Pre-Award

our Supporting Activities

Through past experience and knowledge of the funders, we have developed a process in which we can help work up an idea into an application. A summary of the different stages and timelines can be found below:

Pre-application process

• Research question review and development (Problem, Opportunity, Solution?)
• Project development (Who, How, What, Where, When and Why?)
• Advice on funding call remit or fit (Am I ready?)
• Regulatory considerations (What health or governmental authority approvals will be required)
• Sign posting to local subject matter experts for further advice (a list of these can be found on the Collaborators page)
• Sourcing vendors/suppliers/partners

Outline application process

• Organise key team meetings
• Review and edit application documents
• Design the Gantt chart, dependency diagram and organograms
• Budget planning ("Costing"), collate costings from collaborators
• Organise letters of support
• Liaise with Pricing & Contracts Team to ensure timely submission

Second stage application process

• Review and edit final application documents
• Organise mock interview and support

Pre-award timelines

Below is an example pre-award project development timeline based on a well developed research topic, with supporting data. For new concepts, forming and developing the idea to the point which would mean you stand a good chance of success can take up to 18 months or longer depending on your chosen field.

• Watch-Point: Add extra time for planning clinical trials.

Before you start:

• Make sure any relevant intellectual property you have generated is protected or you have an agreed way to prevent disclosure with your Business Manager.
• Make sure any new publications are stacked and submitted.
• Form any PPI or expert panel groups to improve the quality of the product being designed.

T-6 to -5 months:

• Compose your initial ideas (e.g. Problem, Opportunity & Solution).
• Draft a simple business case (Who, How, What, Where, When and Why).
• Compile notes on anything new and unique you have created which supports your intended solution (Intellectual Property).
• Share the information with your Business Manager (e.g. Sheffield Healthcare Gateway for MDH, The HUB for Engineering, or Graham Kiddle & Claire Mangham for Science).
• Hold your initial business manager meeting and follow up on any actions.
• Arrange a planning meeting with your core project team members.
• Arrange a PPI/expert panel meeting, obtain input into the design and the panel's backing for the project through a Letter of Support.

T-5 to -4 months:

• Hold project planning meeting, screen any ideas, and decide on the Problem, Opportunity & Solution you are setting out to address.
  • Watch-Point: Ask your team to be upfront with their time and availability to support the application. Set yourselves deadlines and arrange meetings well in advance to secure their availability.
• Decide if you have the right people, skills and organisations involved.
  • Watch-Point: The process of involving external organisations will be significantly slower than you expect, you will need to put agreements in place before you can disclose key information.
• Start to develop simple visual or text aids to help team members understand the scope of the project.
• Divide your intended project activities into meaningful groups (work packages).
• Start thinking about key decision making points within the project.
• Schedule your technical feasibility meeting with key stakeholders.

T-4 to -3 months:

• Hold technical feasibility meeting. Can the team deliver on what is being asked, do you have all the right people, have you asked all the relevant questions?
• Decide on draft milestones with SMART success criteria. These are essential Go/No Go points that will de-risk the project.
• Start asking for preliminary costs to understand what size of budget you are asking from the funder.
  • Watch-Point: Is your Research Net Contribution (RNC) greater than 20%? Final costs with an RNC less than 20% are at risk of the project not being approved for submission by your department or faculty (or at least some time consuming conversations to win people over!)
  • Watch-Point: For projects targeting NIHR funding schemes book your meeting with your local Research Design Services (RDS) group.
• Follow up on key actions.
• Follow up on any industry or external partnership discussions (chase up any contractual agreements that may be wallowing).

T-3 to -2 months:

• Hold your RDS meeting (for projects targeting NIHR funding).
• Hold a project planning meeting, work to identify any final missing pieces of the project, invite external partners along if you have agreements in place.
• Present back your project idea through sections of text, diagrams and pictures to ensure all parties understand what is being asked of them and more importantly make sure they know the limits of what they will get in return for being involved.

T-2 to -1.5 months:

• Turn your plans into a detailed Gantt chart. This you will use to organise the entire team, costings and duration. This will also be the first time your team will see the "nuts and bolts" of how the project is expected to be delivered.
• Review draft milestone success criteria.
• Compile detailed costings.
• Complete first full draft of the application documents.
• Book a project meeting to review the entire compiled project draft work.
• Keep progressing discussions with external/industrial partners, be mindful that approvals for involvement, letters of support, in-kind support take time as they are usually signed off by senior management whom may need additional time to come on-board with the project.

T-6 to -4 weeks:

• Hold project team meeting, record and follow up on actions.
• Aim to iron out any misconceptions, address any risks or perceived issues with the project within the project documents.
• Arrange external review. Aim to have at a minimum 3 independent reviewers, stagger their review to allow you time to address any findings between review cycles so the application progresses at a steady state.
• Chase up industrial or commercial support documentation.
• Notify any Heads of Faculty, Department or Research Services when you are aiming to submit and request letters of support.
• Update costings based on feedback.

T-4 to -3 weeks:

• Review time, address feedback.
• Keep team updated with progress through short regular meetings or phone calls.
• Ask all PIs, CIs and CoIs to check that they have their user "profiles" setup on any online systems (e.g. RCUK JeS, NIHR CCFRMS).

T-3 to -2 weeks:

• Start to compile on-line application once the documents are in a pre-final draft.
• Ask all PIs, CIs and CoIs to perform any online approvals in advance so that you can submit when ready.
• Upload all documents and materials. Generate a full application report to back-check everything appears as you intended when uploading.
• Lock any shared copies of documents from any further update without your consent (e.g. change edit to read only permissions in Google Drive documents or remove them from shared folders on servers).

T-2 to -1 weeks:

• Chase up any final comments, reviews, costings, letters of support.
• Have your costings approved in the Costing Tool (formerly known as URMS).
• Have your approved costings entered into the online application system.
• Back check the requested amount in the online application matches your case for support and milestone document.

Final week:

• Upload all final versions of documents.
• Costings are locked down and approved.
• Final checks.
• Submit!