Research Design Service North East
- Is the North East Research Design Service free?
- How do I know if I am in scope?
- How can the RDS help me?
- When should I contact the North East RDS?
- What will happen when I contact the North East Research Design Service?
- Will the RDS staff become co-applicants on a research application?
- How do I get in touch?
Is the North East Research Design Service free?
Advice and support with grant applications through the RDS NE is free of charge to researchers from the region, whose work is within our scope. If ongoing input from an RDS advisor is required and agreed this would need to be costed in to the grant.
How do I know if I am in scope?
The primary scope of the RDS NE is to support investigators:
- working in the North-East of England;
- preparing proposals for applied health or social care research;
- aiming to enhance clinical practice & patient outcomes and/or improve public health;
- and, submitting proposals to NIHR (particularly RfPB) and other national peer reviewed funding competitions
- if in doubt as to whether you are in scope contact the RDS NE
The RDS NE can help in the following ways:
- help you identify a suitable funding stream for your project
- provide professional advice on all aspects of developing a grant application, research design and research methodologies, both quantitative and qualitative
- give support to identify and approach suitable lay and professional collaborators
- refer the investigator to a clinical trials unit
- provide advice from our designated Patient and Public Involvement Officer
- provide statistical, qualitative, and health economics support/advice as required
- provide formative peer review of grant applications
Please note that the following are not part of the role of the RDS:
- help develop projects where there is no intention of submitting an application for peer review to a recognised funding stream
- support applications that are audit, evaluation or satisfaction surveys
- provide supervision or informal support for students
- carry out any of the research (unless RDS staff are co-appliants on the grant application
- calculate the costs of the research
When should I contact the North East RDS?
You can contact the NIHR RDS North East at any stage of development of a research proposal: from simply wanting to discuss an initial idea through to requesting input on a specific issue relating to a well-developed proposal. It would be prudent to contact the RDS as soon as possible to assist with any ideas/proposals you may currently have. If you contact us too close to the deadline we may not be able to help.
Please see our When to Contact Us page for further details. Or if you are ready to contact us, visit our Contact Us page and fill in the form.
What will happen when I contact the North East Research Design Service?
Newcastle hub
The Newcastle hub will acknowledge receipt of your query and request that any proposals/ideas/supporting documentation and or specific questions not already received via the contact form be emailed to them. Your proposal will be distributed to the First Contact Facilitators, and where appropriate, the RDS Patient and Public Involvement Officer. The Facilitator will coordinate RDS input to your proposal. The next step is to meet with the allocated Facilitator to discuss your proposal in person and consider appropriate funding streams. The Facilitator will also work with you to identify the range of advice you may require, for example from specialist advisors in statisstics, health economics and qualitative research methods. Further meetings with specialist advisors will then be arranged as necessary (specialist advisors may attend the initial meetring on occasions).
Durham hub
The Durham hub will acknowledge receipt of your query and request that any proposals/ideas/supporting documentation and or specific questions not already received via the contact form be emailed to them. Your proposal will then be distributed to the research design service team and discussed at the weekly team meeting (normally a Wednesday). Input is given from all members of the RDS team including a statistician, health economist, patient and public involvement officer, social care researcher and qualitative research methodologists. Feedback from this meeting will be emailed back to the investigator and he/she will be offered a meeting with appropriate RDS team members should a discussion of feedback or further development of the proposal be required. Feedback is usually provided within 24 hours of the team meeting from a member of the team who will be your 'first contact facilitator'.
If your query is regarding a general research idea, please feel free to contact either hub at rds@ncl.ac.uk for the Newcastle team or rds@durham.ac.uk for the Durham team, and a member of the RDS team will be happy to discuss your individual research ideas and development of those ideas via a telephone conversation or a meeting.
Will the RDS staff become co-applicants on a research application?
The RDS is funded to support research design, but not the research itself. Staff may agree to become collaborators in your research project if it is of particular interest to them, but this is not always appropriate or possible. If they do become collaborators on your research project then the RDS collaborators' time on the research project will have to be costed in to the research.
You can get in touch via our contact form.
Useful Links
Research Flow Chart (from RDInfo)
Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) FAQ
Central Commissioning Facility (CCF)