The Medical Research Council (MRC) is pleased to announce a £5M call for Networks in Vaccines Research.

This call forms part of MRC’s activities under the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and therefore requires Networks to address vaccine R&D challenges primarily relevant to the health or prosperity of Low and Middle Income Countries on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) DAC List.  The Networks supported through this call will contribute to the UK’s commitment to Official Development Assistance (ODA).

MRC are hosting a launch meeting and networking event on 14 October 2016 to provide potential applicants with more information about the call, the application process and opportunities to interact with others to develop Networks. The meeting is free to attend, and all interested parties must register for the meeting in advance. Following the meeting, MRC will be inviting Expressions of Interest to form Networks.  Feedback will be provided to applicants and full applications invited in for assessment in March 2017.  

Aims

The aims of the call are:

• To support Networks focused on vaccine R&D challenges of relevance to countries on the OECD DAC list
• To encourage interdisciplinary working and to strengthen research capacity, capabilities and methodologies for vaccines R&D
• To provide resources to support pump-priming funding for a range of innovative projects identified by the Networks ultimately leading to more competitive, collaborative, cross-disciplinary and integrative research proposals
• To support collaboration between researchers in the UK and LMICs and engagement with end-users, stakeholders and policy makers

Remit and Scope

The aim is to support a small number of multidisciplinary Networks which foster collaboration, facilitate wider cross-disciplinary integrative participation (including biological, medical, engineering and physical sciences, environmental and social science research) and build capability which together will contribute to and underpin the development of novel approaches in vaccines R&D. 

Applicants should foremost be addressing vaccines for diseases of importance to LMICs; this includes prophylactic or therapeutic vaccines for diseases with outbreak potential and endemic diseases. 

MRC are prioritising building Networks in areas that would derive the most benefit from this mode of funding.  The remit and scope has been informed by several different consultations, including the 2014 MRC review of vaccines research (see downloads), and with the UKVN who have undertaken a mapping exercise in vaccine R&D; there are some key bottlenecks in the early discovery stages, which affect the pipeline at the very beginning of vaccine R&D.  Networks addressing key bottlenecks in pre-clinical discovery R&D are therefore encouraged around the theme ‘Immunology in Vaccinology’ (IiV) which includes (but is not limited to) the following areas:

• One health / animal models
• Comparative immunology and comparative vaccinology
• Human challenge models
• Adjuvants
• Bacterial vaccinology

Key Dates

To register your interest in attending the launch meeting please complete a registration form available below and send to vaccinology@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk by 12 September 2016.

For more information please visit MRC GCRF Call in Networks for Vaccine R&D