FAQs

A Centre of Excellence supports long-term research, builds the ‘critical mass’ of expertise needed to accelerate the journey to find a cure, and as the teams’ research progresses, attracts increased research investment from other sources allowing game-changing progress and collaborations to take place. This is not funding to support a traditional programme grant; a Centre of Excellence will deliver and offer more.

As such a Centre of Excellence will:

• Grow capacity in the UK, bringing together, or continuing to build a critical mass of staff, infrastructure, and collaborations
• Create an environment for innovative, collaborative research
• Provide leadership and support
• Develop skills and expertise
• Provide a rich training ground for junior researchers
• Be a partnership with the host institution
• Establish and raise the visibility and focus of brain tumour research within the host institution
• Transform brain tumour research
• Deliver insights that will lead to translational impact, accelerate treatments, and improve outcomes for people affected by this disease
• Leverage additional funding, for every £1 we commit, secure a further £3 from other sources

It is our intention to provide long-term support. Funding will be for an initial period of five years which will be followed by quinquennial reviews providing further five years of funds.

The budget will be up to £2.5m initially over five years but as this is a partnership, we would hope that we can grow the investment together over the years, attracting additional funding to help further expand the Centre. 

Multisite applications are allowed, bringing together a number of locations to work collectively to address the challenges of primary brain tumours. The rationale and added value of the consortium should be clearly explained in your application. 

In this case, you can identify joint principal applicants. 

Our aim is to significantly accelerate the progress of brain tumour research within the UK in order to make a real clinical difference. As such, the applicants must be based in, and the research undertaken, in a UK research institution. However, we know that you may have international collaborations already established or planned that will help with the successful delivery of your programme of research and we will be happy for these to be included in your application. Costs (but not salaries) may be requested for these international research activities but must be fully justified. 

Brain Tumour Research has an ambition to grow our network of Centres of Excellence to seven. We currently fund three Centres and will support our fourth by March 2023. Further Centres may be identified as part of this Centre call review.

Principal applicants (scientists, or clinicians) must have a contract of employment with a UK university, research institution, medical school or NHS Trust and must be salaried for the duration of the award. 

A co-applicant will be accepted if they make a significant and critical contribution to the research proposal. More than two co-applicants would need justification. 

Review criteria will include:

• Scientific excellence
• Brain tumour research relevance
• Track record
• Team and collaborative environment
• Resources and Infrastructure in place to deliver the proposed research
• Training programme
• University partnership and commitment
• Resources requested
• Plans to leverage Brain Tumour Research funding
  

The scope for this Centre call has deliberately been kept broad, not restricting it to a particular theme as our primary aim is to fund an innovative and ground breaking proposal that will contribute to transforming brain tumour research and improve outcomes for people affected by this disease.

We are open to proposals addressing any high-grade and/or low-grade, adult and/or paediatric primary brain tumours.

In recent years, challenges to curing primary brain tumours, which must be overcome, to make progress have been published in peer reviewed journals. We would encourage applicants to consider how their applications might be able to address these challenges, for example:

• Harnessing the knowledge of neuroscience research
• The importance of the tumour microenvironment
• Applicability of preclinical models
• Developing more effective treatments
• Precision medicine
• Kinder or less treatment

We are keen to harness the expertise from researchers from outside traditional brain tumour research to help address the challenges to curing primary brain tumours and multidisciplinary proposals are therefore welcome. All applications will be reviewed using the agreed criteria and there will be no specific weighting for any particular theme or focus. 

Yes, applications which are non-hypothesis driven will be considered. Where research is not guided by a hypothesis, there should be a well-defined goal, the work should have direction and it should be clear how the tools or techniques will benefit brain tumour research. 

Yes, however the funding from Brain Tumour Research should not be viewed as follow-on funding. Your proposal can build upon existing research programmes but in the Centre application unique elements and new areas of investigation should be proposed, there should not be any duplication with currently funded research and you should provide information on how your current funding adds value to your proposed research, how important it is to the delivery of it, or whether it is distinct.

Researchers will be required to leverage the core funding, with the aim of securing £3 from additional sources, for every pound provided by Brain Tumour Research.

