Pre-call announcement: UKRI GCRF Health and Context call 2019

The UKRI GCRF Health and Context call is seeking proposals for interdisciplinary research addressing wider contextual factors contributing to the burden of infectious and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). These factors may include social, cultural, historical, and religious beliefs and practices, or wider ecological, biological and environmental factors. We want to fund ambitious research that goes beyond description to determine causal relationships between contextual influences and health. Projects developing or testing feasible interventions that are sensitive to or mitigate contextual influences are also within the remit of this call. We encourage the engagement of relevant community stakeholders in the development and implementation of proposals.

Via the GCRF, UKRI will support impactful, three-year research projects up to a value of approximately £2 million. This call is being led by various councils across UKRI and multidisciplinary approaches combining biomedical, social, and environmental science, and the arts and humanities are encouraged.

Official Development Assistance and Global Challenges Research Fund

The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) is a £1.5 billion fund announced by the UK government in 2015 to support research addressing the challenges faced by developing countries. MRC is a GCRF delivery partner and their contribution to this call is from a GCRF allocation. GCRF forms part of the UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment; the research supported through this call will contribute to the UK’s ODA commitment to low and middle income countries (LMIC).

Applications must demonstrate the research to be primarily relevant and directly linked to near-term or long-term benefits to the health or prosperity of LMIC. Applications should articulate a clear and specific case for the relevance of the proposed research to the LMIC partners and provide evidence that the proposed plan of research is informed by the needs of LMIC partners. Further guidance on ODA and demonstrating ODA compliance in applications for funding is available via the UKRI: Global Challenges Research Fund webpage.