Grantholders e-newsletter

From October 2009, the History of Medicine Funding programme will be renamed 'Medical History and Humanities'. The remit of the programme will be broadened to include the History of Biomedical Sciences and the broader Medical Humanities (e.g. arts, humanities, social science).

Programme grants will be encouraged, and project grants will be replaced with pilot grants for initial research, scoping and networking activities with a view to submitting future programme grant applications.

Small grants (travel grants and conferences/symposia) can now be used for Biomedical Ethics and Medical Humanities.

There will be a short time lag before these changes appear on our website, so for further details please contact MHH@wellcome.ac.uk.

2. Wellcome Trust Book Prize - celebrating medicine in literature

Launched at the Cheltenham Literature Festival last October, the £25 000 annual Wellcome Trust Book Prize is the first of its kind to bring together the fields of medicine and literature in order to award an outstanding work of fiction or non-fiction on the theme of health, illness or medicine. Find out more about the prize, its successful first round of submissions, and keep in touch by signing up to receive e-mail alerts.

Funding opportunities

3. Wellcome Trust-MIT Postdoctoral Fellowships

The Wellcome Trust, in conjunction with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has launched a new fellowship scheme to promote interdisciplinary science. Further information is on our website.

4. Senior Research Fellowships in Clinical Science

Applications are now invited for the Trust's Senior Research Fellowships in Clinical Science scheme. The deadline for preliminary applications is 18 September 2009.

5. The Insect Pollinators Initiative

Insect Pollinators Initiative will fund research to better understand the threats to insect pollinators and develop mitigation strategies. This is a collaborative initiative between the Wellcome Trust, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Scottish Government.

6. Wellcome-Beit Prize Fellowships

Wellcome-Beit Prize Fellowships launched to reward outstanding early-career scientists. Further information is on our website.

7. NC3Rs Studentship Scheme

The NC3Rs invites applications for PhD studentships from UK research establishments for projects which will advance knowledge and application of the 3Rs. Applications that integrate a range of disciplines are welcomed.The deadline for applications is Tuesday 14 July 2009.

8. Call for applications for UKCRC Clinical Trials Unit

Applications are open for research groups wishing to participate in the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) Clinical Trials Unit.

Conferences, advanced courses and workshops

9. Forthcoming Wellome Trust conferences and workshops

Applied Bioformatics and Public Health Microbiology 25-28 August 2009
Mouse Genetics and Genomics: Development and Disease 2-6 September 2009
Evolution of Brain, Behaviour and Intelligence 9-12 September 2009
Genomics and Common Diseases 23-26 September 2009

For more information on Wellcome Trust Conferences, Advanced Courses and Open Door Workshops taking place from October onwards please visit the website.

10. Royal Society Media and Communication Skills training courses

The Royal Society provides training courses for scientists to improve communications with the media, public, students, or even other scientists.

Other updates

11. Towards consensus for best practice: use of patient records for research in general practice

The use of patient records in research offers significant potential for improving human health, provided appropriate safeguards are in place.   In 2008, we hosted a national consensus meeting with GPs, researchers and patient groups to develop guidance for best practice.   A summary of the outcomes, endorsed by the Royal College of General Practitioners and the British Medical Association, is now available to download.

12. Open Access update

Wellcome Trust-funded researchers can use a new web service 'My UKPMC', to report on the outcomes of any grant funded by any one of the UKPMC Funders' Group member organisations. The service also provides grantholders with a 'My Impact' report, which shows the number of citations each paper has attracted. A PDF walkthrough of the service is available on the UKPMC website. Grantholders are reminded that all research papers funded in whole or in part by the Wellcome Trust must be made freely accessible through PubMed Central and UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) as soon as possible and in any event within 6 months of publication.

13. Looking for landmarks

A recent study led by the Wellcome Trust's Strategic Planning and Policy Unit has relevance to current debates on the adoption of bibliometric indicators for use in the UK's forthcoming Research Excellence Framework. The study compares expert assessments of the quality of a large cohort of scientific publications associated with the Wellcome Trust, with 'performance' according to bibliometric indicators.

14. Mind-reading and malaria maps: the Wellcome Trust in the news

Are you about to publish a paper or currently working on research that you think may be of interest to the public? Please let us know! We are keen to promote the work of Wellcome Trust-funded researchers through the media.

Here are just a few of the Wellcome Trust research stories you may have seen recently:

Researchers use brain scans to read people’s memories (Guardian)
Therapists offer gay ‘treatment’ (BBC News Online)
All children should be offered swine flu vaccine this autumn to contain spread of pandemic, say researchers (Daily Mail)
Bullied children ‘up to four times as likely to suffer delusions’ (Daily Telegraph)

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

15. Trust on Twitter

The Wellcome Trust is now on Twitter, the 'microblogging' social networking tool, providing an additional channel for information about Trust news, events and activities. You can also sign up to a weekly news update by email.