Awards programme aims to bridge research funding gap

A new academic awards programme designed to boost clinical knowledge has been launched by a national practice group.

The scheme, launched by CVS Group, has received its first round of applications from students and researchers nationwide. This programme offers funding of up to £25,000 for up to three years to support clinical research, with further calls for applications planned for later this year.

Step up output

Last year CVS published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers, but aims to use the awards to drastically step up the output of clinical research across the profession.

John Innes, CVO at CVS Group and who chairs the RCVS Fellowship board, said the group aims to address the funding gap in academia between research set for clinical publications and research destined for biomedical journals.

Prof Innes said: “One of the big things at the moment is, how do we keep vets happy and engaged in what they are doing?

“When I was in academia one of the things that frustrated me was that there is not a lot of money around for clinical research within veterinary medicine.

“Universities constantly want to improve what they call the quality of their research, which is all about impact factors and journal publications, and vets in practice want to see their subject move forward. So, I think one of the things we can do as an organisation is to contribute back to that.

“This initiative is to allow, particularly young, vets to get engaged in research and to link colleagues at CVS with colleagues in universities.”

Categories

The academic awards programme comes in two distinct categories – the first is the university residency awards, which provides up to £5,000 to support clinical research required as part of a residency programme within a veterinary school.

The second is the flexible research awards, which offer up to £25,000 a year for up to three years, supporting clinical research in collaboration with CVS. These are also intended to support a PhD programme or research projects, but not residency programmes.

All applications will require ethical approval and will be reviewed by the CVS clinical research panel, which includes representatives from across the group and two external appointments – Sarah Freeman from the University of Nottingham and Richard Meeson from the RVC.

Prof Innes detailed how the money earmarked for the academic awards totalled around a quarter of a million, with a possibility that the budget could grow as the scheme continues.

He added: “We are particularly aiming to support those who are in residency training programmes or to support PhDs, so it will be young vets doing postgraduate clinical training who receive much of this support.

“One challenge for early career research is that there is usually no money to support that.”

Industry first

As an industry first, the academic awards programme will be open to veterinary universities across the UK, the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands.

Prof Innes added: “I can think of examples in my own field of orthopaedics in which you can make significant difference and improvements to what we are already doing, with modest sums of money – just so long as you do good-quality research.

“One of the advantages of consolidation is that larger groups and clinicians are coming together in organisations in which data can be more easily shared, and data sets are getting bigger.

“We’re not currently providing focus areas for applications; but we may well develop focus areas as we go forward. At this point, we want to be open to ideas coming in from the veterinary research community.

“This is a step in the right direction in terms of large practice groups giving back to the profession.

“In doing this, we are investing in the future of veterinary medicine. I think that’s important because vets are motivated by doing a great job and, fundamentally, they are scientists who want to see the science progress.”

For more information about the awards, visit the CVS Group website.