of this application. If the correct organisation is not listed, this can be added by using the ‘Update contact profile’ button and adding a new organisation (to do this click on ‘Other Organisation’ in the left hand selection bar. Department – Select the primary department affiliated with.
Joint lead applicant
Please note that due to the rapid nature of the research expected from the successful team, a Joint Lead Applicant would be expected to be a senior researcher with similar experience to the Lead Applicant; the usual opportunity for development through mentorship for less experienced joint lead applicants is not available for this call, although career development opportunities will arise from potential to lead individual evaluations under this contract.
Co-applicants
Use the ‘Add / Edit Co-Applicants' button to add any co- applicants and provide the necessary information, including contact details, organisation, role and commitment (%FTE). You should consult with co- applicants before adding them to the application. Do not include collaborators, who should be mentioned (if necessary) in the 'Research Plan' section of the on-line application form.
Co-applicants are those individuals with responsibility for the day-to-day management and delivery of the project. Co-applicants are considered part of the project team and are expected to share responsibility for its successful delivery. Collaborators normally provide specific expertise on particular aspects of the project but do not share the responsibility for delivery of the project.
We encourage the inclusion of public co-applicants where appropriate. For further information please access the 'Public Co-Applicants in Research' guidance.
PPI lead
The role of the PPI lead can be undertaken by any of the co-applicants within the research team (or a named member of the team), who has the relevant skills, experience and authority to be accountable, represent, manage and embed patient and public involvement in all aspects of the research study. This role should be a budgeted and resourced research team member. For examples of the activities a PPI lead might be accountable for, more information is available in the 'Public Co- Applicants in Research' guidance, linked to from the Co- applicants section above.
Add administrative contact
This facility allows you to provide an alternative contact(s) who will also have access to the application but will not be able to submit it when complete. The lead applicant must submit the completed application and will still receive all emails automatically generated through the system.
Use the envelope icon below to enter the administrative contact's details and invite them to participate in this application.
Application details
Plain English summary of research (limit: 3,500 characters)
The importance of a plain English summary
A plain English summary is a clear explanation of your research.
Many reviewers use this summary to inform their review of your funding application. They include health and care services practitioners and researchers who do not have specialist knowledge of your field as well as members of the public. If your application for funding is successful, the summary will be used on NIHR and other websites.
A good quality plain English summary providing an easy- to-read overview of your whole study will help:
- Those carrying out the review (reviewers and funding committee members) to have a better understanding of your research proposal.
- Inform others about your research such as members of the public, health and social care professionals, policy makers and the media.
- The research funders to publicise the research that they fund.
If it is felt that your plain English summary is not clear and of a good quality then you may be required to amend it prior to final funding approval.
It is helpful to involve patients / carers/ service users/ practitioners and members of the public in developing a plain English summary.
Content
When writing your summary consider including the following information where appropriate:
- Aim(s) of the research
- Background to the research
- Design and methods used
- Patient and public involvement
- Dissemination
The plain English summary is not the same as a scientific abstract - please do not cut and paste from other sections of your application form to create the plain English summary. Further guidance on writing a plain English summary is available on the NIHR website.
Research plan (limit: 20,000 characters)
Please use this section to provide the information described below. As this is the main part of your application which will be considered by the reviewing committee you should ensure that the information is accurate, succinct and clearly laid out.
In this section you should outline how the proposed team meets the criteria described in the call specification document (detail about the team's expertise and experience):
- Expertise in the evaluation of technology-enabled innovations that support people to use remote monitoring at home, i.e. the skills required to deliver complex projects involving technology in health and care services, including economic and process evaluations.
- A critical mass of researchers within the team to be able to deliver evaluations in a rapid and agile manner.
- Access to appropriate networks of evidence users in health and social care and local authorities.
- Experience in delivering regular feedback and interim findings to evidence users.
- The ability to identify innovations of potential interest (for evaluation)
- A track record in:
- producing formative, proportionate evaluations, covering outcomes and impact for both individual patients and for the health and care services
- working closely with customers (such as Digital Care Models team and others), whilst maintaining independence
- employing methods of co-design and co-production in technology-enabled research and evaluation
- producing methodological learning from a data-driven environment
- successful project management to manage multiple and complex projects and evaluation teams
- well established expertise in co-production methods of research and formative ways of working
Brief examples of previous work in this area to demonstrate your track record would be welcome (further detail may be requested at the next stage if shortlisted).
In addition, each of the following points should be addressed (detail about the organisation of the proposed team):
- A statement of the general approach to be adopted
- A description of the research team or consortium; its overall capacity and ability to recruit/supervise/direct resources as needed
- A description of the team’s networks and partnerships
- Arrangements for project management of the work and contract
- Details of the resources required to undertake the work over the life of the contract
Applicants should note that the innovations to be evaluated will be selected by the HSDR programme.
General guidance on involvement in NIHR research
The NIHR expects appropriate and relevant involvement of patients/service users, carers and the public and other key stakeholders in the research it supports. It is essential to set out your plans as to how you will involve patients/service users, carers and the public in the evaluations which your team will undertake on behalf of the HSDR programme. Your involvement plans for co-design and highly participatory research methods will be assessed by the funding committee including patient and public service users, carers and members. Information and resources to assist you in involving patients/service users. carers and the public and payments guidance for researchers and professionals with information on budgeting for involvement can be found on the NIHR website
Guidance for applicants on equality, diversity and inclusion for study participants
Every person eligible to take part in research should be offered the same opportunity of taking part in that research regardless of:
- Geographical location Age
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Marital status/civil partnership Being pregnant or on maternity leave
- Ethnicity - see the toolkit for increasing participation of BAME groups in health and care research and the INCLUDE Ethnicity framework which aims to improve trial delivery for underserved groups.
- Religion or belief
- Sex
- Sexual orientation
- Socioeconomic status
- Access to health or social care
All NIHR applications are expected to include information about how this data will be collected.
In addition, applicants should demonstrate how these factors will be considered, including steps taken to ensure the research to be undertaken is representative of the population the study is targeted at. Applicants need to explain who they are planning to recruit to ensure inclusivity of study participants and justify and explain any exclusions, for example by completing an Equality Impact Assessment. Additionally, applicants should demonstrate that all potential recruiting locations have been considered and the research is deliverable to those areas.
Please see the NIHR INCLUDE Guidance for more information about how to include under-served groups effectively:
Other helpful links:
- Information on Diversity and Inclusion
- Information on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Uploads
Applicants should only include uploads specified in the call details. Any additional documents will not be considered by the funding committee during its review.
Attachment 1: references
One single-side A4 page, listing references used throughout your proposal is also a mandatory PDF upload. Please use either the Vancouver or Harvard referencing conventions and include the DOI of the main related publication.
Attachment 2,3,4: CVs
Using the ‘Collaborator letter of support’ option, please upload brief (one page) CVs of the lead applicant and two other co-applicants. The roles of these individuals and their level of input must also be stated on each CV.
Acknowledgements and conflicts
Potential conflicts
Please declare any conflicts or potential conflicts of interest that you or your co-applicants may have in undertaking this research, including any relevant, non- personal and commercial interest that could be perceived as a conflict of interest. If in doubt, you should err on the side of disclosure.
Agreement to terms and conditions
I have read and understood the terms on which I have been nominated as Lead Applicant for this proposal along with the associated documentation and accept this role. A list of terms and conditions are available.