Introducing our Post-Doctoral Scholarship

Name: Introducing our Post-Doctoral Scholarship
Uploaded: 2025-01-02T07:34:47.808Z
Duration: 59 min 54 s
Channel: Mental Sharpness
Description: Introducing our Post-Doctoral Scholarship

Mental Sharpness

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Jan 2, 2025 #education #englishskill #learningenglish

#education #englishskill , #learningenglish #intellectualskill

Hi everyone and thank you for joining the MQ postdoctoral scholarship webinar. My name is Hala Rashidi. I am the research program lead at MQ and today I will provide you with some information about this new pilot scheme and funding opportunity that we're launching. I will kick things off with a little housekeeping. Please make sure you're muted for the duration of the webinar. Use the chat to introduce yourself. We will also post some links in the chat so keep an eye out for those. The webinar will be recorded and we will share the recording through the MQ YouTube channel. Also if you're registered for the webinar you will receive the link for that recording as well and use the Q&A function to submit the questions, not the chat, so try to to the Q&A function. We'll try to address all of your questions during the session so at the end of the session we will answer the questions and then these will feed back into an FAQ document which we will also share along with the recording. So joining me today we have Jan Speechley. Jan is a public contributor and lived experience expert. She is a member of the public advisory board for National Institute of Health and Care Research and the Health Data Research UK. Jan sits on multiple funding committees including the NIHR funding committee and she will join us on the funding committee for the postdoctoral scholarship as well. Also with us today is Dr Simon Kiyuki. Simon is a scientist at the Kembry Wellcome Trust Research Programme where he co-directs the neuroscience research and he is a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford and an MQ fellows alumni. Simon will also be a part of the funding committee for the scholarship programme and so for the agenda today we will start with welcome introduction. We will go through the rationale, aims, eligibility, remit and award package, the application process and the evaluation process for the postdoctoral scholarship. I will then hand over to Simon and Jan who will provide some tips for the applicants and then we will move over to answer your questions. So to introduce MQ we are located in London and New York so we have offices in both countries and we have delivered 23 million pounds of groundbreaking research through grants and collaborations in 37 countries around the world. We've done so through delivering and designing grant rounds similar to this one by convening and bringing together experts, academic and lived experience experts to drive policy change and mobilise action and identify priority funding areas. We also partner on research as co-investigators and as advisors as well. So the rationale for this particular scheme is that we know that mental health research is constrained by the scale of the workforce and MQ has sought to address this gap through multiple capacity building programmes and funding programmes, particularly our flagship fellows award programme. Now the fellows award programme is directed at researchers three to seven years postdoc and unfortunately researchers are leaving academia even before they get to that stage so after consulting with academics and the mental health science council through the scoping exercise for this goal we've identified that there is a gap in research funding at that early postdoctoral level and we've designed this particular call to address this gap. So the MQ postdoctoral scholarship is aimed at newly qualified postdoctoral researchers who are within two years of completing their doctoral degree and the aim for this scholarship is to strengthen their career and research experience, expand their research skills, establish a research track record and help and allow them to competitively apply for more advanced fellowships. Now in terms of eligibility you need to have a doctoral degree by the 1st of January 2024 so that is the award start date and we expect that you would have passed your doctoral examination with minor or no correction by the application deadline which is 14th of July to be able to have that doctoral degree. There is a limit on research experience so you should not have more than two years of full-time equivalent research experience after the doctoral degree by 14th of July 2023 so that's the application deadline and the research experience so your doctoral degree that is the date on your diploma. Now if you have had career breaks during that period they do not count towards that full-time equivalent so you can reduce them or deduct them from that. You can be based anywhere in the world except for institutions that are based in countries which are under UK financial sanctions for obvious reasons and you should be able to dedicate at least 50% full-time equivalent for the duration of the award. Now in terms of the remit the project could be basic clinical or public mental health research it could look into the biological psychological social economic cultural and environmental factors behind mental illness and or could study how these different factors interact with each other in mental illness. So really there is no theme we wanted this goal to be as inclusive as possible and to be accessible to researchers regardless of their discipline and to all researchers who have a background on working in the mental health field. That being said building on recommendations from the framework for mental health research and the MQ1 to soon paper the MQ Lancet commission on COVID-19 pandemic and the mental health research goal we have identified priority focus areas or populations. So these are studying the social and economic determinants of mental health and particularly investigating solutions and intervention, understanding and reducing mental health inequalities, innovative research to enhance our understanding of the links between