Policies for achieving research goals

Making research strategy decisions: The Scientific Strategy Committee

The Scientific Strategy Committee (SSC) advises the Medical Director and the Trustees and has a role:

  • to ensure that basic, translational, clinical and epidemiological research is undertaken which is relevant to the range of musculoskeletal and rheumatic disorders considered by arc to be relevant to its mission
  • to advise on approaches that may be appropriate to satisfy unmet need in relevant areas of research
  • to advise on the contribution of arc’s Institutes and Centres to arc’s goals and its other research strategies
  • to advise on the contribution of proposed major programme and unusually large project grants to achieving arc's strategies
  • to advise on the remit, constitution and development of any funding sub-committees charged with implementing the SSC’s strategy

Strategically led

In broad terms arc supports both strategically led research and response mode or researcher led activities.  The aim is that all research is directed towards overall goals and the distinction is between the process of its initiation.

 The two current key strategically led initiatives are:

1. Clinical Trials

One major strategic target already identified is the need to support research in identifying the role of both novel and existing treatments across the board in arc’s areas of interest. This will require providing support for large scale clinical trials and related studies and working with both health care providers, such as the NHS, and other bodies such as the pharmaceutical industry, in developing a comprehensive programme of work. In this area the key principle is that arc will collaborate with industry where the latter will contribute to arc's research strategy. Thus the goal is to harness the expertise, facilities and resources where they support arc's goals

arc sees an absolute necessity in this area of work for nationally agreed strategies and collaborative, rather than competitive, working between the key stakeholders. The costs of such research, the limited number of patients and the necessity to work within the guidelines of national bodies such as NIHR (National Institute for Health Research) are the major ‘drivers’ for a national strategy. This is achieved by the formation of Clinical Study Groups (CSGs) in 7 major disease areas of arc's interest

2. Centres of excellence

Centres of excellence will be established in specific areas of research endeavour. Centres will be established in key areas of strategic interest, where there is a need to build up a critical mass of expertise and other resources to address a particular area. Further information on these centres can be found here.

Institutes

In addition arc currently supports two Institutes, both of which are embedded within Universities:

  • the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology (KIR) embedded within Imperial College, London which focuses on basic and translational research into inflammatory and degenerative arthritis
  • the arc Epidemiology Unit embedded within Manchester University which studies the use of epidemiological methods to identify the causes and consequences of the major rheumatic diseases

These Institutes in a typical budget year historically have consumed around one third of arc's direct research expenditure. The Institutes are characterised by arc’s historic long term commitment, support to the salary costs of the senior investigators and substantial infrastructure support with additional support to enable the Institutes to undertake ambitious programmes of work, either fully funded by arc or with arc resources being used to stimulate and support areas of work funded in part by others. Renewal of support to the Institutes subject to international review aiming for the highest scientific standards.

Researcher led

arc has a commitment to supporting researcher led initiatives for studies in areas of the charity’s interest. Given the increased strategically led investment in clinical trials and related research much of the resource to researcher led initiatives will be in basic science, including both laboratory and health science, and translational research. All applicants for response mode funding have to provide a justification that is assessable by arc stakeholders.

  1. Projects grants (Short term support)
    The applications for short term support are response mode and cover a large number of different topics and approaches. Short term support refers to project grants typically for up to 3 years of funding to support the direct costs of conducting research projects of relevance to arc. Allocation of resources to specific projects are based on the judgement of the worth of the question, the scientific merit of the proposal and the relative resources allocated to that broad area across the totality of arc funding. Decisions are informed, in part, by both consumer (i.e. patient and public) as well as clinical views of relevance and importance.
  2. Programme grants (Long term support)
    Long term support refers to programme support, typically up to 5 years, to research groups working at the international cutting edge in their field. Such support enables the recruitment and retention of promising young scientists and the development of a coherent programme of research but with the flexibility both to change direction as the results and external activities dictate and to include the taking of calculated risks. It is assumed that the successful applicants for this funding represent the highest quality in scientific performance. Given the strategic importance of this type of funding requests for such support will be considered in outline by the SSC to determine their overall contribution to the strategic goals of arc taking into account the other activities it funds. The originality, suitability of the team, scientific merit and value for money of the proposals selected by SSC will then be subject to scrutiny by an expert panel.
  3. Equipment and research facilities
  • arc has traditionally supported researcher led requests for specific items of expensive equipment which have the potential to enable a number of major research projects to be attempted
  • The appropriate future arrangements to fund equipment grants are under consideration

Other research infrastructure support

  • arc's policy is to support all the direct costs of the research it funds. It would expect that indirect costs (e.g. accommodation, senior academic posts and general support posts) would be supported by Universities following national policies in regard to the role of research charities.