Translational Medicine Pilot Fund

Applications are now open for the Centre for Translational Medicine (CTM) Pilot Fund.

This funding call aims to stimulate, accelerate and enhance translational medicine research across King’s Health Partners. Specifically, this one-year award will allow pump priming and will support the generation of pilot data, enabling substantive awards to be secured from external sources.

Funding seeks to support applicants to develop and deliver on projects in translational medical research, particularly studies of disease mechanisms in humans and the translation of these insights into early detection and interventions. This includes use of diagnostics and devices, patient-reported outcome measures, and the development of proof of concepts, such as through early phase clinical studies of new treatments and development of advanced therapies.

Applicant’s research projects should align to the priority areas and themes below and demonstrate clear contributions to the strategic priority areas for health research at the KHP organisations, including how the research will seek to reduce health inequity.

Discovery science projects are not eligible. Animal model work will be considered if a direct translational relevance can be clearly demonstrated. 

We particularly encourage applications that:

• Aim to harness combined strengths across King's College London faculties and KHP organisations;
• Bring together multidisciplinary, cross-partner and/or cross-faculty research and expertise, which may be reflected in the supervisory team;
• Connect mental and physical health (and/or links to the NIHR Maudsley BRC).

Candidate eligibility 

• The lead applicant should be an employee of King’s College London, Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, or South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust;
• We expect the lead applicant to have a substantive, open-ended position (i.e. an academic or a health professional), but support early and mid-career researchers to be the lead applicant if their supervisor is also an applicant;
• This call is open to non-clinical and clinical applicants. For those in clinical roles we support applications from all health professionals, including nurses, midwives, doctors, dentists, pharmacists, healthcare scientists, psychologists and all other registered professions allied to healthcare.

Selection process

After an initial eligibility check, an independent representative review panel from across King’s Health Partners, including patient/public representation, will evaluate all applications. Applications will be ranked.

The panel will assess: 

• Quality of the research project described and its likelihood of creating pilot data for attracting external funding;
• The research track record of the applicant team;
• Alignment of research with the strategic research priorities across KHP organisations; 
• Strength of the PPI/E plans. 

What costs are eligible for funding?

• Up to £60,000 per project is available; 
• Funding is provided on the basis of 100% Directly Incurred costs. Directly Allocated costs (i.e. staff time for academics) and overheads/estates are not provided;
• Costs for non-essential items (journal processing fees, conference travel) are not allowed.

Approvals

University approval should be given by the Head of School or equivalent. For NHS Trusts, approval should be given by the relevant Clinical Director and the R&D Director (Kate Blake for Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Ann-Marie Murtagh for King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and Tanya Shlovogt for South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust).

Note that because this is internal funding, King's College London Pre-Award approval of costings is not required. Worktribe stand alone budgets can be used to support the calculations of costings. 

Leverage and Monitoring

This fund is intended to produce pilot data that supports further, substantial funding applications. Monitoring therefore will be in place to track outcomes – including further external funding that is leveraged.

Timelines 

Applications open: 3 Feb 2025

Application closes: Sunday 30 March 2025 23:59 GMT

Shortlisting and review: April / May 2025

Awards start: July 2025.

Funding is offered for up to 12 months and would normally be expected to start within 3 months of award (July 2025 – June 2026) 

How to complete and submit your application 

• Use the word version of the application form to review the application form. 
• Submissions are to be made on the Qualtrics form. The form does not save answers for more than 24 hours. 
• As part of the Qualtrics form you will need to upload your proposed project and the signed approval form. 

Events

We are holding an engagement Q&A webinar on 28 February 2025 12-12:30pm. To register to attend, please sign up via registration form here.

Drop-in sessions on PPIE are available for applicants to support the development of ideas on how to involve PPIE members in early stages of research while writing grant applications. 

Dates: Monday 3 February 2025, Thursday 20 February 2025, Tuesday 4 March 2025, Monday 14 April 2025, Tuesday 13 May 2025, Tuesday 10 June 2025, Monday 14 July 2025. 
All Sessions will be held 12-1pm. Location: MS Teams. Please register on the CTM website.

Queries can be sent to the CTM team delivering the call via translationalmedicine@kcl.ac.uk.