mental and physical health, mental health of children adolescents and young adults, prevention, public population and community mental health within the wider sociological and economic context, using digital technology and big data in mental health, underrepresented and or globally diverse populations, vulnerable populations at risk of mental illness, supporting choice and access to mental health care across different settings. Now if your project is not focused on any of these areas and does not apply to those you are still eligible to apply and regardless all proposals should make the case for why they are important and why this is a research area that needs this funding and that is a priority and is relevant to the needs of patients public or carers. Now in terms of the awards package itself the funding period can be 12 to 24 months so it's completely up to the applicant to decide on the duration of the project but bear in mind that whatever duration you decide that in addition to the full-time equivalent that you plan to dedicate means that the project should be achievable in that time frame and in that proportion of time you are dedicating to it. The funding amount is up to £95,000. We will fund the salary for the applicant, direct research expenses so these can be consumables, patient and public involvement costs, dissemination, open access charges, data access costs, publication costs. We also fund animal costs, travel costs and training and development costs. What we don't fund is indirect research costs or overhead so anything related to estate costs or HR, finance, administrative costs are not covered in this scheme. In terms of the application process itself there are two stages. The first is the expression of interest stage then a full application stage. The expression of interest stage opens on the 30th of June so that's tomorrow. It closes on the 14th of July then shortlisted applicants will be invited to submit a full application that will open on the 26th of July and close on the 18th of September. Between September and October the funding committee and external reviewers will review those full applications. They will have a final decision meeting and the decision will be communicated by December 2023. The award start date is January 2024. Now for the application itself you will need to submit your application through our grants management system FlexiGrant so you need to go to mq.flexigrant.com to register for an account. Once you are registered for that account you go to your account then to my applications in that account and you will see all open funding calls from MQ. We currently have two open funding calls so make sure that you are selecting the right application so that is MQ postdoctoral scholarship expression of interest form. That's what you need to submit. The application itself has five main sections. The first is the applicant details where you will be asked to provide your contact information, information about your experience, employment, education, your career level and a personal statement explaining why you are the right candidate for the scholarship and what sets you apart from other candidates. That section is 300 words long. Then you will have the project overview so this is a very brief section. It includes the project title, duration of the project, information about the proportion of time that you plan to dedicate for the scholarship, the discipline and area for this research project and also you will be asked to provide a very general breakdown of the cost or the budget that you're asking for in terms of salary and direct research expenses. These can change so it's not set in stone between this application stage and the full application if there are changes to that budget allocation that is completely fine and so we just want a rough estimate at this point. The third section is the scientific abstract. For the scientific abstract you will be asked mainly about the aims and background of the project, the methods that are going to be used and how the result is going to be used. This has a word limit of 500 words. This does not include the references and you can have a supplementary attachment document to it only if you have graphs or something that you really need to include in that proposal. For the scientific abstract to be honest our tip is don't assume that the reviewers know anything or have this background and knowledge in your discipline. Assume that the reviewers actually don't have specialist knowledge in your particular discipline and try to be as elaborate as possible and really spill it out for us. Lay all the information out there. Don't assume that we already know things. Then we have the patient and public involvement section. So this section is we're asking for a plain English summary of your research, how you plan to involve patients, public or carers and what is your dissemination plan. Please do not copy paste sections from your scientific abstract to this section. We actually the National Institute of Health and Care Research has a lot of guidance and resources and we do provide the link to those so make sure that you go to that link and read through them before you complete this section. Then the fifth section is the grants, awards and publications. So you'll be asked to list any grants that you might have as a co-investigator or PI, any awards and achievements and up to five publications. Now we are fully aware of the early concentration of these awards and so we're more interested in the research outputs including pre-print or conference papers and the content of the publication and not the publication journal or the research metrics. Now in terms of the assessment itself, we have the funding committee and this committee includes international experts. So these are academic experts from diverse disciplinary backgrounds in the field of mental health science and lived experience experts including Simon and Jan. The application will be assessed based on four main criteria and all of these criteria are equally weighted so 25% each. The first is skills and potential of the applicant. So have you demonstrated your unique skills and experience