Action Medical Research is the leading UK-wide charity dedicated to funding vital research to help sick and disabled babies, children and young people. We have been funding medical breakthroughs for more than 70 years, helping to beat polio, fight meningitis, prevent stillbirths and developing the use of ultrasound scanning in pregnancy. 

Action’s remit focuses on child health including problems affecting pregnancy, childbirth, babies, children and young people. Within child health, we support a broad spectrum of research including medical engineering. Our emphasis is on biomedical clinical research or research at the interface between clinical and basic science. We pride ourselves that our research is both innovative and of a high standard as judged by rigorous peer review. Action is a founder member of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC), the UK membership organisation of leading medical and health research charities who assess us for best practice in medical research peer review every five years. Action regularly partners with other charities in shared areas of interest to co-fund awards.

We are recruiting scientists and research active clinicians to join our Scientific Advisory Panel that reviews and makes funding decisions on applications to our Research Training Fellowship and Project Grant calls. We are looking for research leaders with expertise across our remit and with an excellent track record of securing research funding from competitive funding agencies. We also require previous experience of peer review.

Panel membership offers the opportunity to acquire an in-depth appreciation of grant review processes within funding organisations, network with other researchers interested in child health across a wide range of disciplines and recognition in our annual Research Review and website.

Criteria for Panel Members

You should be a research leader in your field and have wider knowledge and interests to contribute to discussions and help provide advice in other areas.

You will have been involved with peer review activities, but you may not yet have had the opportunity to have participated in review/advisory panels.

Essential

• experience of conducting research which has contributed to the scientific or medical knowledge base and/or clinical impact
• a successful track record in applying for and obtaining grant funding
• experience of contributing to peer review processes
• an interest and an appreciation of a broad spectrum of research not only within your areas of expertise
• interest in supporting paediatric research and child health if not actively working in paediatric research or child health
• capacity to return assessments in pre-agreed reasonable timeframes

Desirable

• some experience of review panels
• some experience of contributing to policy development or review processes, with a vision of the priorities and opportunities, e.g. institutional activities

We welcome applications from talented people from all relevant backgrounds, and particularly encourage individuals from currently underrepresented groups to apply. These groups include ethnic minority researchers and researchers with disabilities or long-term conditions.

Time commitment for members

Action currently runs 2-3 grant rounds per year:

• Project grants across the full remit of the charity
• Joint translational project grants with LifeArc in rare disease
• Research Training Fellowships 

We award grants in the range of £200,000-£275,000 depending on the scheme.

Most panel meetings to assess full applications are now online as well as interviews for Research Training Fellowships. We aim to have one in-person panel meeting a year which provides an opportunity to meet fellow panel members and charity staff.

We also ask panel members to evaluate final reports from our grant holders.

The amount of time spent by members on panel business, including meetings and preparatory work is equivalent to approximately 7 hours a month for all activities and panels, although this may not be distributed evenly throughout the year. Normally members participate in the review of all three grant rounds but we can consider membership of specific panels for those with specific expertise/interests.

The term of Panel membership is 4 years. Members will initially be appointed for two years, and membership may be extended for a further two years following review.

The position is not remunerated but reasonable travel expenses will be covered for in-person meetings.

How to apply

Please complete the online expression of interest form which can be accessed here: Expression of interest form

Instructions about how to save your form to allow editing can be found here: How to save a Microsoft Form

We are current particularly interested in researchers with expertise in the following areas:

• medicinal chemistry
• clinical trials/epidemiology
• cell biology
• infectious disease
• medical devices
• physical disabilities and disabling conditions
• neonates

We are happy to receive an EOI throughout the year but please submit your EOI by 7 June 2024 to join the panel by the beginning of the academic year 2024/5.

Selection

Expressions of interest will be reviewed by Action and current members of the Scientific Advisory Panel to determine if they meet the membership criteria. Researchers who meet the criteria will be invited to join the panel based on current vacancies. Those who meet the criteria but where there is no current vacancy will be invited when a vacancy arises.

The Panel will normally comprise around 12 to 15 members.

Contact us

If you have any questions, please contact: applications@action.org.uk.