How the Joint Funding Scheme works: The details

HRCI members inviting applications

Once funding procedures and a timeline for the scheme have been agreed by the HRB and HRCI, HRCI member charities invite Expressions of Interest (EOIs) or full applications from researchers. Many charities use social media, their websites and direct approaches to alert researchers to the call and HRCI also keeps an up-to-date open calls page.

Charities who run an EOI phase undertake a selection process to shortlist and invite full applications. The individual charities select their own closing date for the EOI phase, ensuring that this will leave them sufficient time to assess these through their internal processes to invite a shortlist of full applications.

Full applications are submitted directly by lead applicants to GEMS, the HRB’s electronic grants management scheme. All applications must be reviewed by 3 international peer reviewers, and applicants can respond to peer reviews. Applications must have an average score of 6 or higher from peer reviews before they can be submitted to the Joint Selection Panel. Charities have access to applications on GEMS, allowing them to select which applications to submit to the HRB for Panel review.  

The peer review process and applicant response

The peer review process is co-managed by charities and the HRB. The HRB creates a shared peer review tracking spreadsheet. Charities identify and invite peer reviewers to review full applications. At least 3 peer reviews are needed for each full application. Charities use experts in relevant research areas and ensure that these international reviewers have no conflicts of interest with the applicants or their research. Details of reviewers who have accepted the invitation are shared with the HRB, who then sets up reviewers’ accounts in GEMS and sends them a link and instructions. The HRB sends reminders to reviewers if necessary and alerts charities in the case that a review is not submitted. Once a review is submitted, the HRB validate the review and make it available to the relevant charity.

Applicants have the right to respond to peer reviews, once three peer reviews have been received with an average score over 6. This is organised by the HRB via GEMS. Once submitted and validated, the applicant response will be shared with the relevant charity. 

Submitting applications to the Joint Selection Panel

Following the peer review process, the participating charities use their own internal processes (e.g. research/medical/scientific committees) to make a final determination on which projects to submit to the HRB Joint Selection Panel. See HRCI’s research governance guide for more info on peer review, conflicts of interest, research committees and charity research strategies.

The charities communicate which applications will go forward with the HRB via the shared tracking file. Each charity is entitled to submit the number of applications that they can afford to co-fund, up to a max of three, as well as a ‘plus one’ application. The plus one refers to the fact that charities may submit one more application than they can afford to fund. In this scenario, should all submitted applications be recommended for funding by the Panel, the lowest ranking application will not be funded.

Assessment by panel

The HRB, with input welcomed from HRCI members, appoint a panel of scientific and PPI reviewers to assess applications to the scheme. The panel is populated in response to the types of research in the applications and operates in a similar way to other HRB research funding panels. One representative from each participating charity is invited to attend the panel meeting. See a short HRB video here on what happens at a funding panel.

Projects are ranked in order of priority for funding, with the top projects being recommended for funding until the money allocated to the scheme is used up. In some rounds, there is not enough funding for all highly ranked projects but, relative to other HRB schemes, the Joint Funding Scheme has a very high success rate. The recommendations of the Panel are then brought to the Board of HRB for approval. 

Outcomes and contracts

Following HRB Board approval, participating charities are issued with outcome letters and applicant feedback for each of their submitted projects. For successful applications, contracts between the HRB, the charity(s), the host institution and the clinical institution (where applicable), are then issued, setting out the respective roles and responsibilities of the parties and governing the research project. The HRB terms and conditions govern the award but additional special conditions requested by the charity may also apply. 

Funding and grant management

Funding, as agreed in the contract, is issued to the approved host institution annually. Successful charities pay their portion of the funding to the HRB annually. The HRB manages all successful grants but the successful charities receive all grant reports and may have included special conditions for the researchers, which they might have contact with the applicants on.

More information

Participating charities: see our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page

Research applicants: see our video overview of the scheme and what you need to know below, as well as our FAQs

More information can also be found on the HRB website

If you can’t find what you are looking for, contact the HRCI Research Support Manager, Dr Sarah Delaney: sarah@hrci.ie / 01 479 3234.

As charities announce calls (see open calls here), interested researchers should contact the designated contact point at the respective charity.