and your ability to carry out the proposed research? And are you at the appropriate career level and have you shown and demonstrated commitment to mental health science? Quality and originality of the proposed project. So is the proposed research asking a new and interesting question beyond state of the art? What sets it apart from other work that you've done or the work that has been already been done by your supervisor? So what's new about this project? Also have you explained the aims, research question and methods clearly and defined them very clearly in that scientific abstract? Are the aims achievable within that time frame? Output, impact and dissemination. So have you explained your research output and questions and have you considered the potential impact for this research proposal? Do you have adequate plans to share the results and to engage with academic and non-academic audience and have you made the case for your research project? Patients and public involvement. So have you demonstrated the relevance of this proposed research to patients, public or carers? And do you have plans in place to involve patients, public or carers beyond just engagement as study participants? What is the level of engagement and at what stages? And have you explained and clearly communicated your research particularly in that patient and public involvement section? So these are the four main criteria. We don't expect you to be experts in patient and public involvement and to have thought everything through. What we want to see is some thoughts being put into this process very early on and then for your patient and public involvement plan to be developed throughout the full application as well. So that's it for me. I will stop sharing now. Okay. So I'll head over to you, Simon. So my question to you is what will you be looking for when you're assessing the application and what tips do you have for our applicants? Thank you very much, Hala, for that very comprehensive overview on the call. I think I will share my experiences based on the grant that I had with MQ. And I think what I will be looking for particularly is someone who has read and understood the details. So I know sometimes the details from the funder about an application is very detailed and more often than not one would not want to go through it, but usually contains very useful information. And it is very easy to tell an applicant who has gone through the details and another one who has not gone through the details. So I think sometimes it is important if an applicant doesn't have time to even work very closely with the grants or the research office so that they can help you to understand and to synthesize the information that is coming from the funders. And then also gathering a lot of experiences from colleagues who have made applications before. So whether those applications were successful, whether they were unsuccessful, I think learning from both sides is going to be very useful. And I was also checking that there might be some open access portals in the literature where one can actually be able to obtain some samples of grant applications, successful ones and successive ones, and then read through and try to learn a bit about tips here and there. And I think another important thing is to look at the research question that the applicant is suggesting or proposing just to see whether it's a very comparing research question, because it needs to be very focused, based on the gaps in scientific knowledge on his area of interest, or probably addressing some society problems, or maybe seeking to understand some fundamental mechanisms about a disease or a public health problem. And then it has to be very feasible within the resources that are provided. For instance, you've just said that this grant is going to be worth £95,000, and I think an applicant really needs to take that into consideration. So it has to be a very good balance between what the funders want, and also, you know, whether you want to do something that is going to be impactful to the community. For instance, the policymakers might be interested in understanding the estimate about cleverness of accreditation, but sometimes that might look very simplistic to the funder. And therefore, as an applicant, you really need to tweak the question a little bit, probably ask it in a different way, like what factors contribute to the high prevalence of a certain condition in a region. And the fact that you are extending it to the factors associated with that particular high burden, then the funders are going to get very interested, at the same time, you're going to answer the questions that the policymakers are interested in. And then I think another point is also the balance between the scientific knowledge, the technical skills, and also the ability to form collaborations to manage personnels, to manage resources. All this needs to be emphasised during the application, because we've just heard that all those criteria are going to be considered. So you might be very good scientifically, but you also need to build a little bit of skills on the other aspect, especially issues to do with the personnel management and the people that you'll be working with. I think the other tips are just to do with what everyone knows and which is very easy to overlook. And that is on how you structure your application, which needs to be very well structured, needs to be easy to read, needs to be very clear, because many of the reviewers are very busy. And sometimes you might just even need to use some bold headings, or even to use some clear illustrations, so that you can help the reviewers to understand your points. So use a very simple language. If it is inevitable to use some jargons, maybe in the application, it's always important, maybe towards the end of the paragraph, to summarise in very, very simplistic terms, the whole idea. And also taking time to print out the application, to read it in hard copy, so that one can sort out of any syntax errors, or even typographical errors, and making sure that you stick within the word count that is requested in the application. So I think another most important