Funding call for Early Career Researchers – November 2021

Date of announcement: 1st November 2021 | Deadline foR Application submission: 3rd December 2021

Application Form

Application Scope and Eligibility

Scope and eligibility

• Each application must address the following:
• Relevance to the remit of the network and aspects of the challenges identified during the 3DbioNet workshops.

The remit of the network: 3 – dimensional biological cultures and methods involving such cultures. 

The proposed research activity must involve investigation of novel ideas in one or more of the following challenge areas:

Biomaterials, biomarkers, co-culture, multiorgan cultures, bioreactors, live cell imaging, real-time sensing, and data validation.

• Demonstrate how it will underpin multi-disciplinarity.

The proposed research activity should draw knowledge from more than one discipline. For example, while work could be from a single discipline it should be clear how it would enable/pump-prime a larger, multidisciplinary project in the longer term. 

• Longer term impact (for example, how the project will assist in career development, enable larger grant applications and publications).

• A minimum of 2 institutions should be involved in each project. One of these could be an industrial partner.
• Applications must be led by a UK-based Early Career Investigator (post PhD up to Lecturer level), who has attended at least one of the 3DbioNet workshops.
• The projects will be evaluated by 3DbioNet’s management and advisory board based on the quality and originality of the science, the fit with the remit of the call, the added value of the collaboration, and the potential for sustainability and longer-term funding.
• The budget for this call is £80k and we expect to fund 2-4 projects, with an average cost of £20-25K and a maximum budget of £40k per project.  
• Projects will be funded at 80% FEC (ie 80% of the total project cost will be funded by 3DbioNet).
• All projects must be completed by 1^st August 2022.
• If a grant is awarded, then the applicants commit to providing a final report by 8^th August 2022.

We Look forward to your proposals.

Best wishes

3DbioNet management team

Results of Pump-priming funding call October 2020

3DbioNet received 15 eligible applications in our final pump priming round in October 2020.

The applications review panel comprising of members from the 3DbioNet management board and the advisory board completed the final rankings of applications in November 2020. We are pleased to share the outcome. We were only able to fund three projects in this round, there are many more we would have liked to have funded. All projects are to be funded at 80% FEC by 3DbioNet.
The three successful projects are as follows:

Award amount: £62,500 Principal Investigator: Dr Ke Ning 
Institution: University of Sheffield, Department of Neuroscience
Project title: Development and validation of a human brain microphysiological system derived from induced pluripotent stem cells in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

Award amount: £79,890 Principal Investigator: Dr Deepak Kalaskar
Institution: Division of Surgery and Interventional Sciences, University College London
Project title: 3D Vascular Model as A Platform to Investigate Vascular Diseases

Award amount: £71,349 Principal Investigator: Dr Anke Richard-Bruning
Institution: Bioprocess and Biochemical Engineering group (BioProChem), Department of Chemical and Process Engineering
Project title: Bioprinting 3D Migratory Microenvironments for Brain Tumour Drug Screening

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Pump Priming Project Funding Call 2020

This is the final 3DbioNet call for pump-priming projects. The aim is to build on discussions and networking that took place at the virtual workshop in September 2020. The budget for individual projects is anticipated to be in the region of £30-50K, with a maximum budget of £80K.  

Scope and eligibility

• Applications must address the remit of the network and aspects of the challenges identified during the 3DbioNet workshops.
• The projects will be evaluated by 3DbioNet’s advisory board based on the quality and originality of the science, the fit with the remit of the call, the added value of the collaboration, and the potential for sustainability and longer term funding.
• A minimum of 2 institutions should be involved in each project. One of these could be an industrial partner.
• Applications must be led by a UK-based investigator, who has attended at least one of the 3DbioNet workshops.
• The budget for this call is £278k and we expect to fund 5-7 projects, with an average cost of £30-50K and a maximum budget of £80k per project.  
• Projects will be funded at 80% FEC.
• All projects must be completed by 31^st December 2021 (at the very latest).
• If a grant is awarded, then the applicants commit to providing a final report by 30^th January 2022, including a one page summary suitable for sharing on the network blog/website.

Pump Priming Project Application form

Please complete the Project Application form by downloading from the link above and submit by email to 3dbionet@liverpool.ac.uk

All applications should be in the Word document format.

Key dates
Deadline for Submission : Monday 2nd November 2020
Notification of outcomes:  Monday 16^th November 2020

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Previous Funding Calls

Funding call 2019

Pump-priming awardees confirmed: 3DbioNet received 21 eligible applications in our inaugural 2019 pump priming round. You can read about the 4 successful projects here. Register to our newsletter to keep up to date on future funding opportunities.

• Travel & Secondment (Collaboration Challenge) awards via three competitive calls with a budget of £8k each (5-8 awards per call with a maximum of £2k per award). The three T&S calls will be prioritised for Early Career Researchers’ training and development. They will support placements in other labs (including industry) to learn new techniques, acquire additional expertise, or/and generate preliminary data for collaborative grant applications. The first T&S call (The Collaboration Challenge) was launched in January 2019. We received six applications and three of them were successful. You can read more on the winning projects here.
• Pump priming projects. There will be two calls for pump-priming projects, in years 1 and 2 of the project, each with an approximate budget of £240K. The calls will be preceded by workshops that act as catalysts for participants to form new consortia that nucleate around potential projects. Technological and knowledge gaps identified during workshop breakout sessions will also inform the scope and shape of the calls for pump-priming activities which will be developed by the Management Board, with support from the Advisory Board. The budget for individual projects will be capped at £80K and we envisage funding approximately 5 projects per call.