Report on IHW funding boards workshop

Published: 14 March 2018

On 28 October 2019, Professors Emma McIntosh, Alastair Leyland, and Sharon Simpson delivered a 90-minute workshop to share their experiences of funding boards with an attentive audience of 40 IHW researchers

Photo of IHW staff at funding board workshop 2019On 28 October 2019, Professors Emma McIntosh, Alastair Leyland, and Sharon Simpson delivered a 90-minute workshop to share their experiences of funding boards with an attentive audience of 40 IHW researchers.

A key message shared by all three presenters was the importance of meaningful patient and public involvement from the outset of a research project.

The presenters covered the outline, full, and peer review stages of applying to NIHR and other funding bodies. Applicants were encouraged to include well-developed logic models in applications; to pay particular attention to plain language summaries, making the application easy for non-specialists to understand; and not to give up if an application is rejected. As Professor Leyland summed up, researchers should “play the long game” and “be brilliant or lucky; ideally, be both.”

Delivered in a candid and supportive manner, with senior colleagues sharing their hard-won experiences for the benefit of early career researchers and others developing their first funding applications, the workshop represents the ongoing commitment within IHW to build a positive research culture.


First published: 14 March 2018