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Health Innovation Funding Opportunities

Published and last updated by Alex Chafey
Health Innovation Network funding opportunities

The latest funding opportunities and grants for innovation in healthcare.

We update this page monthly so check back for the latest opportunities or subscribe to our newsletter for updates.

Featured Funding Opportunities

Diet and health innovation: Early stage feasibility projects Deadline: 8th May 2024
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £2.5 million for early stage feasibility projects working with one or more of the Diet and Health Open Innovation Research Club (OIRC) hubs. This funding is from BBSRC and Innovate UK.

SBRI Healthcare: NHS Cancer Programme – Innovation Open Call 3 Deadline: 29th May 2024. 
The competition aims to fast-track high quality, proven, late-stage innovations into front-line settings, as well as address implementation evidence gaps. The competition is open to all types of innovation, including but not limited to, medical devices, in vitro diagnostics, digital health solutions, behavioural interventions, software, artificial intelligence, and new models of care.

General health innovation funding opportunities:

INNOVATE UK:
Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body funded by a grant-in-aid from the UK government. 

Innovate UK Smart Grants: January 2024 Deadline: 24 April 2024
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £25 million for game-changing and commercially viable R&D innovations that can significantly impact the UK economy. This funding is from Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation.

UK-Switzerland CR&D Round 2 Deadline: 1 May 2024
UK registered organisations can apply for a share of up to £4 million for innovative projects in all technologies. You must collaborate with at least one Swiss implementation partner applying under the equivalent Swiss Innosuisse programme.

BIOTECHNOLOGICAL AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL:
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation, is a non-departmental public body, and is the largest UK public funder of non-medical bioscience. It predominantly funds scientific research institutes and university research departments in the UK

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH AND CARE RESEARCH:
The National Institute for Health and Care Research is the British government’s major funder of clinical, public health, social care and translational research. Its mission is to “improve the health and wealth of the nation through research”. For information on future NIHR i4i Connect Call 8 click here.

DEFENCE AND SECURITY ACCELERATOR (DASA) Deadline: Open call
DASA aims to find and fund exploitable innovation to support UK defence and security quickly and effectively, and support UK prosperity. 
Open Competition 
The Open Call is one of the funding competition mechanisms DASA uses to find proposals that address challenges faced by government stakeholders. It gives bidders the opportunity to present their ideas to defence and security stakeholders at any time, without waiting for a relevant Themed Competition.

MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (MRC)
The Medical Research Council (MRC) improves the health of people in the UK – and around the world – by supporting excellent science, and training the very best scientists. 

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (ESRC) Deadline: Open call
ESRC Research Grant 
If you have an excellent idea for a research project, the ESRC have their Research Grants open call. Awards ranging from £350,000 to £1 million (100 per cent full Economic Cost (fEC)) can be made to eligible institutions to enable individuals or research teams to undertake anything from a standard research project through to a large-scale survey and other infrastructure or methodological development.

NC3RS:
The NC3RS is a UK-based scientific organisation dedicated to helping the research community worldwide to replace, reduce and refine the use of animals for medical testing.

CRACK IT challenges 
Funding of £4M is available through the 2023 CRACK IT Challenges competition* to solve four Challenges, providing academics and SMEs based in the UK and Europe** with the opportunity to deliver scientific and 3Rs benefits through the development and commercialisation of 3Rs products and services that are tailored to end-user needs.

Trusts and Charities

The Health Foundation (HF)
HF’s aim is a healthier population, supported by high quality health care that can be equitably accessed. HF learns what works to make people’s lives healthier and improve the health care system. From giving grants to those working at the front line to carrying out research and policy analysis, they shine a light on how to make successful change happen.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF)
BHF provide personal support for clinical and non-clinical cardiovascular researchers at all stages of their career. They also provide grants for short and long term research projects, essential infrastructure and strategic initiatives.

Association of Medical Research Charities
Over 30 years ago a small, diverse group of medical research charities form the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) to unite the sector and provide it with a leading voice. Since then their membership has grown to over 140 charities. In 2018, these charities invested £1.3 billion in medical research.

Other UK Government, Seed Funds & Loans

The British Business Bank (BBB) Applications: Open

BBB are a government-owned business development bank dedicated to making finance markets work better for smaller businesses. Whether you’re looking for finance to start a business, grow to the next level, or stay ahead of the competition, they say that they can deliver greater volume and choice of finance.

UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund Deadline: Open

The UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (formerly known as The Rainbow Seed Fund) is a £27.1m early-stage venture capital fund building and growing technology companies stemming from the UK’s research base.

Creative England Investments Deadline: Open

Creative England is supporting SMEs by providing competitive loans to digital businesses in order to make their growth plans a reality. The investments on offer are intended to fuel this fast-growing sector by financing business expansion and new products, leading to the creation of new high-quality jobs and Intellectual Property (IP). Loans from £50,000 – £250,000 are available with repayment terms ranging from 3-36 months. Interest rates range from 5% – 10%, depending on the risk profile of the applicant. This includes companies from within the digital healthcare sector.

International Grants

Global Innovation Fund Applications: Open
GIF focuses on solutions that have the potential to address an important development problem more effectively than existing approaches, can come from anyone, anywhere. They seek out innovations they believe have the greatest potential to improve the lives of millions of people living in poverty.

The EIC Accelerator: Open Competition (Grants only)
The EIC Accelerator supports individual Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), in particular Startups and spinout companies to develop and scale up game-changing innovations.


