The pre-application will focus primarily on the research team and environment, in addition to the case for the study and potential impact of the study. This phase will be open for six weeks until December 13th 2017.

Following an international external panel review and panel meeting in March 2018, a selected number of pre-applicant teams will then be invited to submit a full application. The full application will expand significantly on the pre-application in all sections, and also focus on methodology and feasibility.

The Lead Applicant will have the opportunity to make revisions from pre-application to full application stage especially if addressing the panel feedback from the pre-application stage.

As before, the full applications will then undergo a two-stage assessment process. 

Applicants are expected to avail of the advice, trial and data management services and/or other forms of support from existing research infrastructures such as a:

  • Clinical Research Facility/Centre (CRF/CRC)
  • Centre for Applied Medical Imaging (CAMI)
  • HRB Clinical Research Co-ordination Ireland (HRB CRCI)
  • the HRB Trials Methodology Research Network (HRB TMRN) and/or a thematic HRB Clinical Trials Network (HRB CTN).

The HRB plans to commit in the region of up to €18 million over the lifetime of its strategy (2016-2020) to support healthcare intervention studies.  Quality permitting, a minimum of three definitive interventions in addition to feasibility studies will be funded in this round. The awards can support research proposals up to a maximum value of €1,000,000 (inclusive of overheads) with duration of typically 2-4 years (but not beyond 60 months).