Calls for Proposals

This page contains calls for proposals that SULSA has been made aware of and wishes to support.

Call for Proposals for Programmes of Knowledge Exchange

A call for proposals is announced for programmes to be held in the Scottish Universities Insight Institute in the period March 2012 to September 2012. Further information about the Institute and its programmes can be found here.

Application guidelines and application forms can be downloaded here.

Key dates

• Deadline for Registering Interest (not part of selection): 23:59hrs, Saturday 15th October 2011

• Deadline for submitting a Proposal: 5pm, Friday 11th November 2011

• Funding decision made by: Week beginning 12th December 2011

Programmes Scottish Insight will support at least 2 programmes of knowledge exchange and mobilisation as a result of this call. Programmes should:

• address substantial issues that face Scotland and the wider world;

• require a multi-disciplinary approach and multi-sector participation;

• marshal the existing knowledge of participants and deploy their experience in fresh ways;

• be productively addressed through a schedule of activities during March-September 2012

• have the capacity to extend knowledge and inform policy and/or practice.

Programme participants should include international expertise. Organising teams must include at least one member employed at a Scottish partner university and leadership teams that involve more than one partner university will be viewed positively.

Partner universities financially sponsoring these programmes are the Universities of Aberdeen, Dundee, St Andrews and Strathclyde.

Academics from other Scottish universities may participate but not lead programmes.

About the Institute

In its pilot phase, the Institute was hosted and supported by the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow as the Institute for Advanced Studies. Since autumn 2010, the Institute operates under the name Scottish Universities Insight Institute, a shared venture funded by four Scottish universities and this call is issued on their behalf.

CRACK-IT

The NC3Rs is looking to invest through its new initiative CRACK-IT  in new technologies and methodologies with the potential to minimise animal use and improve animal welfare for the global biosciences research community.

Working with industry they have identified six business challenges and are now looking to the academic and SME sectors to provide the solutions with funding from the NC3Rs and in kind contributions from industry sponsors.

The Challenges will be launched at a meeting in central London on 20 September 2011, where there will be opportunities to:

• Meet the industry sponsors during Challenge-specific surgeries;
• Identify new collaborators to help solve these Challenges.

The Challenges and the types of expertise that may be needed are below - full briefs for all Challenges are now available:

A predictive in vitro screen for nephrotoxicity: from mice to men and back again http://www.nc3rs.org.uk/crackit-kidneytox Cell culture, tissue engineering, stem cells, cellular and molecular assays (e.g. high content imaging, genomics, real-time read outs, etc.

Wireless recording of the electrophysiology of cognition in psychiatric disease models http://www.nc3rs.org.uk/crackit-cognition Rodent behaviour, in vivo electrophysiology, telemetry, mechanical and electrical engineering, software development

Rodent Big Brother: automated recording of rodent activity and temperature in the home cage http://www.nc3rs.org.uk/crackit-rodentbigbrother Software and data collection, sensor electronics, telemetry

Improving the predictive capacity of in vitro cytokine release assays to reduce animal use and drug attrition http://www.nc3rs.org.uk/crackit-cytokinerelease Immunology, cellular assays, antibody structure and function

Improved in vitro to in vivo extrapolation in chemical safety risk assessment of human systemic toxicity http://www.nc3rs.org.uk/crackit-IVIVE Cell biology, physiology, chemistry, mathematical modelling, systems biology

BADIPS - Generating human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) to study bipolar affective disorder http://www.nc3rs.org.uk/crackit-BADIPS

The CRACK-IT Challenges competition will be run in collaboration with the Technology Strategy Board through their Small Business Research Initiative. More information is available in the Guide for Participants.

Potential applicants are strongly recommended to attend the launch meeting.

To sign up to the event go to www.nc3rs.org.uk/crackit-launchevent. The deadline for registration is 9 September 2011.

To find out more go to www.nc3rs.org.uk/crackit