Outcome of the funding call for Scottish-led rapid research in Covid-19
As a key element in our response to the Covid-19 pandemic, on 25th March the Chief Scientist Office launched the Rapid Research in Covid-19 (RARC-19) funding call. The response from the research community was outstanding, with 17 portfolio bids submitted by institutions across Scotland by the April 8th deadline. In total the portfolios contained 139 individual research project proposals.
CSO convened an independent expert panel to review the applications. This panel, which met virtually on 21 April 2020 to consider the applications, comprised 35 specialist and 3 lay members and was co-chaired by Professor Eleanor Davies from the University of Glasgow and Professor Shaun Treweek from the University of Aberdeen. The outcome was a programme of 56 Covid-19 projects recommended for funding.
Details of the funded projects are available in the CSO funding pages.
Scottish Government News release
The resulting pan-Scotland research programme covers all five of the priority areas listed in the call and includes research to:
• Better understand the effects of infection in order to inform treatment and management of disease
• Develop and test new diagnostics and therapeutics
• Investigate novel disease surveillance approaches
• Inform interventions to prevent transmission of infection
• Support the resilience and mental health of frontline health and social care workers
• Understand the physical and mental health implications of social distancing and other restrictions and their impact on the general population and also a number of vulnerable groups
CSO would like to thank all of those who submitted applications at relatively short notice and the co-chairs, members and lay members of the review panel. The outcome of the call is a programme of projects meeting the aim of establishing a broad Scottish programme of high quality research on Covid-19 that will delivered rapidly and inform policy and clinical practice on responding to the current pandemic