Grantholders e-newsletter

Access charges and animal house charges will continue to be funded, but support will not be provided for building depreciation costs or for departmental, technical and administrative service access charges.

The Flexible Funding Allowance and Inflation Allowance will be provided as separate allowances. The rate of inflation is currently under review and new rates will be announced on 27 April on our website.

2. Macbeth, infidelity and sunshine: Wellcome Trust in the news

There’s a real appetite among the public to find out about the latest developments in scientific and medical research. It’s partly fascination at the excitement of scientific progress, but is also a desire to understand the issues that face our society. Here are just some of the Wellcome Trust stories that you may have seen in the news this year:

Lack of sunshine found to trigger MS (Guardian)
Study debunks illegitimacy ‘myth’ (BBC News Online)
Heart disease gene affects one in 100 (Guardian)
Lack of sleep really can affect a person’s sanity (Telegraph)
DIY stem cells could help us heal ourselves (New Scientist)

Are you about to publish a paper or currently working on research that may be of interest to the public? Please let us know.

To obtain your free copy of our ‘Guide to Working with the Media’, or to notify us about a forthcoming research paper, please contact Craig Brierley:
E c.brierley@wellcome.ac.uk

T +44 (0)20 7611 7329

Funding opportunities

3. Biomedical Capital Awards

The Wellcome Trust and the Wolfson Foundation have announced a new partnership to fund £30 million of capital projects in the biomedical sciences. Applications are now invited.

4. Policy internship scheme

The Wellcome Trust and the Academy of Medical Sciences are offering four-year PhD students the opportunity to undertake a three-month policy internship based at the Academy’s offices in central London. The deadline for applications is 27 April 2009.

5. Senior Research Fellowships in Basic Biomedical Science

Applications are now invited for the Trust’s Senior Research Fellowships, which provide support for outstanding postdoctoral scientists based in academic institutions in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The deadline for preliminary applications is 5 June 2009.

6. International Senior Research Fellowships

Applications are now invited for the Trust’s International Senior Research Fellowships, which provide support for outstanding researchers, either medically or scientifically qualified, who wish to establish an independent career within an academic institution based in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic or Slovenia. The deadline for preliminary applications is 5 June 2009.

7. MB/PhDs

Applications are now invited for the Trust’s Postdoctoral Training Fellowships for MB/PhD Graduates. The deadline for preliminary applications is 24 April 2009.

8. Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Exchange Programme

A reminder that applications are open throughout the year for the Wellcome Trust and HHMI Exchange Programme. This programme promotes international collaborations among scientists funded by the Trust and the HHMI.

Technology Transfer update

9. Forthcoming deadlines for applications

Translation Awards: 15 May 2009
Seeding Drug Discovery: 22 May 2009

10. Translation Award for cataract removal device

A team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust has been awarded £300 000 to develop a prototype surgical device that could simplify cataract surgery.
More information about other Trust-funded medical devices

Wellcome Collection

11. Bobby Baker's Diary Drawings: Mental illness and me, 1997-2008

Running from 19 March-2 August
Find out more

12. Madness & Modernity: Mental illness and the visual arts in Vienna 1900

Running from 1 April-28 June
Find out more

Join the Wellcome Collection mailing list to find out about events first, or join the Facebook group.

Other updates

13. Bringing Darwin into the 21st century

The Wellcome Trust’s Tree of Life website, launched in February, has been updated with an enhanced version of the interactive Tree of Life and a remixable version of the video, which allows you to create and share your own version of the Tree of Life. There’s more to come, including teaching resources and interactive source files - sign up to receive an alert when these are added to the site.

14. 2009 Science Communication Conference

Online bookings are now open for the 2009 Science Communication Conference. Alongside sessions covering the whole range of activities within public engagement, the Conference will have a central focus - ‘Behaviour and Choice’ - exploring the role that science communicators should or could play as influencers of behavioural change. The Conference is organised by the British Science Association in partnership with the Wellcome Trust and is held on 22 and 23 June at Kings Place, London.

15. Public engagement opportunity: Taking students behind the scenes

The Nuffield Science Bursary scheme offers first-year post-16 science students throughout the UK a chance to work alongside practising scientists in projects based on science, technology, engineering and maths. Projects last between four and six weeks and students complete them during their summer holiday.

Last summer, 899 bursaries were offered. If you are interested in hosting a student in your lab and would like more information, take a look at the Nuffield Science Bursaries website or email the Nuffield Foundation: scb@nuffieldfoundation.org.

16. Career tracker

The Wellcome Trust is developing a longitudinal prospective study to track Trust award holders’ careers over time. The aim of the study is to gain a better understanding of the career progression and career choices award holders make. The study will help to inform our provision of research and career support over time.

We will be surveying early-stage and intermediate-stage award holders in their final year and those who recently finished their award between spring and summer 2009. The participation of our award holders in this study is important to us; with your feedback we can make sure we continue to offer the right funding and the right career opportunities.

If you would like to find out more about this initiative or have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact Gertrud Malmersjo: surverys@wellcome.ac.uk.

17. UK PubMed Central - enabling easier reporting

Users of the UK PubMed Central Manuscript Submission System (UKMSS) will soon be able to use a new service - My UKPMC - to report on the outcomes of any grant funded by any one of the UKPMC Funders’ Group member organisations, including the Wellcome Trust. Grantholders will be able to export these grant reports not only in standard .csv and xml formats but also as publicly available web pages, which will update dynamically whenever a new publication is added to either PubMed or UK PubMed Central.

In advance of My UKPMC going live - at the end of April 2009 - Wellcome Trust grantholders are encouraged to use the current grants reporting service on UKMSS to link their publications with existing Trust grants. The UK PubMed Central team has created a step-by-step guide to doing this.

18. Strategic Plan updates

Updates on progress and emerging strategic priorities against the six strategic aims set out in the Trust’s five-year plan are now available. Also published online is the Trust’s Assessment Framework Report 2007/08, which describes outputs and achievements against the Trust’s main indicators of progress.

19. Sign up for weekly Wellcome Trust news

We now publish all our weekly news and features in an email bulletin, sent direct to your inbox.