thing which has already been emphasised is on science communication. I think it has to do with the impact of the research that you are doing, and also the public engagement. And one really needs to demonstrate that clearly at different levels, showing the scientific benefits of the work, for instance, the generation of knowledge, dissemination plans, what you're going to do as far as the publications are concerned. I think that has already been touched on, and Hala has emphasised on the benefits of preprints, but also on the plans that you intend to do as far as the uptake of your findings by the policy makers is concerned. And also the scaling up of the findings, just in case you are doing an intervention, and then it is found to be effective. How can it be scaled up, maybe to the national level or to the regional level? And also don't forget the benefits to the society. And this can be in terms of health, but also can also be in terms of the benefits. So I think another important point that I found as far as my application was concerned, is first of all, understanding that even if you take responsibility for the overall integrity of the application, you need to team up with the right people. They could be supervisors and mentors, and also appreciating that mentors do not necessarily need to come from your institution or your project, but they should be people who can help you in deciding your career direction, and at the same time, suggesting opportunities. And when I made the MQ application in 2018, I had some mentors, actually, who I had not worked with before, a psychiatrist from Kenya, another one from South Africa, and also a geneticist from the US. And I think with their experience together, with the experience of my long-term mentor and myself really was very helpful in putting together a very good application. But I think that was mostly based on some mutual trust. And it's kind of sort of like being very fortunate, because I was very lucky enough just to get to work with the right mentors and the right supervisors. And then also the issue of engagement, especially when you are coming up with ideas, it is very tempting just to think about ideas on yourself, but it is very, very useful for you also to engage non-academic staff, for instance, the clinicians and also the members of the society, so that you can come up with a research question that is addressing real-world problems, and that which the community can be able to identify with. And as I conclude, I just want to emphasize on the issue of time. So we've been given the timelines. It's quite very crucial to start thinking about this now, so that you can allow yourself plenty of time for proofreading the applications, for giving the collaborators time to proofread the applications, and to avoid any last-minute errors, for instance, having to submit maybe the wrong version of a draft that you've been working with, just because you are working towards the end of the grant, or probably experiencing technical challenges with the computers or with the internet on the last day of the submission. And should you happen to get any feedback from the funders, it is very crucially important to take the comments that you get very seriously. So whether the application has been favorable, whether it has not been favorable, the comments are very useful, because they might help you in future preparations. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Simon. These are very useful tips. Jan, over to you. From the patient and public involvement angle, which we've already had a lot of questions about this, so can you give us your tips and what you will be looking for in the application? Good afternoon, everybody. What I'll be looking for in the application is patient and public involvement that is interweaved from beginning to end, so from the planning stages through to dissemination and beyond, that I can see that you've thought about it, that you've included it in your application, and you can see its worth and its potential impact, and you are going to learn a lot from those people that you involve, and they're going to learn a lot from you. So my tips from the planning stages through, hopefully this will answer some of the questions, but we shall see. So have a plan that includes patient and public involvement. I think the worst possible thing to do is to write your plan and then try and fit the patient and public involvement into it, because it's not going to work, and then it becomes tokenistic, which is the last thing that anybody wants. So start with the plan. How can it be fitted in right from the very beginning? Think about your plain English summary. Think about it in terms of if you've got a group of people together who have very little knowledge about research, but maybe some knowledge about mental health, maybe their own mental health, maybe people close to them. Could they understand from your plain English summary what you're trying to do? What the problem is you're trying to address? How are you going to make it better? And how it's going to benefit patients and public in the future? Those are kind of the key issues. And then how are you going to tell everybody what's happened? How are you going to share that? And it's lovely to go off to international conferences and share your work and share your findings, but where does that leave the patient and public who helped you? You need to think about them. They're going to be able to pass it on to their communities, to their families. That's going to touch so many lives and ultimately change them for the good. So think about the planning in the first instance. That should sit side by side with plain English summary. Try not to do the PPI through a third party. It's tempting in a way there are people around who have got the skills, who've got a group of people who've done lots of PPI. You can give them your questions and they can come back with answers, but you're not going to see their faces. You're not going to see their body language. You're not going to really find out about them firsthand and what really motivates them and the problems they've had. You're just going to get a summary