Feature: Strategic Awards 2006
22 February 2006. By Ian Jones
Launched in 2005, the Wellcome Trust's Strategic Awards are intended to provide a flexible funding mechanism enabling researchers to add value to their existing work.
The Awards are open to internationally competitive groups seeking to develop their research in innovative ways. "The doors are open to good ideas in any subject area," emphasises Sohaila Rastan, Director of Science Funding at the Wellcome Trust. As long as the proposals are within the Trust's remit and applicants are eligible to apply for Trust support, any well-established group can apply for funding to take research to another level.
In addition, says Dr Rastan, the initiative is "an exciting and flexible vehicle allowing us to take forward the strategic priorities identified by Strategy Committees".
Strategy Committees came into operation in October 2004, as part of the new 'streams' model of research funding. Since then they have been meeting regularly to consider the needs and opportunities within their respective areas of science. They have begun to make recommendations to the Trust's Board of Governor's about possible future priority areas (see box below).
"This is currently a menu of five things that would be particularly welcome," emphasises Dr Rastan, "but we will look outside these too. The menu is a movable feast and might change after each Strategy Meeting, is approved by the Board of Governors."
Of course, what is valuable in one area may not be appropriate for another, so the Strategic Awards scheme has been deliberately designed to be flexible, allowing researchers to put together proposals best suited to individual situations.
A number of major applications are currently being considered, and the first Awards are likely to be made later in 2006. The applications so far, suggests Dr Rastan, have picked up on some of the key features of the initiative. "We're very keen to see more interdisciplinary working," she says. "Advances in biomedical science are increasingly going to depend on input from chemists, physical scientists and mathematicians. We need to get these people working together on a common biological or medical problem, so they can bring their different expertise together around a common purpose."
She also sees the potential for Strategic Awards to catalyse the growth of research programmes abroad. "Our Major Overseas Programmes in South-east Asia and Africa have been phenomenally successful. They're tackling globally important medical problems and are having an internationally significant impact. If a research programme already has a foothold in an overseas location, then Strategic Awards would be one mechanism by which research could be developed further." Such a mechanism could also provide a significant input into local capacity building.
"We firmly believe in supporting the best researchers with the best ideas," stresses Dr Rastan, setting out a challenge to the UK's research communities. "We've tried to be imaginative in terms of the ways in which we can provide support for people. Now we want them to come up with the big ideas that we can fund."
All the Strategy Committees have highlighted the urgent need to address the lack of expertise in statistics, study design, data analysis (e.g. from cohort or demographic surveillance studies) and mathematical biology.
The Populations and Public Health Committee has identified a need to address training of and interactions between clinicians, basic scientists and practitioners in public health research.
The Physiological Sciences Strategy Committee has expressed concern about the lack of exposure that young scientists have to in vivo research, and the imminent loss of skills in this area as the current experts retire.
To take full advantage of the UK's strengths in neuroimaging, the Neurosciences Strategy Committee has identified a need for increased networking between major imaging centres and interdisciplinary programmes involving mathematicians, physicists and engineers.
Research that enables the rapid, accurate diagnosis and response to emerging diseases has been seen as crucial by the Immunology and Infectious Disease Strategy Committee. Applications for networks that bring together epidemiologists, molecular biologists, clinicians and veterinarians, and that link surveillance data with research, are therefore particularly encouraged.