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12/05/2016
Five UK Research Councils have announced the first joint interdisciplinary calls from the new £1.5Bn Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) unveiled by the Government in last year’s spending review.
Worth over £40M, the new calls are in non-communicable diseases, global infection and agriculture and food systems. They aim to leverage the UK’s world-class research base to help provide solutions to reduce and prevent diseases in humans and farmed animals, ensure a safe, nutritious and sustainable supply of food for a growing population and improve the life-long health of billions of people in low and middle income countries.
This funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), with support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) reflects the complexity of the challenges we face and the need for all disciplines to contribute to achieve international development goals.
These initial three calls aim to rapidly stimulate and enhance the research and partnerships needed to pave the way for ambitious GCRF programmes, while global challenges will also continue to be supported through other funding opportunities offered by the Research Councils.
Given the UK’s world leading reputation, research is a highly effective way to achieve international development goals, tackle multifaceted global challenges and improve the social, economic and health outcomes for people in developing countries, as well as benefiting the UK.
Over the next five years, the Research Councils and the National Academies will deliver the GCRF to ensure the excellent UK research base takes a leading role in addressing the problems faced by developing countries and to build resilience and tackle major world challenges
Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson, said “Our £1.5 billion Global Challenges Research Fund represents the latest stage in our sustained investment in the UK’s world-leading scientists. This new £40 million fund is part of our commitment to tackle global issues such as food security and life-threatening diseases like Ebola, and will help improve quality of life for people in developing nations as well as here in the UK.”
Professor Melanie Welham, BBSRC Chief Executive, said: “The UK research-base has a vital role to play in helping to improve the quality of peoples’ lives across the world. Challenges around disease prevention, energy and food supply and conflict resolution pose a threat to us all – no matter where we live. BBSRC is delighted to be working in collaboration with many partners to ensure our community maximise the potential of the new Global Challenges Research Fund.”
Professor Sir John Savill, Chief Executive MRC said: “These new awards will accelerate the linkage of excellent UK-based research to the wider sphere of our global health research, covering new areas in infections, and vitally, extending our work in non-communicable diseases. By fostering cross-Council initiatives such as this, we are able to harness the expertise of researchers in very different fields in interdisciplinary relationships.”
Overarching global challenges identified by the Research Councils’ include: health, clean energy, sustainable agriculture, conflict and humanitarian action and foundations for economic development. Additional calls are due to be announced soon.
These three calls will go live on Friday 13th May.
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Contact:
Tracey Jewitt: 01793 413355, tracey.jewitt@bbsrc.ac.uk
Carmel Turner: 020 73952273, carmel.turner@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk
For specific call details, visit: www.bbsrc.ac.uk/gcrf
Agriculture and Food Systems call (~£15M)
The challenge of ensuring access to a safe, sufficient and nutritious diet for a healthy life - whilst maintaining a healthy agri-environment - will intensify as demand for food rises with an increasing global population, urbanisation and changing diets. At the same time as ensuring a sustainable food supply chain, food production systems need to cope with climatic, political and financial instabilities, changes in cultures of consumption, and the need to protect and manage finite natural resources in order to foster more resilient systems, and align with public health goals.
These challenges are particularly acute in Lower and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) thus addressing these will help delivering the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. New research is needed to help produce sufficient levels of safe food for a healthy life-course, using less land, water and energy, ensuring maintenance of the natural capital stocks and ecosystems services for future generations, whilst also engaging with the needs of local communities.
BBSRC’s usual eligibility rules will apply to this food security call with an emphasis on providing the foundations for ODA-relevant research by UK institutions - including the establishment/strengthening of partnerships with colleagues in LMICs who may be named in proposals as project partners.
Global infection call (~£9M)
The recent outbreaks of Ebola and Zika, annual bird/swine flu endemics, threats to the safety of our food, the growing danger of antimicrobial resistance and the on-going global burden of foot and mouth disease, malaria and tuberculosis illustrate the large-scale challenge that infectious diseases continue to pose to human and farmed animal health.
This challenge arises from a complex interplay between social, cultural, ecological and biological factors and is exacerbated by our rapidly changing climate and increased urbanization and globalisation. Understanding and addressing the challenge of infectious disease, including its prevention and management, requires a systems approach, able to map and interrogate the broad range of driving factors and the linkages between them. Such an approach benefits from the pooling of expertise and knowledge of sector specialists in inter-disciplinary teams.
