Home / Programmes / RISC

		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 for RISC competition 3 will be £200,000 per project.
• Awards will normally be for 12-18 Months in duration.

Process

• RISC is an annual competition which is managed by the NIHR Central Commissioning Facility.
• Proposals must:
  • Set out a clearly stated hypothesis and approach, with particular attention to the research design and methodology; 
  • Describe the potential impact of the project;
  • Contain a clear statement of objectives and a demonstration that the design of the project is appropriate to meet those objectives;
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the risks that are being taken and prove that the work has not been undertaken elsewhere;
  • Show that current research governance frameworks and procedures for ethical approval have been followed;
  • Give a full justification for the duration of the project and financial support requested.
• Applications will be subject to an initial scrutiny by a sub-panel. Applications which are successful at this stage will then 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 'Guidance for Applicants: RISC competition 3'.

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