Big Way Of Life

The Health Innovation Challenge Fund (HICF) is a £100 million, five-year parallel funding partnership between the Welcome Trust and the Department of Health that aims to stimulate the creation of innovative healthcare products, technologies and interventions, and facilitate their development for the benefit of patients in the NHS and beyond.

There is no set funding amount and up to 100 per cent of full economic costs will be covered.

The following types of organisations (singly or in collaboration) will be eligible for funding: NHS organisations (including NHS Trusts and NHS Foundation Trusts), and equivalent UK authorities; Universities, research institutes and not-for-profit organisations; start-up companies founded to capture and develop intellectual property of relevance to healthcare; biotechnology, pharmaceutical, bioinformatics, engineering or other companies.

The theme for the new call for proposals is ‘smart surgery: innovative technologies or interventions to reduce, replace or refine invasive surgical procedures.

The priorities for the HCIF are:

• Encourage innovative products for patient benefit
• Improve the uptake of new technological advances into patient management pathways
• Integrate the clinical, research, informatics and product development communities

The 2011 preliminary application deadline is 28 April 2011.

For more information visit the Welcome Trust website.