Grants Strategy

The Society for Endocrinology’s mission is to promote and advance the understanding of endocrinology, bringing together the UK endocrine community to share ideas and advance our discipline.

Our grants portfolio is designed to ensure that we are effectively meeting the funding needs of our members at all career stages to support their research, training and professional development. Our Research Grants exist to provide seed funding for new research and essential equipment or sometimes practical training for scientific and clinical researchers.

Application and award process

The Society aims to operate a transparent application and award process. The Society is a member of the Association of Medical Research Charities and follows their guidelines for best practice management of our Research Grants.

Applications for Society grants are marked, discussed and awarded by the Grants Committee. Following each deadline Research Grants are usually marked by five Committee members (those with a conflict of interest abstain). Applications are discussed, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, and funding decisions are made at a meeting of the full Committee.

All grant applications are marked according to the following criteria:

• scientific quality - Scientific excellence will be paramount, although allowance may be made for less experienced researchers in the presentation of their proposal
• benefit to applicant - The proposal should be of clear benefit to the future career of the researcher. Ideally, the proposed work should lead towards independent research
• benefit to endocrine science/medicine/nursing practice - Proposals should address a problem of endocrine significance, which may be of clinical, basic science or translational importance.

Conflict of interest guidance

All members of the Grants Committee must act in the best interest of the Society and its members. Any conflicts of interest should be declared before the applications are reviewed and the member concerned should not mark the application, provide a review or take part in any discussion related to the declared conflict.

For Research Grants, conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to) where the panel member or external reviewer is:

• named on the application as an applicant, co-investigator, current supervisor, collaborator, etc.
• is at the same institution as the applicant. A federated institution, such as the University of London or the University of Wales, is not regarded as a single institution for these purposes
• has a current or previous collaboration with the applicant in the last 5 years
• related to the applicant, or has a personal connection that would be deemed a conflict of interest
• Working for or being funded by a commercial organisation that is also co-funding a proposed study
• Being on the medical advisory board of a Patient Group that is involved in a proposed study.