Category: News

17/05/2023 – Funding Call 3 – Collaboration Innovation Projects

by weizili, posted in Funding, News

Our third call focuses on high quality feasibility and pilot proposals in any of the following areas (but not limited to):  

  1. Remote blood monitoring and testing: Technologies for blood biomarker identification with high levels of accuracy and robustness in non-clinical environments, including but not limited to examples as below: 
  • Sensing, applied optics, biochemistry and electronic engineering, AI for a wider range of blood biomarker identification or clinical diagnostic
  • Non-invasive or high-quality sample obtaining whilst minimising intrusion
  • Remote or near patient blood testing or monitoring platform for multiple blood tests
  1. Clinical evaluation of remote blood monitoring and testing: studies to generate clinical evidence of remote blood monitoring and testing in a real world context (e.g. in different types of hospitals, GP practices, local authority or community or social care services), including but not limited to examples as below:  
  • Feasibility or effectiveness studies to evaluate how remote blood monitoring and testing affect patient outcomes 
  • Studies to evaluate clinical efficiency, burden and safety of the remote blood monitoring and testing technologies  
  • Patient and end user acceptability  

We would like to encourage all applications demonstrate a strong element of patient and public involvement and/or end user engagement.  

The key dates are as follows:

  • 17th May 2023 – Call formally announced
  • 1st August 2023 – Deadline for applications (to be emailed to s.kanza@reading.ac.uk)
  • 1st September 2023 – Successful projects announced

Please read the Guidance Document carefully before filling in the Application Form (both files can be downloaded by following these links, or from the Documents Page). The Terms and Conditions can be found in our FBTN Single Letter Agreement (Coming soon).

Please note, individual projects can request up to £50,000 funding (total spend up to £62,500 as per fEC 80%). Applicants will be awarded 80% of the full cost and the institution receiving the award is responsible for the remaining 20%. If you have any questions please contact our Network+ Coordinator Dr Samantha Kanza on s.kanza@reading.ac.uk.

Here are some key points about the application requirements:

  • Projects are expected to last for a maximum of 12 months.  
  • Projects must be able to demonstrate how beneficiaries will be engaged, and how the likelihood of impacts can be increased. See the EPSRC guides for preparing an impact plan: https://epsrc.ukri.org/funding/howtoapply/preparing/impactguidance/   
  • Projects must be able to demonstrate reasonable prospects of continuation funding to enable sustainable development.  
  • Projects research is required to be at least 50% within EPSRC remit: https://epsrc.ukri.org/funding/applicationprocess/basics/remit/  
  • Applications must be made on the FBTN application form, and must not exceed 8 pages, using 11pt Arial Font, with no adjustments to margins. They must be accompanied by a 1 page Gantt chart style project plan.   

13/09/2022 – Funding Call 2 – Collaboration Innovation Projects

by sk1r18, posted in Funding, News

Our second call focuses on high quality feasibility and pilot proposals. These projects should last no more than 18 months and should be in the general area of digital health systems to support remote blood monitoring, AI enabled blood sample analysis, personalised decision support, and self-management and timely intervention in community health and care. We will therefore consider novel proposals in any of the following areas (but not limited to):

  • Remote monitoring: Technologies for blood biomarker identification with high levels of accuracy and robustness in non-clinical environments, including but not limited to examples as below:
    • Sensing, applied optics, biochemistry and electronic engineering, AI for a wider range of blood biomarker identification or clinical diagnostic
    • Non-invasive or high-quality sample obtaining whilst minimising intrusion
    • Remote or near patient blood testing or monitoring platform for multiple blood tests
  • Information Communication Technologies (ICT): ICT technologies to ensure secure data connectivity for remote blood monitoring and personalised analytics. We will therefore consider novel proposals in any of the following areas (but not limited to):
    • Mobile health and ICT for connected diagnostics
    • Privacy and security in remote blood monitoring
    • ICT infrastructure for Decentralized blood testing and monitoring
    • Diagnostic testing automation and robotics
  • Personalised analytics and AI: Remote blood monitoring data facilitate the ability to trend patient data over time and monitor hospital treatment goals, which allows clinicians to better manage their patients, and this subsequently helps to improve patient care. We will therefore consider novel proposals in any of the following areas (but not limited to):
    • Decision support using multimodal data such as blood testing, monitoring and electronic health record data etc.
    • Personalised analytics using longitudinal blood monitoring data
    • AI and machine learning-based testing analysis
  • In addition, we strongly encourage applicants to consider healthcare applications of their proposed technology, including but not limited to:
    • Prevention, early detection, improved diagnostics, treatment monitoring and personalisation
    • Efficiency improvement and capacity augmentation
    • Chronic disease management and selfcare and self-management
    • Clinical research and clinical trials