from a third party. So try not to do that because it won't enrich your data as much and I don't think you will learn as much either. Think about training and training is a two-way street. Sharing knowledge. You know about the research, you know about the processes, but they know about the conditions that you're looking at. They've struggled with their conditions potentially. They've struggled to get adequate care services. The carers have struggled. Their families have struggled. Think about that and factor that into your work and you will learn so much and so will they. So it's a very powerful relationship and think about that. Think about their expectations. Think about your expectations. Be open. Tell them what your expectations are. Let them tell you what their expectations are and hopefully meet in the middle and even surpass both sets of expectations because that's when it really becomes a powerful relationship. Think about giving them feedback regularly. If you've had a brilliant meeting, tell them. Tell them what you've learned. Tell them how good it's been for you. If it's not been so good, think about why. Think about how it could be better. Ask them what they think and just share all the way through. On a practical level, think about your funding. Good PPI does cost. So think about the funding. Think about how you're going to make that work. If you're going to pay them or you're going to find alternative means, it needs to be expedited in quite a quick way so that they're not waiting, they're not having to chase things and they feel valued, they feel recognised. So think about that process and obviously speak with your institutions about how you're going to make that happen. But recognition comes in many forms. So even saying thank you at the end of a meeting or going around the room and saying is there anything anybody wants to say? And everybody's got a story, so you might have to allow a little bit of time to let those stories come out. And for some people, that might be the first time they've ever said that in public. So just think about that sensitivity and that people may get upset because we've all got personal stories. But to share those personal stories, we have to trust people and building that trust is part of the start of making that powerful relationship. So think about logistics, think about accessibility. Don't have a meeting in the daytime if everybody's working. You might have to do it in early evening. Don't have a meeting if you've got people who've got to run off and pick children up from school. Just think about when people are available and what works for them and what works for you. Think about accessibility and the materials you're producing. Ask people what they need. You know, some people can't cope with black text on white paper, things like that. Be aware of that and ask. People don't mind. They would prefer to be asked than ignored, and then they're struggling. Think about that. Think about digital knowledge. Can everybody manage some meetings? Has everybody got an iPhone or whatever you need to communicate? Are you going to set up WhatsApp groups? All those things, is it going to work? Are online meetings better than face-to-face? You might have people up and down the country where face-to-face is impossible, but you need to make the online meetings work. So just think about that and about the timeframes. Can people commit to the time that you need? Think about that. Is it practical? And ask. And then when we get onto the later parts of the meetings, can they help you with data collection, data analysis? You'd be surprised what patients in the public can actually do. They can look at a piece of text, an interview with someone, and they can see things that maybe you can't see, and you can see things that they can't see, and that's incredibly rich and powerful. So think about that. Are you going to write an article afterwards? Are you going to write a paper? Can they help with that? Can they do a blog about their experiences of working with you? All those things are so, so powerful. Think about equality, diversity, and inclusion. Hopefully your PPI group will reflect real life. Not always easy, but worth trying to do that as much as absolutely possible. And lived experience will give you so, so much. And it's not easy. I'm not going to sit here and say this is a piece of cake. It's the easiest thing you've ever done, because it's not. But it's so worth the effort. So good luck with it, and I will be really interested to see the innovative ways that you will be able to make this work. Thanks. Thanks so much, John. Thank you. So these are very important tips from our panellists and funding committee members. So I'll try to cover as many questions that I can with the remaining time, but even if we don't get to all of your questions, we will still include all of these in the FAQ document and then answer them as well. So you'll find the answers there. I'll start with Monica's question. So there are a few about the cutoff point for the eligibility. And unfortunately, we are limited in that. So as it is worded now, you should have been awarded a PhD or equivalent doctoral degree or have passed your doctoral examination with minor amendments by the application deadline, which is 14th of July 2023. We know that there are some people who will have that examination later on and then still manage to get the doctoral degree. For us, the concern would be that we need to ensure that that happens before that deadline. So opening it up is a bit risky because then it would depend on whether or not the doctoral degree would be ready by the award start date. So the cutoff point would be having passed your doctoral examination with minor amendments by the application deadline, which is 14th of July 2023. There is a question about from Amy about the two year research experience and what that means. So we define it as post doctoral research experience, any period that is spent in academic research after successfully passing the PhD or doctoral examination. If you spend time away from academic research for a career break, again, that is not included in this research experience. So you