Yes, researchers hosted at core funded institutions can apply but the funding requested and the research proposed on the Brain Tumour Research application must be novel and there should not be any duplication with currently funded research. You should provide information on how your current funding adds value to your proposed research, how important it is to the delivery of it, or whether it is distinct.

Researchers will be required to leverage the core funding, with the aim of securing £3 from additional sources, for every pound provided by Brain Tumour Research.

You can request salaries for postdoctoral researchers, technical staff, clinical and non-clinical PhD students (salary/stipend and fees) and associated running costs, including animal costs, and specific equipment for teams within the research centre. You can include funding to support attendance at meetings and conferences within the running costs.

To ensure that you can attract the brightest and the best PhD students, we will provide competitive, sector matching studentship funding packages over four years. Stipends will be awarded at £19k per year outside of London and £21k per year for inside London.

Funding for career development and transferable skills training for early career researchers can also be costed for.

Please see guidance notes for further information. 

One of the aims of Brain Tumour Research is to help develop the next generation of researchers ultimately focusing on all types of brain tumour. To do this we expect our Centres of Excellence to attract, train and retain the best early career researchers by providing a supportive and nurturing environment offering high quality scientific and transferable skills training, drawing on the breadth and depth of resources and knowledge across the Centre. In addition, to be recognising and embracing the sector policies, concordats and agreements relevant to early career support, for example The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers; Principles and Obligations for Clinical Academics; and Statement of Expectations for Postgraduate Training. 

Funding for career development and transferable skills training for early career researchers can also be costed for.

Please see guidance notes for further information. 

The partnership could involve financial or in-kind contributions. For example, matched funding provided, including academic research posts that are already funded or those that they plan to appoint during the period of the Centre funding. In addition, the host institution must provide sufficient space and access to resources to undertake the proposed research.

Additional award requirements include:

• Institution PR team works with Brain Tumour Research to promote awareness
• Institution works with Brain Tumour Research sharing local business links
• Lead investigator (or appointed deputy) acts as ambassador and attends our events whenever possible
• Lead investigator (or appointed deputy) is prepared to be a spokesperson and help raise awareness
• Lab is promoted within the Institution
• Lab is badged as being supported by Brain Tumour Research and relevant member and collaborating charities
• Brain Tumour Research Wall of Hope is displayed at the institution

In the full application, you will need to demonstrate that you can sign up to Brain Tumour Research Terms and Conditions and letters of support from your host institution will be required. 

Yes, we will consider more than one application from the same institution (but not from the same applicants) but would encourage groups to consider whether collaborating and joining forces, where relevant, would make the research more impactful.

We won’t be asking for patient involvement or engagement at the preliminary application stage. 

For the preliminary application we will only be asking for indicative costs; a full budget breakdown will be required for the full application stage.

We issue award letters on an annual basis and are therefore able to flex to accommodate unplanned fluctuations in costs.

We recognise the importance of continuous professional and career development for early career researchers and as a funder take our responsibilities seriously to ensure that researchers that we support are able to thrive and reach their full potential. As such, you can ask for costs for training for Early Career Researchers in your application if it is not already being offered to them at their host institution. The training must be related to helping Early Career Researchers advance their research careers in brain tumour research.

You can request up to £1,000 annually per person for this training. You will need to justify these costs in your application.

As a charitable organisation we do not pay indirect costs, which are non-specific costs charged across all projects for cross-cutting resources. However, grants awarded by us are eligible for the Charity Research Support Fund. 

The PI cannot request salary as part of this award.

A co-applicant can request a proportion of their salary reflective of their estimated time involved and this should be justified in the application. However, if co-applicants have tenure or fixed term contracts we will not pay towards their salaries.

The salaries (or stipends) of people to be fully employed on the grant such as post-docs, PhD students, or technicians can be requested.

No, we only pay tuition fees at the Home rate. Supervisors can recruit international PhD students however they would have to cover the difference in fees through alternative funding sources.

Whilst we are not yet a signatory to the cross-funder statement on COVID-19 in future grant applications which outlines how funders will look to fairly remember and recognise the impacts of COVID-19 on grant applicant's work in the future, we are supportive of the statement and there is a section in the preliminary application asking applicants to outline how the pandemic has impacted both the individual's and their teams' research activity.

This is a stand-alone call for new Centres only.