The key dates are as follows:

  • 13th September 2022 – Call formally announced
  • 14th December 2022 – Deadline for applications (to be emailed to s.kanza@reading.ac.uk)
  • 30th January 2023 – Successful projects announced

Please read the Guidance Document carefully before filling in the Application Form (both files can be downloaded by following these links, or from the Documents Page). The Terms and Conditions can be found in our FBTN Single Letter Agreement (Coming soon).

Please note, individual projects can request up to £50,000 funding (total spend up to £62,500 as per fEC 80%). Applicants will be awarded 80% of the full cost and the institution receiving the award is responsible for the remaining 20%. If you have any questions please contact our Network+ Coordinator Dr Samantha Kanza on s.kanza@reading.ac.uk.

Here are some key points about the application requirements:

  • Projects are expected to last for a maximum of 18 months.  
  • Projects must be able to demonstrate how beneficiaries will be engaged, and how the likelihood of impacts can be increased. See the EPSRC guides for preparing an impact plan: https://epsrc.ukri.org/funding/howtoapply/preparing/impactguidance/   
  • Projects must be able to demonstrate reasonable prospects of continuation funding to enable sustainable development.  
  • Projects research is required to be at least 50% within EPSRC remit: https://epsrc.ukri.org/funding/applicationprocess/basics/remit/  
  • Applications must be made on the FBTN application form, and must not exceed 8 pages, using 11pt Arial Font, with no adjustments to margins. They must be accompanied by a 1 page Gantt chart style project plan.   

28/03/2022 – Future Blood Testing Network launches Mini Track at HICSS

by sk1r18, posted in Announcements, News

The Future Blood Testing Network Team are running a Mini-Track at the HICSS Conference in Hawaii, 3-6th January 2023.

Details of our track on Digitally-Enabled Blood Testing in Healthcare can be found here: https://hicss.hawaii.edu/tracks-56/information-technology-in-healthcare/#digitally-enabled-blood-testing-in-healthcare-minitrack

We invite you to submit papers to our minitrack, the deadline is 15th June. Submission details and author instructions can be found here: https://hicss.hawaii.edu/authors/

Full details can be found here: https://futurebloodtesting.org/hicss-minitrack/

21/12/2021 – Network Launch Report

by sk1r18, posted in Events, News

On the 23rd November 2021 we launched our Network with an online event hosted via Zoom. The session was kicked off by our Principal Investigator Dr Weizi (Vicky) Li, and the University of Reading Team: Prof Adrian Bell, Prof Adrian Williams, and Prof Keiichi Nakata. This was followed by talks from Vicky to introduce the network, and each of the Co-Investigators on the different themes of the Network. The second part of the session comprised of different healthcare themes, and further details about the Network from the Coordinator Dr Samantha Kanza. The session ended with a panel discussion with all of the speakers, chaired by Prof Adrian Bell. The full programme with speaker details can be found here.

The following talks were presented at the event:

A majority of the talks were recorded and made available on our YouTube Channel. All of these videos can be found in the Future Blood Testing Network Launch Playlist.

07/12/2021 – Funding Call 1 – Landscape report

by sk1r18, posted in Funding

Our first funding call will be to fund three projects to produce content for our landscape report that will provide the roadmap of developing new digital health systems to support real-time blood monitoring, self management and timely intervention in community health and care. Each report will include a systematic review of the key literature and involve interviewing key stakeholders to establish the current picture and identify the gaps.

The report will have three main streams, and you can apply for a full stream or part of a stream.