can exclude that. And it's not counted towards that research experience. There is another question about eligibility. So I won't touch upon that. The people from Masters of Medicine and Medicine degree in psychiatry are eligible for the scholarship. We do know that that's why we use the term doctoral degree and not PhD. So it can be named different things. It can be a different type of doctoral examination, but it's at that higher educational level that we're seeking. So yes, you would be eligible for the scholarship. The funding amount, there is a question from Dr about the funding amount, if it's per year or for 24 months. It depends on the duration of the project. And that is why we offered some flexibility in the time allocation. So the £95,000 would be for the duration of the award. So if your duration of the award is 12 months, it would be for that 12 months. If it's for 24 months, then it would be for that 24 months. There's another question about the wiggle room. I'm sorry, I asked this before and I was told no, there is no wiggle room. So don't blame it on me. Is there flexibility in the award start date? There might be some flexibility, to be honest, but not much. So usually our cut off points is three months. So maximum March 2024, we would need to sign the contract ahead of that. So at the same time that other awards are signed, so December 2024, 2023 for signing the contract. But you will need to justify why you need a delayed award start date. So why are you proposing this delay? If it's something that's justifiable, yes, we're flexible and we can work around that. I'm currently working at an institution. Does this take care of the requirements of funding a host university? So at this university will support me during my research? Yes. So in terms of the host institution, what we're really looking for is, is this institution able to provide you with an adequate and supportive environment for your research and for this project? So if you can demonstrate that in the full application, if you can show us that this host institution will support your career progression and will provide you the resources to carry out the project, then yes, you can be based in any institution or higher research education setting. And so yes, that means that it is eligible for. Yes, a few questions about whether we're running the program again next year. Because this is a pilot scheme, we know that we plan on running this again in the future. And that's what we usually do with our fellows. So we run it every two years. So we know that we do plan to run it again. I don't have enough information to confidently say it will be run next year. Let's see how this year goes. And then once I get the confirmation, we will let you know. Do sign up to our research roundup. That's one way to know about our schemes and when they're coming. I also want to point out that we will share a very detailed guidance with everyone through the MQ website. So if you go to that funding opportunity, the MQ postdoctoral scholarship on the MQ website, we will share a very detailed guidance that also covers all of these questions and everything that I talked about today. And so because I also see a few questions about the word limits, don't worry, they're everywhere. You will see them in the guidance, you will see them in the application form. You will not miss the word limits. Another one about the application deadline. And so Julia, for the application of interest by the 14th of July, do we need to present an overview of the project or is the project description only needed for the final application with the deadline of 18th of September? You will still need to provide that overview. We will need the scientific abstract for the project as well as title, duration, how much time you're spending, financial support requested. So a scientific abstract with a background, aims, methodology, and how the results will be used. Not a full proposal at this stage. So that's what you need for this stage. You don't need institutional approval for the expression of interest stage because we do know two weeks is too short a notice. So you don't need, and you also don't need a support letter from your supervisor at this stage. So you only need to sit down and complete that application form. Okay. Would you be able to specify how much the salary will be? Does it depend on the institution? It does depend on the institution. And that covers, so your, the salary that you receive, but also the benefits and the pension scheme. And it really varies by institution. So it will depend on the payment scheme that your institution decides on. And they will, they will let us know briefly. Will you be funding basic neuroscience aiming to reveal underlying mechanisms and mapping? Yes, we do fund, like I mentioned in the remit of the call, it can be basic clinical public mental health and basic neuroscience is included in the scope of the call. Do you have to apply together with an institution? Yes. And the reason for that is when we sign our standard conditions for the award, you will need to be based at a university, hospital affiliated university, research institution. But we sign that standard grant conditions with the institution and with the lead applicant. And so our contract, that contract, that agreement is made with the institution as well, because we do want to make sure that you are receiving support throughout that scholarship. It's a big part of building your capacity. And so we don't want applicants to do it alone. In terms of applying together, you don't need again, the institutional approval for the expression of interest, you will need it for the full application. So you can start planning for that as soon as you get to the full application, hopefully, if you are shortlisted. So start accounting for that, but not for the expression of interest. Okay. Then, can you please clarify what kind of overhead you do not fund? Does it apply to any overhead costs requested by the university? And you're asking about the health insurance and benefits. These are covered in the salary. So when we say salary, we do include overhead costs and health insurance. What we don't