SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medicine & National Health Innovation Centre Joint MedTech Grant Call

Closes On

23 Sep 2024

Funding Source

Internal

PI Salary Support

ACP/SDDC Affiliation

No ACP/SDDC affiliation required

Funding Per Grant Amount

S$ 100,000

Qualification

Not Specified

Academic Appointment

Funding Period

1 year

Citizenship

Foreigner / S / PR

Call Opens

12 Aug 2024

SMC/SDC Registered

Objective

Medical technology development is a research growth area for SingHealth with the aim of bringing novel healthcare technology solutions to the patients' bedside. Its advancement is a mission spearheaded by the SingHealth Medical Technology Office (MTO). One of MTO's key roles is to link researchers and their validated clinical problem with technological solutions – with an end goal of improving patient care through clinically relevant technology.　

The SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medicine (AM) & National Health Innovation Centre Singapore (NHIC) Joint MedTech Grant Call is jointly supported by SingHealth Duke-NUS AM and NHIC - to fund feasibility studies and deserving pilot projects prior to embarking on the NHIC applications.

This grant aims to provide seed funding for investigators to explore novel research ideas, support exploratory efforts for early-stage projects that involve an unmet clinical need and show potential for further development with the next stage of Proof of Concept (POC) funding.

Funding Details

The grant award is up to S$100,000 over a period of 1 year.

The end deliverable should be a physical clinical device, drug or diagnostic solution, potentially applicable in SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medicine Centre (AMC) and optimally, across other healthcare institutions; and/or show potential for patent protection.

Projects should aim towards securing follow-on funding [such as NHIC Innovation to Develop (I2D) Grant, SMART Innovation 2.0 Grant and NRF Central Gap fund] or take other concrete steps to develop the technology towards commercialization, at the end of the project.

Eligibility Criteria

Only investigators/researchers primarily employed in SingHealth and her member institutions are encouraged to apply provided the following criteria are fulfilled:

Principal Investigators (PIs) with previous MedTech research funding (irrespective of funding source) of <S$1 million in total between the period 1 September 2022 to 31 August 2024 are eligible to apply.
PIs (other than Allied Health professionals and Nurses) must not have held more than 1 SHF-Foundation/AM grant (i.e. a maximum of 2 SHF-Foundation/AM grants may be awarded to any PI who is not an Allied Health professional or Nurse); Allied Health professionals and Nurses must not have held more than 2 SHF-Foundation/AM grants (i.e. a maximum of 3 SHF-Foundation/AM grants may be awarded if the PI is an Allied Health professional or Nurse).
Association/Affiliation with an Academic Clinical Programme (ACP):
- The PI must be under an ACP or contributing to the growth and development of research in/under an ACP through active collaboration. Justifications must be given to support these research contributions and activities.
- Applicants will need to complete a self-declaration on the ACP to which their research has contributed and obtain acknowledgement from the respective ACP Vice Chair (Research).'
If the applicant is unable to fulfil the above condition (i), the applicant should have his/her proposal signed-off by the relevant ACP Vice Chair (Research) and have it endorsed by the ACP's Academic Chair while keeping the respective ACP Administrators informed. The signing-off in support and as endorsement of the proposal signifies that the applicant is associated to the ACP.
The proposed research project must be conducted within the SingHealth Duke-NUS academic health system and the PI must have an official employment (permanent/contract) in a SingHealth institution throughout the effective grant period.
PIs must not be recipients of NMRC’s Transition Award (TA) or Clinician Scientist Award (CSA); or be current recipients of SingHealth Duke-NUS AM’s Nurturing Clinician Scientist Scheme (NCSS) or Khoo Mentored Research Award (KMRA); or have been hired under SingHealth Research Strategic Hire or Research Talent schemes, at the point of application and upon award.
The project's aims and objectives, and/or the same protocol have not been funded by other funding agencies.
If eligible, successful (awarded) investigators must apply for follow-on funding [such as NHIC Innovation to Develop (I2D) Grant, SMART Innovation Grant 2.0 and NRF Central Gap fund] or take other concrete steps to develop the technology towards commercialization (details of which must be provided to the grant implementing agencies), at the end of the project.
All awarded investigators will need to agree to have a project monitor for their project, assigned by MTO and mutually agreed on by the PI.
Applications that do not fulfil the eligibility criteria will be automatically disqualified from review.

Submission

Each eligible applicant can only submit one application per SingHealth Duke-NUS AM Research Grant Call as the PI (i.e. a PI can only apply for either ‘SingHealth Duke-NUS AM & NHIC Joint MedTech Grant Call FY2025’ or ‘SingHealth Duke-NUS AM Research Grant 2.0 FY2025’).

Association/Affiliation with an Academic Clinical Programme (ACP)

1. For PIs who are under an ACP or already contributing to the growth and development of research in/under an ACP through active collaboration, applications must be acknowledged by ACP Vice Chair (Research).
2. If the applicant is unable to fulfil the above condition (a), the applicant should have his/her proposal signed-off by the relevant ACP Vice Chair (Research) and have it endorsed by the ACP's Academic Chair while keeping the respective ACP Administrators informed. The signing-off in support and as endorsement of the proposal signifies that the applicant is associated to the ACP.

Application must be endorsed by the applicant's Head of Department (HOD) prior to the submission to SingHealth Office of Research (OoR) through the Research Office of the Principal Investigator (PI)'s Host Institution. Only applications with following submissions received will be accepted:

- 2 soft copies containing all information (e.g. proposal, CVs) in a single file
1. (1 in word format without signatures and 1 in PDF format with signatures) Electronic signatures are allowed.

Interested applicants, please refer to the application guidelines and respective application forms.

Please refer to the Annex 1 – SingHealth Duke-NUS AM Research Grant Funding Guidelines in the application form when doing the budgeting.

Incomplete or late applications will automatically be disqualified from the review.

Important Notes:

SingHealth Office of Research will only process completed applications from eligible applicants.
No change of PI once submitted.
All applications must be made using the prescribed form. Failure to comply with all the requirements will result in the grant application being disqualified from review.
Failure to comply will result in applications being disqualified from the review.
SingHealth PIs are to please refer to your respective Institutional Research Administrators for guidance on internal deadlines and submission procedures set by your institutions.

Contact Person

SingHealth Office of Research (OoR)