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		NIHR Central Commissioning Facility (CCF)

Research for Innovation Speculation and Creativity (RISC)

RISC is a response-mode funding programme established to provide research of direct benefit to users of the NHS in England. The RISC programme is for potentially paradigm-changing projects in Health Services and Public Health Research.

Purpose

• The purpose of the RISC scheme is to fund new and radical ideas for health research that could lead to a step change in the care and management of patients. RISC awards are intended particularly for speculative, novel proposals that are unlikely to gain support during traditional peer review processes.
• The RISC programme is complementary to the Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) programme as it provides a response-mode funding stream for applications that are too speculative for RfPB.
• A fixed grant will be awarded to successful applicants.
• On completion of the research, grant holders may be able to apply to RfPB to further develop the research theme.

Funding

• The maximum grant will be £100,000 per project.
• At full capacity we intend to make 50 awards each year.
• Awards will normally be for 12-18 Months in duration.

Process

• There is an annual competition which is managed by the NIHR Central Commissioning Facility.
• Applicants should:
  • Set out a clearly stated hypothesis and approach
  • Outline the potential impact of the project
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the risks that are being taken and prove that the work has not been undertaken elsewhere.
• Applications will be subject to an initial scrutiny by a sub-panel. Applications which are successful at the scrutiny stage will be considered for funding by the RISC commissioning committee.
• As a condition of funding, all awardees will be required to submit an 'end-of-grant' report that will be collated into a publicly available report.

Selection Criteria

• Applications will judged on the quality of the research proposed, the significance and potential benefit of that research to the NHS.
• More detailed selection criteria are available in the RISC Guidance notes.

Eligibility 

• All researchers based in the NHS in England will be eligible to apply.
• Joint applications from NHS researchers with academic partners as co-applicants are welcome.
• In both cases, funding will be awarded to the NHS organisation.

From the experience of the first competition, the director of the programme has provided additional feedback and the most frequently cited reasons that applications were rejected. For further information please follow this link