Non-communicable diseases call (~£19M)
The health needs of LMICs are evolving. With improving infrastructures for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases and increasing relative prosperity driving urbanisation and changing patterns of physical activity, diet, and tobacco and alcohol consumption, non-communicable diseases represent the new health challenge These health challenges were responsible for 63% of all global deaths in 2008, a figure projected to rise to 75% by 2030
A more complete global research approach to non-communicable disease will benefit medical science and interdisciplinary research in developed countries as well as LMICs. Understanding wider and more extreme variation in diet, in environment, in behaviours or in early life; and a more complete understanding of human biological and cultural variability, will undoubtedly give new insights into universal processes in human health and disease
What is GCRF?
The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) is a £1.5bn fund announced by the UK Government to support cutting-edge research which addresses the problems faced by developing countries. The fund, to be administered through delivery partners including the Research Councils and national academies, will address global challenges through disciplinary and interdisciplinary research, strengthen capability for research and innovation, within both UK and developing countries and provide an agile response to emergencies and opportunities.
Case studies available with images and some multimedia content
While no case studies are available which specifically relating to these new calls, below are some examples of how UK funding, combined with UK science expertise and international partnerships have had a real impact in low and middle income countries:
Non communicable disease
Scientists from Gambia and the UK have shown for the first time that a mother’s environment before and around the time of conception, could permanently change the function of a gene influencing immunity and cancer risk in her child: https://www.mrc.ac.uk/news/browse/mother-s-environment-periconception-may-affect-her-child-s-life-long-risk-of-disease/
Infectious diseases
Vaccine more than halves pneumococcal diseases such as pneumonia, sepsis, and meningitis in children in Gambia according to research funded by the MRC and the Gambian Government: http://www.mrc.ac.uk/news/browse/surveillance-study-shows-vaccine-halves-pneumococcal-disease-cases-in-gambian-children/
Food security
UK and Zambian researchers have discovered a virus that can act as a natural bio pesticide to tackle the devastating army worms that destroy crops across sub Saharan Africa: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/news/food-security/2013/130128-f-fighting-armyworms/
About AHRC
AHRC funds world-class, independent researchers in a wide range of subjects: history, archaeology, digital content, philosophy, languages, design, heritage, area studies, the creative and performing arts, and much more. This financial year the AHRC will spend approximately £98 million to fund research and postgraduate training in collaboration with a number of partners. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits and contributes to the economic success of the UK but also to the culture and welfare of societies around the globe.
About BBSRC
BBSRC invests in world-class bioscience research and training on behalf of the UK public. Our aim is to further scientific knowledge, to promote economic growth, wealth and job creation and to improve quality of life in the UK and beyond.
Funded by Government, BBSRC invested over £509M in world-class bioscience in 2014-15. We support research and training in universities and strategically funded institutes. BBSRC research and the people we fund are helping society to meet major challenges, including food security, green energy and healthier, longer lives. Our investments underpin important UK economic sectors, such as farming, food, industrial biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk
About ESRC
ESRC is the UK’s largest funder of research on the social and economic questions facing us today. It supports the development and training of the UK’s future social scientists and also funds major studies that provide the infrastructure for research. ESRC-funded research informs policymakers and practitioners and helps make businesses, voluntary bodies and other organisations more effective. The ESRC also works collaboratively with six other UK research councils and Innovate UK to fund cross-disciplinary research and innovation addressing major societal challenges. The ESRC is an independent organisation, established by Royal Charter in 1965, and funded mainly by the Government.
About MRC
MRC is at the forefront of scientific discovery to improve human health. Founded in 1913 to tackle tuberculosis, the MRC now invests taxpayers’ money in some of the best medical research in the world across every area of health. Thirty-one MRC-funded researchers have won Nobel prizes in a wide range of disciplines, and MRC scientists have been behind such diverse discoveries as vitamins, the structure of DNA and the link between smoking and cancer, as well as achievements such as pioneering the use of randomised controlled trials, the invention of MRI scanning, and the development of a group of antibodies used in the making of some of the most successful drugs ever developed. Today, MRC-funded scientists tackle some of the greatest health problems facing humanity in the 21st century, from the rising tide of chronic diseases associated with ageing to the threats posed by rapidly mutating micro-organisms. www.mrc.ac.uk
About NERC
NERC is the UK's main agency for funding and managing research, training and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences. Our work covers the full range of atmospheric, Earth, biological, terrestrial and aquatic science, from the deep oceans to the upper atmosphere and from the poles to the equator. We co-ordinate some of the world's most exciting research projects, tackling major issues such as climate change, environmental influences on human health, the genetic make-up of life on Earth, and much more. NERC is a non-departmental public body. We receive around £330m of annual funding from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS).
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