Final strategic funding round

CFH has made two substantial awards following a final strategic funding round

A final funding round was announced several months ago with applications invited for ambitious new initiatives costing up to £200,000 that would help to consolidate the legacy of CFH and which would strategically advance health research at the University. Proposals were also expected to align with one or more of the following three key priorities to which CFH is committed:

  • Supporting areas of research and translational activity that have been adversely impacted by COVID
  • Funding activity aimed at learning and implementing lessons from the current and previous pandemics and building back better; also (exploring ways of) building resilience and capacity in the face of future pandemics
  • Advancing equality, diversity and inclusivity in and through health and wellbeing research plus allied impact, knowledge exchange and translational activity, including by improving understanding of the challenges

We received twenty-one high-quality expressions of interest, involving 16 departments across all three faculties and requesting just over £2.7 million in total.

These were reviewed by a cross-departmental panel of sixteen on 31 March. Six proposals were chosen to go forward to interview (two led by Biology, one by Psychology, one by Health Sciences and one by Education).

The interviews were held on Monday 25 April and the panel was chaired by the CFH Director Prof Alex Wade with Deputy Director Prof Kate Pickett and PVC-Research Matthias Ruth. The panel was highly impressed by the ambition and passion demonstrated by the project leads.

Two projects have been awarded funding:

  • 'Translation of Leish@york research' led by Prof Jeremy Mottram with colleagues from Biology, Chemistry & HYMS - further information
  • 'A new non-antibody scaffold for in situ detection of pathogens in wastewater' led by Dr Michael Plevin with colleagues from Biology, Electronic Engineering and Environment and Geography - further information

We are looking forward to seeing how these exciting and important projects develop over the next year.