include, for example, when we speak about overheads or indirect costs, we don't include electricity bills or heating bills, finance related to the institution. So if it's directly related to your salary, then that is something that we cover. But so health insurance benefits are definitely included in that package. Okay. Is this grant or something similar going to be available another round next year? I hope so. We will let you know. Again, because this is a pilot scheme, we will have to see how this goes. And then we have to determine how often it happens. And we are trying to pair this with the fellowship awards. So the plan is for applicants to apply to the scholarship, then by the end of the scholarship, these applicants as well as others can also be eligible for our fellows award, which is three to seven years postdoc. So we might run it once every two years, I cannot confirm. For the expression of interest, do we need to have a supervisor confirmed? No. But I would start on it. Because you will need it for the full application stage, but not for the expression of interest. Is it possible to list papers and progress or in press? Yes, definitely. You can list these papers. Again, we are focused on any kind of research outputs, any achievements that you can highlight, please put it in there. And, and it will be taken into consideration. Is there any template or requirements page limit for the expression of interest? There is a template. So when you go to the Flexi grant, so it's mq.flexigrant.com. Again, when we when we read through the guidance, it's all there. You register for an account, you go to your account, which is called my account, and then my applications. And you will, you can start, you can choose the application, the funding grounds at the MQ postdoctoral fellowship. And then you can start your application directly online. And the form is online. And so you can start working on it as of tomorrow. And the template is provided and it's all online. Yes, so again, for the word limit for each section of the AOI, I will just remind, it is there in the application form and in the guidance. For the scientific abstract, it's 500 words, the same for the patient and public involvement section. And 300 words for the personal statement, I have them memorized, but I don't have to because you will see them in the guidance and in the application form as well. About the budget, there's a question about the budget costing that will be from the host institution or that from our budget. I feel it's hard to get finance team to do a full budget in two weeks during summertime. If you can give us a rough estimate, that is completely fine. As long as the total amount that you're asking for does not exceed that 95,000 pounds and put in there a rough estimate of how much would go into the salaries versus how much would be going to direct research expenses. Again, we will not hold you to it in the full application. We just want to know, have an idea about the spending that you're planning. Don't overthink this. Just give it a slight thought. Try to get your finance department to actually answer you and contact them. But this can change because we've seen proposals as they are being developed, as they give more thoughts, for example, for patients and public involvement, they might want to dedicate more budget to that. We've seen that in the full application. It's completely fine. So don't worry about that. But do try to get in contact with the finance team as soon as you can. Should the project expand on our PhD research? Are you able to specify how many projects should be included? So we know how ambitious to be without being overly ambitious. So should it expand on your PhD research? It can build on data and on the work that you've done in your PhD. We do want to see new ideas. We want to see what is original about what you're proposing. What is different? And how is it different from your PhD research? Simon, do you want to maybe comment on this? I know that we've talked about this. Yeah, so I mean, given the funding that is available, it's very critical just to make the research question very focused and very specific. And I think building on what you've already done from your PhD or some project that you've been doing is the right way to go. But introducing some novelty and new research questions to what you've been doing, but also not forgetting that you'll get an opportunity in the future probably to expand what you'll be proposing. Thanks, Simon. If successful, can you start the scholarship after January 2024, like July 2024? Our finance team is going to hate this. Okay, so again, I think there's a limit. So you have around three months up to March. We need to sign the contract in December 2023. But any delay has to be justified. So why are you asking for this? I would say optimally, all the awards would start in January 2024. And the reason why we do this is we do want a cohort to start together and to form that cohort. And then that same cohort would meet and support each other throughout the scholarship. So for us, it's very important that everyone starts at the same stage. If we want to have exceptions to that, it really needs to be very strongly justified. Is the call open to studies on general populations, not only patients? I would say, yes, it would. But again, I would have to say it's very difficult for me to comment if I don't have enough information about this proposal. I would say there are no restrictions, you just need to make the case for it. And how does this link with and how is it relevant to the scope and the remit of the call? I'm wondering if the application must be strictly mental health or will substance use disorder fit under this remit? Again, similar to my previous question is you will need to think but it can't be one thing or the other. It has to be you need to look at the remit and the scope of the call. It does have to be mental health related. So you need to bring it with that angle in mind. But you need to make sure that whatever you're proposing is clear, go back to the remit, read the scope of the call, and then draft your proposal and explain it from those terms. Start