Grantholders e-newsletter

Launched in July 2009, the Health Innovation Challenge Fund (HICF) is a £100 million, five-year parallel funding partnership between the Wellcome Trust and the Department of Health.

The funders are collaborating to stimulate the creation of innovative healthcare products, technologies and interventions, and facilitate their development for the benefit of patients in the NHS and beyond.

The HICF will have a succession of thematic calls for proposals, each selected to focus on unmet needs in healthcare relevant to the NHS, and will support innovative developments that are within three to five years of launch or adoption.

Advancing genetic discoveries into clinical practice is the first theme of the HICF, with a specific £20 million allocation.

Deadline for preliminary applications for the first themed call for proposals: 2 October 2009.

2. Wellcome Trust-National Institutes of Health Four-year PhD Studentships

Applications are now invited for the Wellcome Trust and National Institutes of Health Four-year PhD Studentships.

3. Postdoctoral Training Fellowships for MB/PhD Graduates

Applications are now invited for the Trust's Postdoctoral Training Fellowships for MB/PhD Graduates.

4. Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowships

Applications are now invited from newly qualified postdoctoral researchers for the Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowships.

5. Fellowship support for veterinary researchers

Applications are now being accepted for the Trust's Clinical Veterinary Fellowships scheme.

Conferences, advanced courses and workshops

6. Forthcoming Wellcome Trust Advanced Courses and Scientific Conferences

Advanced Courses
Error - target node or document does not exist 24-29 January 2010
Error - target node or document does not exist 15-26 February 2010
Virus Discovery in the Clinical Setting 7-12 March 2010
Molecular Basis of Bacterial Infection: Basic and Applied Research Approaches 9-15 May 2010

Scientific Conferences
Functional Genomics and Systems Biology Workshop 30 November-2 December 2009
Fundamentals of Clinical Genetics 2010 12-15 January 2010
Computational Cell Biology 10-14 February 2010
Therapeutic Applications of Computational Biology and Chemistry: TACBAC 2010 1-3 March 2010

For information on all Wellcome Trust Advanced Courses and Scientific Conferences, please visit the websites.

Other updates

7. Applicant feedback on referee comments

For project grant and university award grant applications that are to be considered by Funding Committees from January 2010 onwards, lead applicants will be invited to respond to the referees' comments ahead of the relevant Funding Committee when it makes its decisions.

Current Applicants whose applications will be subject to the new arrangements have already been informed. Details of the new arrangements and the schemes where the process now applies can be found on the Trust's website.

8. No cost extensions

The Trust has updated our policy regarding no cost extensions for existing and new grants.

9. HDBR web relaunches

The Human Developmental Biology Resource (HBDR) - the ongoing collection of human fetal material ranging from 4-14 weeks of development available to the scientific community - has updated its website. The new site now includes direct links to its gene expression database and also downloadable application forms for using the HDBR material as well as for the In House Gene Expression Service.

10. Student stipend competition: International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) 2010

The Wellcome Trust is offering a number of student stipends to support the participation of UK teams in the Internationally Genetically Engineered Machine competition.

11. Changes to the Wellcome Trust's Research Resources in Medical History funding scheme

From January 2010 a new strategic direction for the RRMH scheme will be implemented and there will be changes to the process by which archives and collections are identified and prioritised for funding.

The Trust will be identifiying archives and collections of strategic interest and will then enter into negotiations that will enable these collections and archives to be digitised. Information is available on our website. Any enquiries can be submitted to rrmh@wellcome.ac.uk.

12. Public engagement opportunities

Interested in the arts as a way to engage the public with your work? The Wellcome Trust would like to hear from scientists who are interested in either taking on an advisory role on an arts project or working with artists or performers on a collaborative project.

The Wellcome Trusts Arts Awards support arts projects that explore biomedical science and involve collaborations between the worlds of art and science. For more information email researchers.pe@wellcome.ac.uk or call 020 7611 8645.

13. Wellcome Trust Book Prize - celebrating medicine in literature

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. The shortlist is due to be announced on 9 October as part of 'Writing Medicine', a programmed event at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. The winner will be announced on 4 November. Keep up-to-date with both these announcements through our website.

14. Be an expert!

We often receive requests from journalists and producers looking for experts when science hits the headlines, for example swine flu, genetic testing or malaria, or to discuss an idea for a new documentary they are making.

We have set up a database of experts to help us quickly find the most appropriate researchers when we get approached. If you would like to be part of our database, please contact Craig Brierley:
E c.brierley@wellcome.ac.uk
T +44 (0)20 7611 7329

For more information about dealing with media, download our free Guide to Working with the Media.
View recent Wellcome Trust press releases.

15. Library Year in Review

The Library's 'Year in Review' is out now. It covers Library activities during 2008, specifically highlighting the digitisation programme.