COVID-19 funding opportunity launched by the BHF Data Science Centre 

The BHF Data Science Centre, led by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK), has today launched a rapid grant funding call to advance data-led research in cardiovascular disease, stroke, and the interaction with COVID-19.

Aims 

The aim of this call is to support data science on COVID-19 and cardiovascular disease and/or stroke, with a total fund of £50,000 to support new or existing research as part of the CVD-COVID-UK Consortium. In addition, the BHF DSC Health Data Science team will be provide full data curation – generating analysis-ready datasets the projects. 

We expect to fund 2 projects in total, both focusing on the causes, consequences, or care of stroke. The resulting research outputs should have the potential to make a positive impact on the lives or experiences of patients with stroke. 

Background  

The BHF Data Science Centre was set up to enable and accelerate data-led research to improve the public’s heart and circulatory health. During the pandemic, much of our work switched to focus on COVID-19. 

CVD-COVID-UK 

One area of our current activity is the CVD-COVID-UK/COVID-IMPACT Consortium, which brings together researchers from all over the UK to look at the relationship between cardiovascular health and COVID-19. The programme allows linkage across patient datasets within three national Trusted Research Environments (TREs) in the UK to help understand the relationship between COVID-19 and cardiovascular disease.  Approved researchers can remotely access and link de-identified datasets including national hospital, primary care, and COVID-19 test data with cardiovascular datasets. 

Stroke Data Science Catalyst 

More recently, we launched the Stroke Data Science Catalyst with our partners – HDR UK, Stroke Association and the British Heart Foundation – to improve our understanding of stroke risk factors through the use of data from real-world settings, including hospitals, GPs and pharmacies; opening the door to better prevention and treatment. 

Scope 

This call is to fund researchers who are existing members of – or are willing to join – the CVD-COVID-UK/COVID-IMPACT consortium. The funding is available for up to nine months, commencing April 2024. 

Eligibility  

Applications are invited from researchers at an eligible research organisations, including universities, NHS bodies and government-funded organisations. Applicants may only submit one application to this initiative as a principal investigator, but may be involved in more applications if listed as a co-investigator. 

To apply  

The call is now open for applications and will close at 17:00 BST on 17 February 2024. 

Potential applicants are invited to attend a special one-off webinar on Monday 22nd January at 12:00pm, which will feature an Introduction to the Stroke Data Science Catalyst. 

For further information please download the call specification, finance forms and proposal submission form here.  All proposals to be submitted to bhfdsc@hdruk.ac.uk by the deadline. 

For queries/clarifications please email bhfdsc@hdruk.ac.uk.