University of Leeds Research and Innovation Approvals Process During COVID-19 Campus Shutdown

Please follow funder specific processes (see RIS website for more details regarding UK funders https://ris.leeds.ac.uk/funding-opportunities/uk-research-funding/covid-19-uk-

research-funding/ and the following slides). Work with your Faculty Research and Innovation office (FRIO) to obtain any necessary

standard local and supplementary approvals * (where applicable) and to complete accurate costings. Please also inform your Head of School / Institute so that the COVID-19

project can be logged internally.

NO

YES

Do you require access to the University campus, estate and/or facilities to carry out the research?

Is your research project COVID-19 related?

Are you applying either to secure new funding to

support the project or to re-purpose existing funds?

No further approval needed; business as usual rules apply. Please follow standard local

approval processes for research activity in your

School/Institute/Faculty as needed.

Please inform your Head of School/ Institute so that the COVID-19 project can

be logged internally and discussions regarding financing and resourcing can

take place locally. Additional formal approvals from Executive Dean and DVC

are not needed.

You must seek research exemption approval from your Head of School,

Executive Dean and Deputy Vice Chancellor (DVC): Research and

Innovation *

* Please follow process detailed in the ‘Method For

Seeking Research Exemption

Approval’ side

*Method For Seeking Research Exemption Approval

1. Discuss your project with your Head of School (HoS) and obtain their support in principle. Please ensure you also follow any standard local approval processes for research activity in your School/Institute/Faculty as you would normally for research applications.

2. This step applies to projects requiring access to University Estate only, skip to step 3 if not applicable and seeking approval for UKRI applications.

Contact your local Faculty based Health and Safety team (contacts can be found here http://wsh.leeds.ac.uk/staffcontacts?keyword=) to draft a business case in order to seek approval that the work can be undertaken under the current circumstances.

3. Send project summary/ draft application (if applying for new funds)/business case (if step 2 applies) to your HoS and obtain their approval and support of the project in writing.

4. Send HoS approval along with project summary/ draft application/ business case (as applicable) to the Dean of your Faculty / Executive Dean for approval.

5. Once you have HoS and Dean approval, please send this with your business case/ application form/ project summary (as applicable) to r-idevelopment@leeds.ac.uk. The UK Research Development team will seek approval and sign-off from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation and return this to the applicant once approved.

UK Funder Specific Processes for COVID 19 Funding and Support

UKRI Open call for Research and Innovation ideas to address COVID-19

UKIR have launched a rolling call ‘Get Funding for ideas that address COVID-19’ inviting proposals for short term projects addressing and mitigating the health, social, economic and environmental impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak.

This is a single stage process and all applications must be submitted using the word document found on UKRI website.

UKRI will support excellent short-term projects addressing and mitigating the health, social, economic, cultural and environmental impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak. The proposal can be up to 18 months in duration and must meet at least one of the following criteria:

• new research or innovation with a clear impact pathway that has the potential (within the period of the grant) to deliver a significant contribution to the understanding of, and response to, the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts.

• supports the manufacture and/or wide scale adoption of an intervention with significant potential

• gathers critical data and resources quickly for future research use

UKRI Approvals Process at Leeds:

UKRI require prior approval from the host organisation to submit to this call:

"You need approval to confirm that the work is achievable under whatever constraints are currently in place in your department/university/company, and that they are content for you to focus on this work under 80% fEC funding. The approval can be from whoever has authority to give such assurance whether that is your department head, university research office or Pro-VC’s office. Please note that we would like to see evidence that work could begin within four weeks of confirmation of funding."

For all COVID-19 UKRI applications, applicants are required to seek approval prior to submission from: 1) HoS, 2) Executive Dean, and 3) the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation.

*Please follow 'Method For Seeking Research Exemption Approval' slide to obtain the necessary approvals before submitting your proposal to UKRI.

Once Research Exemption approval has been obtained a Letter of Support will be issued by the UK Research Development team on behalf of the University of Leeds. This will need to be submitted along with the application form to UKRI.

NIHR 20/45 COVID-19: Recovery and Learning This new funding call was launched on 9th June 2020 and replaces the NIHR/UKRI Rapid Response Rolling Call which closed to applications on 30th June 2020. Whereas the NIHR/UKRI Rapid Response Rolling Call focused on the acute urgent phase of the pandemic and research that would have a public health benefit within 12 months, this new call looks at the longer term impacts of COVID-19.

This new call supports research to better understand and manage the health and social care consequences of the global COVID-19 pandemic beyond the acute phase, looking at projects which will address the longer term system recovery and learning.

