Research & Innovation
The medical technology industry is highly innovative. Continual incremental innovation means that medical devices
constantly develop and improve. It is also essential that new innovations are found, developed and adopted.
Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) support for healthcare technology research
EPSRC is one of the biggest funders of Healthcare engineering research in UK. An overview of their funding portfolio, with details of all the research projects involved, can be found here. To get to the details, click on one of the eight sub-themes, and then select a research area. While the research areas are not exclusively involved in Healthcare engineering, they provide access to details of all the research projects funded in this area, some of which may be relevant to your field.
EPSRC has just issued three new calls with relevance to healthcare engineering. These are:
Details on how to follow these up are included at the bottom of the hyperlinked pages. If you have any questions or comments on any of the above, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me at oliver.wells@abhi.org.uk.
100% funding for MedTech Research & Development Projects
Two funding programmes now offer up to 100% funding for Medical Technology R&D projects. These are: i4i (Invention for Innovation); and the Health Innovation Challenge Fund (HICF). The responsibility for research management of both programmes lies with the Central Commissioning Facility.
The i4i Programme is one of the major funding routes for medical technology research and development support. It operates a rolling programme of calls for proposals: the latest call was announced on 1st November and closes on 7th December; the next call is due in May 2012, and will close in June 2012.
The programme seeks to foster collaboration between researchers in industry, NHS organisations and universities. For a proposal to be eligible for an award, the project team must comprise researchers from at least two of these sectors. It also particularly welcomes proposals from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) or teams that have previously demonstrated success in taking new technologies through product development to commercialisation.
The programme can fund projects in England and Wales, and has been improved recently to simplify submission and broaden the scope of projects which can be accepted.
Individual awards are for a period of between 1-3 years. The amount of funding is intended to meet all directly incurred costs which research and development providers incur at the following levels:
- Academic or Higher Education Institutions will be paid up to 80% of the FEC of research and development;
- NHS organisations will be paid 100% of the directly incurred costs.
- Research and Technology Organisations (RTOs) and charities will have up to 100% of their project costs paid.
- Commercial organisations will be paid up to 100% of their project costs.
If you are interested and have any questions, please contact the i4i programme team. Email i4iprogramme@nihr-ccf.org.uk or tel 020 8843 8015.
The Health Innovation Challenge fund is supported equally by the Department of Health and the Wellcome Trust. Its key objectives are to: encourage innovative products for patient benefit; improve the uptake of new technological advances into patient management pathways; and integrate the clinical, research, informatics and product development communities.
HICF is a translational funding mechanism, and funds two themes per year, each up to £10m. This funding is intended to take the technology to a stage where it is sufficiently developed to be attractive to commercial organisations for follow-on development and taking the product to market. As with the i4i programme, these are expected to be collaborative research proposals, and up to 100% of the project costs of commercial organisations can be paid.
It operates through a series of themed calls: details of previous calls are listed here, and new calls are expected to be announced in February and June 2012. Contact details for the programme managers are listed here.
If you would like to find out more about these funding programmes, please get in touch with the programme managers directly – their details are at the websites for the respective programmes as shown above. If you want to discuss them with me, Oliver Wells, in more detail, please email me at oliver.wells@abhi.org.uk.
Optimising MedTech Development & Innovation through Research - 23rd Feb - Nottingham
ABHI is working with NOCRI and Medilink UK to put on a series of events on the improved clinical research infrastructure in UK. The next is due to be hosted by East Midlands Medilink at BioCity, Nottingham on 23 February 2012. For more details, click here.
Map of the UK Health Technology Innovation Landscape
ABHI Research and Innovation work aims to increase the understanding of how innovation works in the UK market. It focuses on the development of a better innovation environment for industry and ensures that the voice of industry is heard. In support of this, we have been working with the Health Technologies and Medicines KTN and Medilink UK to produce an Innovation Map describing the UK Health Technology Innovation Landscape. [Please note: access to this site requires that you login: when you reach the page, you will be asked to register - at no cost - to do this]
There are a number of strategic bodies in the innovation environment that ABHI works with, including the Office for Strategic Co-ordination of Health Research (OSCHR), the Health Technologies & Medicines Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) and the NHS Technology Adoption Centre. Additionally ABHI works closely with BIS and DH to ensure effective support for SMEs.
Translational Research Partnerships
The NIHR Office for Clinical Research Infrastructure (NOCRI) has issued information on its Translational Research Partnerships (TRPs). Two pilots were established in 2010, and are about to be officially launched. If you would like to find out more, an explanatory letter from NOCRI and flyers for each of the TRPs are here:
NOCRI explanatory Letter
Translational Research Partnership Inflammatory Respiratory Disease
Translational Research Partnership Joint and Related Inflammatory Diseases