Child Development - Research

SHOULD I APPLY?

Topics of interest:

Understandably, we often get asked whether specific proposal topics would be considered under our research calls. We are happy for you to send in abstracts/research questions/ topics for feedback but sometimes given the breadth of our calls it is difficult to give too much steer. We have tried to provide more information on the website to enable researchers to decide on whether to apply or not. Our FAQs page should hopefully address any practical questions you might have regarding eligibility. Please do read all the information available to get a good feel for our fund!

We appreciate that a full detailed research design can take a lot of time to put together and understandably this might not be an appealing option for proposals that do not appear to fit our topic-specific funding priorities. We therefore now ask for a shorter initial application, as an expression of interest, which we hope will help make applying to the calls quicker and easier for researchers and enable us to receive a broad range of research plans.

We set out our top priorities within each funding area and it is likely that successful projects will align with these. However, we like to keep our research calls as open as possible to ensure we are keeping on top of the most relevant research within each area. Therefore, applications are accepted that explore the specific funding area and consider neurodevelopment in general.

Type of project

In general, across our research funding, we aim to support projects that recognise the multi-faceted impact on children affected by neurodiverse conditions. Successful applications are likely to concentrate on co-occurrence of disorders or within the broader scope of the neurodiverse brain.

Our funding encompasses both pure and applied research, giving precedence to projects with the most immediate impact on patient well-being. Pure research delves into mechanisms, causal factors, core deficits, and co-occurrences of specific disorders. Applied research explores interventions for these disorders, emphasizing cost-effectiveness, ease of implementation, and direct involvement of parents and children.

However, within each of the specific funding calls we have specific areas of focus which may deviate from this.