Other international funds of interest:

The Global Challenges Research Fund
The Newton Fund

Making it easier for employees with Type 2 diabetes to access diabetes education courses at work

Published and last updated by Rahel Gerezgiher
People in the workplace

Making it easier for employees with Type 2 diabetes to access diabetes education courses at work

In the second phase of the ‘Think Diabetes’ project, we have partnered with two London-based employers to promote diabetes structured education for employees diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Written by Don Shenker, Diabetes Senior Project Manager

Our Think Diabetes Summit held on 14 June encouraged employers to promote diabetes structured education to their workforce to support employees living with diabetes to be better informed about how to manage their condition. Our Think Diabetes report noted that less than 10% of individuals diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes who are offered structured education from their GP actually go onto access the course. One of the reasons may well be a reluctance from employees to take time off work – or not having the flexibility to fit in education around work hours.

We have recently teamed up with Transport for London (TfL) and the London Ambulance Service (LAS) to pilot access to both remote/online courses and face-to-face on-site courses for employees diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. This means any employee living with diabetes will be able to complete a course either remotely or during work time, without having to take time off. The courses will be promoted via LAS and TfL’s internal wellbeing newsletters and are being funded through the NHS Diabetes Transformation Fund.

There is good evidence that attending a structured diabetes course improves health and reduces complications by focusing on understanding diabetes, improving diet and stressing the importance of a healthy lifestyle. The pilot courses will be delivered by NHS approved providers OurPath, Oviva and Kingston NHS Foundation Trust.

In order to evaluate the pilot, we will be conducting a survey and focus group for course attendees and tracking anonymised BMI and weight data. It is hoped that around 100 employees will access a course either remotely or on-site. Key questions will focus on whether this approach via the workplace made it any easier to attend a course and what further steps employers could take to promote education for employees living with diabetes. We will also evaluate the level of demand for the courses and which category of workers have attended or asked for a course.

The pilot went live on 1 October and results will be available in March 2020.

For further information, contact Don Shenker, Diabetes Project Manager (don.shenker@nsh.net)

 

Why do we need a leadership programme for care home managers?

Published and last updated by Rahel Gerezgiher

Why do we need a leadership programme for care home managers?

Written by Don Shenker, Project Manager for Healthy Ageing.

At the first workshop day for care home managers on the Pioneer Leadership Programme last January, participants were asked to list the things they did in a typical day as a care home manager. The 14 managers listed 55 tasks they typically undertook on a daily basis – ranging from dealing with funerals, preparing the staff payroll, dealing with complaints, checking medication systems and helping to move beds.

As someone who was very new to the care home sector, I was awed by the responsibility care home managers held and the loneliness of the job at hand – providing high levels of care to some of the most frail older people in society and dealing with the myriad regulations, controls and quality checks from CCGs, local authorities and the CQC. The managers on the programme nodded in recognition when talking about missed lunches, half-drunk cups of cold tea and waking up in the night, worried if everyone in their care home was alright.

To add to this, CCGs are continuing to push their care homes to reduce the number of residents going into hospital unnecessarily and to accept new admissions to the care home even at weekends – all to ease the pressure on hospitals struggling to cope with acute demand from a frail older population. One in seven over 85’s now live in a care home and there are three times as many care home beds as there are in the NHS. To add to this pressure on the NHS, emergency admissions to hospital from care home have increased by 65% between in the last six years (2011-2017).

The Health Innovation Network and My Home Life Care Home Pioneer Programme is a free leadership course for south London care home managers which aims to develop the leadership skills and confidence needed to lead care home teams in a demanding and pressurised sector.

The programme is run over nine months, with managers using exercises developed by My Home Life to improve deep listening skills, focus on collaboration, connect emotionally, discover what is working well and embed positive change together. The principle of appreciative enquiry is adopted – starting with recognising existing strengths as a team and building on that.

The overriding sentiment managers spoke of, to a packed room of care home managers, CCG commissioners and local authority staff on their Graduation day, in November, was how the programme had helped to build the confidence they needed to make changes and improve their home.

From changing how they ran team meetings to encourage staff to speak out, to developing culturally appropriate services and initiating new ways of involving residents in decision making, the care home ‘Pioneers’ spoke of how they had achieved a transformation in themselves and in their home. The programme evaluation shows a two-fold increase in the confidence managers felt in managing their team and their home.

Having developed our original Pioneers in 2018, the HIN is now recruiting a new cohort of care home manager pioneers for our 2019 programme, with the Pioneer Graduates being trained to co-facilitate and mentor the new cohort.

At a broader level for south London, the HIN hopes to support the care home Pioneers to now co-create the solutions required for older adult care with NHS, CCG and local authority colleagues to ensure continuing high-quality care pathways for older residents/patients. Having seen first-hand the remarkable resilience, strength and knowledge gained by the 14 Pioneers, I’m confident they will go on to achieve even greater things.

To find out more information and apply for the next cohort, please click here

Social prescribing champion training sessions

Published and last updated by Rahel Gerezgiher

Social prescribing champion training sessions

Health Innovation Network are proud to be delivering ‘Social Prescribing Champion Training’ sessions in June and July in collaboration with Wandsworth and Merton CCGs. For those working health and care, based in GP practices, working with voluntary groups and/or do some signposting. Please select a date out of four options and book this fantastic opportunity.

Training dates – One half-day (four-hour) session:

Thursday 21 June 9:00 – 13:00, Book here

Friday 22 June 12:00 – 16:00, Book here

Monday 2 July 9:00 – 13:00, Book here

Friday 6 July 12:00 – 16:00, Book here

For further details, please contact Urvi Shah at urvi.shah2@nhs.net

What is Social Prescribing?

Social prescribing is a means of enabling GPs, nurses and other primary care professionals to refer people to a range of local, non-clinical services.*

*kingsfund.org.uk/publications/social-prescribing