  • Future blood testing in healthcare practice: For example but not limited to: clinical needs, early adopters, challenges and opportunities, regulations, buy-in, user acceptance, existing and potential use cases for healthcare professionals and hospitals, clinical researchers, patients, laboratories etc
  • Remote blood processing and monitoring: For example but not limited to: sensing, imaging, point of care blood testing, portable and affordable , non-invasive, and other promising technologies for detecting blood biomarkers outside clinical settings
  • ICT, Data, Analytics and AI: For example but not limited to: challenges and opportunities in entire data lifecycle from point of testing/monitoring, to linking in with NHS Systems and other healthcare Systems including aspects of ICT infrastructure, data security, trust, ethics, data quality, provenance etc, and the AI technologies and analytics methods required to create the personalised analytics in patient pathways

The key dates are as follows:

  • 3rd February 2022 – Call formally announced
  • 10th March 2022 – Deadline for applications (to be emailed to s.kanza@reading.ac.uk)
  • 7th April 2022 – Successful projects announced

Please read the Guidance Document carefully before filling in the Application Form (both files can be downloaded by following these links, or from the Documents Page). The Terms and Conditions can be found in our FBTN Single Letter Agreement (Coming soon).

Please note, individual projects can request up to £20,000 funding (total spend up to £25,000 as per fEC 80%). Applicants will be awarded 80% of the full cost and the institution receiving the award is responsible for the remaining 20%. If you have any questions please contact our Network+ Coordinator Dr Samantha Kanza on s.kanza@reading.ac.uk.

Here are some key points about the application requirements:

  • Projects are expected to have a maximum duration of 18 months. There is no minimum length for the projects, but applicants must be available to work within our timelines and attend the review meetings for the different iterations of the report. Applications should demonstrate how these timelines can be met via the inclusion of a Gantt Chart. NB: We expect applicants to be available to attend our review workshops and speak at them about their work. Receiving the funding is conditional on meeting these milestones.
    • May 2022: All projects MUST start by 1st May 2022
    • Nov 2022: 1st iteration of landscape report due
    • Mar 2023: 2nd iteration of landscape report due
    • Nov 2023: Final version of landscape report due
  • Applications should demonstrate how the overall team has the required skills to produce both the systematic review in their area of chosen expertise, but also to conduct the interviews and analyse them.
  • Making sure your finance team understand what you are applying for is vital. This is an EPSRC funded Network so everything must fit within their rules. Understanding the fEC 80/20 rule can often be an issue if not made clear right at the start. This is why we ask for finance costing and sign off with every application.
  • Applications should detail who the applicants are planning to interview if they are funded. The interviews are really important. We don’t just want the work to be born out of the literature, we encourage you to think about who you are going to engage with and who the key stakeholders in the area that you are going to work on. An in depth view of the field is very important for the landscape report as we want to guide not only the academic research but also the industry practice as well. We strongly encourage including interview letters or emails of intent to demonstrate who would be willing to be interviewed by them. (NB: These can be attached to the submission or emailed to s.kanza@reading.ac.uk).
  • Obtaining ethics approval to conduct the interviews is a condition of receiving this funding. Applications should demonstrate how they are planning to do this. NB: Members of the Future Blood Testing Network Team will be available to provide advice on this.
  • Make sure you follow the rules. PhD Students are a key area where this can be misunderstood. You cannot hire a PhD student to work for you FULL TIME unless they are seconded, and it is not work that counts towards a continuation of their PhD. However PhD students can work a certain number of hours a week (visa dependant) again as long as this does not fall into the remit of work that counts towards their PhD.
  • Applications must be made on the Future Blood Testing Network Application Form, and must not exceed 7 pages, using 11pt Arial Font, with no adjustments to margins. They must be accompanied by a 1 page Gantt chart style project plan.
  • We will acknowledge everyone who takes part in this project irrespective of their role, so the Final Report will acknowledge not just the authors but also the advisors, interviewees, reviewers etc.

01/06/2021 – Announcing Future Blood Testing Network!

by sk1r18, posted in Announcements, News

We are very excited to announce the Future blood testing for inclusive monitoring and personalised analytics Network+. This Network has been funded by EPSRC under grant number EP/W000652/1.

The Network will be led by Dr Weizi Li from the Henley Business School at the University of Reading. Weizi will be joined by co directors Dr Robert Barker (University of Kent), Dr Mark Elliott (University of Warwick), Professor Jeremy Frey (University of Southampton) and Dr Sergiy Korposh (University of Nottingham). The Network will be coordinated by Steve Brewer and Dr Samantha Kanza from the University of Southampton.