Photo Acknowledgement: John Welch

Industry Research Grants


RESEARCH GRANT POLICY

The Australia and New Zealand Society for Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes (ANZSPED) is a not- for- profit organisation and believe that good stewardship means maximising research funds. We therefore request that the budget for each grant reflect only the expenses that are directly required for and that can be reasonably attributed to the project i.e. research staff salaries, travel expenses, and equipment/materials expenditure. ANZSPED will not fund indirect costs i.e. facilities and administrative expenses including rent, utilities, administrative, finance, accounting, IT and legal support imposed by internal or external partner organisations.


ANZSPED INDUSTRY RESEARCH GRANTS 2023 RESEARCH GRANTS

AIMS

  • These grants are used to support research in Australia and New Zealand at an early to mid-career level.
  • To support new projects and pilot studies in paediatric endocrinology

AVAILABLE GRANTS 2023

  • All grants listed below are for research into any aspect of paediatric endocrinology or diabetes, unless otherwise specified
  • Sandoz grant is to support new research and pilot studies in the field of growth disturbances in paediatric endocrinology in Australia and New Zealand
  • ANZSPED Registry Grant is to provide financial support for multicentre research utilising the ANZSPED Patient Registry (APR)

GRANT AMOUNT

SUPPORTED BY

The ANZSPED Research Grants, supported by industry, are funded through an unsolicited institutional research grant. 

Companies outside of ANZSPED have no involvement in the program design and selection of awardees.

$60,000
$35,000
$25,000
$20,000
(Registry Grant)
$20,000
(Growth Grant)

Grants listed are correct at the time of print (30 April 2023) and subject to change.


REQUIREMENTS

  • Applications are invited from ANZSPED members who are Australian or New Zealand citizens or permanent residents who are currently residing, working and conducting research within Australia and New Zealand.
  • The Principal Investigator must be a financial ANZSPED member.
  • Successful applicants are required to conduct the majority of their research within Paediatric Endocrinology Units within Australia and New Zealand
  • Applications are to be focused on the paediatric population, for children and adolescents under the age of 20 years
  • Separate applications are required for each of the grant categories
  • There is no restriction to the number of applications per primary investigator, but only one grant will be awarded per investigator per year.

For Grants of $60,000 or above

    • As of the 01 January 2024 you must be:
    • A current trainee in paediatric endocrinology in Australia or NZ, or
    • No longer than 5 years (*career breaks considered) beyond completing paediatric endocrinology training (as determined by the RACP Endocrinology SAC or equivalent) or a higher research degree (whichever came later) or
    • A qualified diabetes / endocrine nurse, allied health professional or scientist currently engaged in paediatric endocrinology and no longer than 5 years (*career breaks considered) beyond completion of a higher research degree

For Grants under $60,000

    • As of the 01 January 2024 you must be:
    • A current trainee in paediatric endocrinology in Australia or NZ, or
    • No longer than 10 years (*career breaks considered) beyond completing paediatric endocrinology training (as determined by the RACP Endocrinology SAC or equivalent) or a higher research degree (whichever came later) or
    • A qualified diabetes / endocrine nurse, allied health professional or scientist currently engaged in paediatric endocrinology and no longer than 10 years (*career breaks considered) beyond completion of a higher research degree
      * justification of consideration of career breaks may be provided on an additional A4 page in CV
  • Recipients of smaller grants in previous years are able to apply for the 60K grant in subsequent years.
    • Awarding of these smaller grants will not reduce the likelihood of subsequently receiving the 60K grant.
    • Recipients of a previous Australasian Paediatric Endocrine Care (APEC) grant (discontinued), are now eligible to apply for any ANZSPED Industry Research Grant although consideration will be given where applicants have not previously received this grant.
  • Recipients of a previous ANZSPED grant who have not fulfilled conditions of the grant are ineligible to re-apply for any ANZSPED grant.
  • Stand-alone grants will be given preference over top-up grants.
  • Grants of academic excellence will be given priority.
  • It is desirable to have ethics approval from the relevant body prior to grant application, but this is not a necessity. Ideally, ethics approval should be gained within 6 months of being awarded the grant and WILL BE A REQUIREMENT FOR RELEASE OF FUNDING.
  • Your application must be basic science or clinical research with a study protocol that has not already been initiated. Applications of either type will be treated equally.
  • Incomplete applications will not be processed.
  • Grant can be used for salary of the principal investigator.

ANZSPED PATIENT REGISTRY (APR) GRANT

Objective: The APR grant is intended to provide financial support for multicentre research utilising the APR. This will help promote the use of the APR amongst ANZSPED members, and also encourage collaboration across centres in order to derive maximal benefit from the APR.

As with all ANZSPED grants, the principal investigator must be an ANZSPED member. PI cannot be a member of the ANZSPED grants subcommittee.

The principal investigator can be from any craft group represented by ANZSPED (allied health, nursing, medical, scientist). They can be at any stage of their career development, however the applicant’s track record (and that of the proposed research team) will be considered as part of the judging process. There is no limit on the seniority of applicants.

Funding of $20,000 will be awarded to the successful applicant. Ethics approval will need to be granted prior to the distribution of funds.