This focuses specifically on health outcomes, public health, social care and health service delivery across the UK and to mitigate the impact of subsequent phases and aftermath.

Researchers who have previously submitted through the portal for urgent public health research and whose research does not meet the 12 month urgency criteria may wish to submit under the new call, where funding outcomes are typically expected within 24 months.

There are two deadlines for applications in the first instance. However, additional deadline dates may be added in due course depending on demand and the trajectory of the pandemic.

First closing date: Tuesday 23 June 2020 (1 pm) - Now passed

Second closing date: Tuesday 14 July 2020 (1 pm)

This is a UK-wide call involving all NIHR programmes with applications eligible from any UK based institution regardless of the usual funding arrangements in relation to the Devolved Administrations. However, usual funding arrangements and specific deadlines still apply to the NIHR Policy Research programme and NIHR Fellowships programme participating in this cross programme call.

Overview and details of the call specification can be found via the NIHR website, with specific call information here.

Please also view the specification documents here, which provides details of scope, remit and themes of interest.

Note- Applications to the NIHR 20/45 COVID-19 call are not required to submit to the NIHR COVID-19 Urgent Public Health Research National Prioritisation Portal unless they wish to have their study badged as ‘urgent’ and receive priority status. Please see page 6 for details on the NIHR Urgent Public health portal.

NIHR COVID 19 Urgent Public Health Research National Prioritisation Portal

On behalf of the Department and Health and Social Care the NIHR have implemented a UK-wide portal for applying for prioritised support for urgent public health research into COVID-19. The portal deals with prioritisation of urgent* studies to allow prioritised CRN support for these studies.

This process has been implemented to enable and support urgent research that will gather clinical and epidemiological evidence to inform national policy and facilitate new diagnostics, treatments and vaccines to be developed. This process also ensures that the resources and capacity of the health and care system are not exceeded and that urgent and impactful research is being prioritised and therefore making best use of the limited resources and capacity currently available for research within the NHS setting. NIHR Urgent Public Health badged studies will therefore be prioritised for delivery in the NHS setting.

Applications to the NIHR UK-wide portal for COVID-19 Urgent Public Health Research are reviewed by the Urgent Public Health Group, who assesses COVID-19 projects that already have funding in place regardless of the original funder (e.g. from the NIHR, public sector, industry or charities) and prioritise key studies for support by the NIHR Clinical Research Network and delivery by the health and care system, granting them ‘Urgent Public Health National priority status’.

You should submit to the NIHR Urgent National portal if your study requires NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) support and Is deemed urgent* in nature.

To submit your study to obtain ‘Urgent Public Health National priority status’ please follow this link here

Guidance notes on this process are also available here

If your study does not require NIHR Clinical Research Network support and is not deemed urgent, then you should not submit to the NIHR portal.

These studies may proceed as usual following usual standard approvals processes for clinical research.

*NIHR’s definition of urgent studies are deemed as those studies which need to take place during the emergency phase of the pandemic and will deliver a positive public health impact within 12 months.

Note- Applications to the NIHR 20/45 COVID-19 call are not required to submit to the NIHR COVID-19 Urgent Public Health Research National Prioritisation Portal unless they wish to have their study badged as ‘urgent’ and receive priority support status.

Tips for applying for COVID-19 Funding

• Check the RIS website for up to date information about UK funders’ opportunities and processes: https://ris.leeds.ac.uk/funding-opportunities/uk-research-funding/covid-19-uk-research-funding/

• Think – does the idea fit the relevant research scheme?

• If the study is going to be funded by NIHR or UKRI, can the project be started within four weeks of award notification? Think – have you got all of the necessary internal approvals? Can you access equipment, facilities, resources and staff rapidly to mobilise the research?

• Have you contacted your Faculty Research and Innovation Office (FRIO) to cost the project and obtain all necessary internal approvals? Costs must be captured in KRISTAL for new funding applications.

• Have you discussed with IT any necessary IT requirements so that these can be accommodated early to avoid delays? Contacts are Ruth Denton (R.Denton@leeds.ac.uk) and Mark Conmy (M.P.Conmy@leeds.ac.uk). Please don’t leave this until the award stage – IT are encouraging discussions at application stage.

• Have you discussed with the Governance team if ethics is needed (governance-ethics@leeds.ac.uk)?

• Have you informed LTHT R&I if the study involves LTHT as the NHS Trust via Richard Evans (Richard.evans29@nhs.net)? This will help to speed up R&I approval for the study.