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  6. Local Groups Funding

Local Groups Funding

Local Groups of BNA members are able to each claim up to £1000 annually to support their activities, coordinated by their LGRs and LGSRs. A Local Group has full control over its projects; which are developed by them to meet a need that its members have raised.

Eligibility

Funded activities will meet needs or interests felt widely and deeply among a local neuroscience community so as to engage as many people as possible. The aims of the funding scheme are to enable Local Groups to benefit their members, address issues affecting their members (and would-be members), and to increase and expand the Local Group's membership to more fully represent the breadth of its local neuroscience community. All funding applications must demonstrate how they will achieve these three aims. Such activities might include (but are not limited to):

  • the development of a meeting or structure to connect local neuroscientists across sectors (academic, clinical, commercial, etc.)
  • initiatives to build bridges between departments or institutions and facilitate collaboration where it is currently impaired
  • work on local expressions of BNA policy campaigns that broad sections of the local membership feel strongly about and want to win specific change from a local decision-maker on
  • projects to connect the public with research in either direction, for example via public engagement projects or patient advocacy
  • initiatives that support best practice relating to wider issues of neuroscience e.g. workshops on using animals in research, neuroethics, working with the media
  • initiatives to support career development and reduce attrition, e.g. an event connecting students with local employers across different sectors

Other key information:

  • Applications can be made throughout the calendar year, but the annual funding period runs from October–September. The annual deadline for applications will therefore be the end of August. If the funding pot for a funding period is depleted due to a high volume of successful applications, you are advised to place your application after the end of September, at which point the new cycle will have begun.
  • Applications can only be made by a Local Group Representative (LGR) in collaboration with other BNA members in the Local Group. If you have an idea for a project but are not an LGR, please get in touch with your LGR to bring the idea to the rest of your local BNA membership.
  • Collaborative proposals submitted by two or more LGRs are welcomed (and funding can be pooled between co-applicants).
  • There is a maximum of £1000 awarded per Local Group per year, whether via an individual or collaborative application (e.g. a collaborative application involving three Local Groups may apply for a maximum of £3000).

Your application must an include a budget outline. Costs that can be supported include but are not limited to:

  • Room hire
  • Materials for public engagement
  • Materials for campaigning, e.g. flyers, posters, banners, placards
  • Materials for local promotion of the Local Group itself, e.g. flyers, posters
  • Catering
  • Speaker travel expenses
  • Training materials
  • Costs relating to participation by patient and/or public representatives

Costs that cannot be supported include:

  • Remuneration of seminar speakers or BNA members
  • Support for preexisting initiatives or activities already available to local BNA members via their institution, or via another independent network or organisation (e.g. a student society) – activities must be novel, based on a broad need of the local neuroscience community ideally across career stages and sectors, and organised by current BNA members and for current and would-be BNA members (i.e. with an aim to bring more of the local community into the Local Group as BNA members)
  • Disproportionate or unreasonable requests with respect to hospitality or subsistence

All proposals must be in line with the BNA’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Policy, which can be summarised as a commitment towards equal opportunities, non-discriminatory procedures and practices, with no biases of any kind related to age, background, ethnic origin, education, socioeconomics, personal situation, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion or belief, or any combination of these. For example, all-male speaker lists will be rejected automatically as a matter of policy.

Selection

Applications are selected on a competitive process. They are judged on quality and the extent to which they are deemed to meet the aims of the funding scheme (see above), and their ability to meet core BNA strategic objectives. It is unlikely that all applications will be successful.

Submissions are reviewed by a sub-committee composed of members of the BNA Council and Executive, primarily the Local Groups Coordinator and the Membership and Communities Manager.

Reporting

On completion of the project on which funding has been used, successful applicants must provide two short reports (see below) on the project. This helps publicise the activities of Local Groups, promote the funding scheme, and also to reduce the energy barriers for other Local Groups organising similar projects. Failure to provide the two reports will have a bearing on future decisions to support applications submitted by the Local Group.

The two reports required are:

  1. a magazine-style report / review of the activity, to be submitted via email to the BNA Membership and Communities Manager (dani.wijesinghe(at)bna.org.uk) and published as a short news article on the BNA website (or, where projects are specially selected, as a Brain Insights article in the BNA's journal Brain and Neuroscience Advances), to include:
    • the "why" of the activity: what need/desire of the local neuroscience BNA membership was it aiming to address, and how?
    • key quantitative data (e.g. how many people attended/were reached, how many new members joined the BNA because of the project)
    • high-quality photographs of the activity
    • where possible, quotations from a range of people involved (e.g. organisers, attendees, other beneficiaries)
  2. a completed copy of the review form found here, to also be sent via email to the BNA Membership and Communities Manager (dani.wijesinghe(at)bna.org.uk) and then filed in the Local Group Representatives' Dropbox to be used as a reference resource to assist the planning of future projects
    • fill out each of the fields in as much detail as you think will be useful to others 

Reports, in whole or in part, may be published in the BNA's print or online publications.