The grants will be judged on the following criteria:

  • Scientific merit – originality
  • Justification
  • Clinical relevance
  • Feasibility
  • Track record/background of applicants
  • Multicentre/collaborative approach
  • Alignment with ANZSPED objectives

The APR application is a 2 step process.
BEFORE 1 JUNE 2023: the grant application should be sent to the PI of the APR, A/Prof Andrew Biggin, for consideration of feasibility. If A/Prof Biggin and the Registry Subcommittee is satisfied the project is appropriate, then the applicant will be informed that they can complete the formal submission to ANZSPED.

Once feedback from the Registry Subcommittee is received, the grant can be completed and must be lodged to ANZSPED, by the deadline date, via the online submission process, in order for it to be considered.


TENURE OF ALL GRANTS

ANZSPED Secretariat will distribute funding for each ANZSPED Industry Grant award to its maximum value for one year from 01 January 2024 to conduct the proposed research study (In extenuating circumstances extensions may be made, but these decisions will be made at the discretion of ANZSPED Council).

Please note that the funding proposals for each research project should not exceed the amount of the grant applied for, or where they do, evidence of available alternative funding for these sections of the project should be provided. The project scope should reflect the funding amount awarded. The applicant must indicate in their grant application under the ‘budget’ section what proportion of the proposal will be covered by the ANZSPED Industry Grant and if other funding is being received for the proposal then details must be entered as to where from, e.g. existing NHMRC grant or other philanthropic grant.

Grant recipients must notify ANZSPED of any other funding obtained (or applied for) during the duration of the grant, with a full Grant Proposal and Budget provided.

Funding will be available after 1 January 2024 once evidence of ethics approval for each (and all) sections of the proposal is provided.


SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Applications are restricted to four (4) A4 pages (plus references, 2 page CV & supporting letter from supervisor) of principal investigator, including previous publications and research grants awarded. Applications longer than four (4) A4 pages will not be reviewed.
Applications should be submitted via the advertised online process and provide the following information:

  • Project title Name, qualifications and contact details of the applicant
  • Name, qualifications and addresses of co-investigators
  • Previous ANZSPED grants within last 10 years, including title of grant, year of funding, title of abstract presented at ANZSPED and publication(s) related to it.
  • Two (2) separate applications must be submitted to be considered for both grant categories – with provision of budget details applicable to each category.
  • The grant will be separately assessed for the 60K and 20-35K grants, therefore the feasibility of the budget will also be considered independently at each level. Therefore, a detailed and well-justified budget is required for both levels of funding.
  • Introduction, Hypothesis, Aims, Methods, Statistics
  • Research protocol
  • Significance of the study
  • Detailed budget – if applying for a range of grant amounts (e.g. $20,000 – $35,000) indicate planned budget modifications for the different levels of funding
  • Details of other financial support (including other applications pending for similar projects, even under another chief investigator)
  • If the study is multicentre, or involves a registry or research network (eg: ADDN), a letter of consent or endorsement from other centres or registry or network involved is required
  • Role of the applicant – (repeated from above).
  • List of applicant’s other clinical/ research commitments during the study period and provide an explanation of how you will split these commitments to complete your project within the timeline.
  • A letter from your supervisor or department head supporting the project, including confirmation that they have reviewed the application in full. HoDs are also requested to comment on the feasibility of the study, and whether other funding is likely to be available for the planned project. They are also required to confirm that the required infrastructure is available at the institution in order to support the study

HELPFUL HINTS FOR SUCCESS

Ensure:

  • Your supervisor reviews and provides guidance on your application
  • Clear, focused aims and hypothesis
  • Design matches aims and hypothesis
  • Clear justification of your budget
  • Your role in the study is clearly defined (and you define how you can manage competing training/clinical/research loads).
  • Consistency across your application

Please note that the Institutional Ethics Committee approval is not a requirement at the application stage, however this is a required document prior to any financial payments should the application be successful in obtaining an ANZSPED Industry Research Grant.

If you have any questions regarding the completion of the application please contact ANZSPED Secretary, Dr Peter Simm via the ANZSPED Secretariat


GRANT CONDITIONS

ANZSPED Industry Grants are awarded with the expectation that timely submissions for presentation will be made at appropriate medical meetings or research forums and those papers will be submitted for publication in appropriate peer-reviewed medical journals.

Fulfillment of the Grant Award Requires:

  1. Notification of other successful grants related to the submission within the year the grant was awarded (with budget and the other grant(s) details supplied).
  2. Submission of ethics approval within 6 months of receiving the award (funding will be released after receipt of ethics approval).
  3. Annual research report submitted to ANZSPED secretariat prior to each Annual Report (where it will be published), until research results are published.
  4. Research findings derived from ANZSPED Industry Research Grants need to be submitted as an abstract for presentation at the ANZSPED ASM within 2 years of receiving the funding
  5. ANZSPED acknowledgement on publication(s) related to grant
  6. Provide ANZSPED with links to any publication(s), such that they can be linked on the ANZSPED website.
  7. While sometimes a negative study result, or other issues, may lead to failure of progress on a study, where there is failure to produce an annual report, or no valid explanation for failure to meet predicted milestones on a project, ANZSPED reserves the right to recall awarded monies.
  8. No study payments will be made directly to the Grant Recipient. ANZSPED Secretariat will pay such funds to the Grant Recipient’s nominated Institution.

 

To begin your application:

Deadline: Monday 3 July 2023, midnight AWST

Application site will be closed from this time and nothing further will be accepted.