from there. How many grants will be awarded in this cycle? Oh, I don't have a definite number at the moment. And the reason why we don't have a definite number is we have a fundraising team who is working even from now to get as much funding as we can. So I don't want to say three and end up with six. I don't want to say six and end up with more. It's a work in progress. And our fundraising team, even for our last fellowship, we started the fellowship thinking we'd get three fellows, but ended up with eight. So I can't really comment on how many awards we'll be getting as much as we can. I have a few questions from that's from Alexandra about eligibility. Does the applicant's role matter or just years from PhD? If someone gets a lectureship, but they are still under two years of PhD, are they eligible? Yes. If you are still under the two years from PhD, you are still eligible to apply for the scholarship. Can you change institutions during the assessment process if your current contract expires? Yes. We have seen actually this happen before. We do need a notification and we do need to know about this change. And there is actually a part of the application for both the expression of interest and the full application where you're asked whether or not the host institution will be the same as your current institution. So that is definitely something that is accepted, but also at times it's encouraged to just move institutions and work with a different team. To what extent can funding for the fellowship be used in terms of PPI? Specifically, I'm thinking about direct recompense to carers, those who use services in relation to their time and input in developing the research approach and discussing the research findings. To be meaningful, I would like this to go beyond an advisory capacity into something more genuinely partnership-based, but people involved with PPI should be appropriately compensated for their time and effort, definitely. Jan is smiling about that. What we do want to see is we do want to see people's effort recognized and compensated. And that's why when I mentioned direct research costs, patient and public involvement are actually a part. Just like you're extracting data and you're accessing data, getting patient and public involvement and having a budget for that is just as important and it is considered for us a direct research cost. And you can use as much funding as you can because I know that you still have to cover your salary, but for PPI. Jan, do you want to comment on that? Yeah, I think you need to think about the guidelines. Obviously, there are national guidelines, particularly in England and devolved nations. And obviously, you'd need to look at other countries where you're based to look at that, because if you started sort of doing it on a more ad hoc basis, I think you could get into quite a bit of difficulty. So, be mindful that there will be guidance around what's acceptable and there's kind of an hourly rate or a half day rate. And then there's money that you can give towards broadband costs and things like that. So, I would look at sort of the guidance before you made sort of too many decisions. Perfect. Thank you, Jan. Also, because I know because we're based in the UK, we often refer to the National Institute of Health and Care Research. And that is a guidance, to be honest, that we use at MQ. It's there for researchers as well. So, you can consult with that. It's one of the resources that is available. So, it's always good to have a look. But there are other resources out there that can help you determine how much the payment should be. Could you also put the full application template online with questions and word limits for each section? Are there two months only between invitation and full application submission for summer holidays? We are very aware of that. I'm sure this would be helpful for early career. We will put them up as soon as we have them ready, because we're working with FlexiGrants. So, we also don't, we'll try to put a guidance out there, because we also don't want to confuse applicants with two application forms on the same system. So, we are working on that. Yes. So, would research involving meta-analysis be within the remit? Yes. We don't have any restrictions on that. Thank you for the informative session. How precisely do we need to indicate the financial costs? Yes. Rough estimates, as I mentioned, for this stage would be sufficient. We just need a rough idea, and we need to make sure that you are sticking to that budget. But also, it doesn't hurt to ask your institution about how much is the salary cost. So, I would start with that, and then see how much is left of the budget and allocate it for the direct research costs and other costs, because your institution would know better about how much the salary costs. It's not what you receive. There is a lot that goes on top of that. So, you need to know what the salary costs. So, what it's costing the institution in terms of health insurance and benefits. And then, once you have that, you know what's left for your direct research expenses. I will have to cut this short. So, we will answer all of your questions. I will get to them. We didn't have the time during the session. What I will remind you is that in terms of eligibility, there is a cut-off point. So, a limitation on the experience of two years up to 14 July. So, that's the date on the diploma. And then, we have a limit on you have to have passed your doctoral examination by the 14th of July. You will receive a detailed guidance with everything that I've mentioned today, and you will have access to that through the website. You will also have access to the FAQ. I will answer all of these questions. And I just want to point out that the word limits, the guidance on the questions, the links that I mentioned about patient and public involvement, they are included in the guidance, and they are also included in the application form on the system. Just make sure to go through the guidance and read it carefully before starting, and then start your application. That's my only advice. Thank you for joining us, and best of luck in your application.