As a member of a funding committee, an expert reviewer or an internal staff member from Cancer Research UK or Cancer Research Horizons (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cancer Research UK) who is involved in Cancer Research UK’s expert review funding processes, you must abide by our conflicts of interest guidance and relevant code of practice.
You have a conflict of interest that prevents you from reviewing or participating in review discussions about a grant application if:
1. You are the lead applicant, joint lead applicant, co-investigator or collaborator on the grant application, even if you are a minor collaborator, someone who has provided a letter of support or contributed to the development of a grant application (eg providing intellectual input into a project). If an individual is a lead applicant or joint lead applicant on an application, that individual will also be excluded from considering any other applications that directly compete for funding.
2. You are based at the same institution as the lead applicant or joint lead applicant, or have been in the previous 12 months (even if you don’t know the individual personally). Being at the same institution as a co-investigator is not automatically treated as a conflict, but should still be disclosed and may need to be treated as a conflict on a case-by-case basis if there is a risk of perceived bias (for example if you have collaborated with the co-investigator).
3. You have substantively collaborated with the lead applicant or joint lead applicant in the previous three years, in the sense of providing intellectual input into a project. Co-publication will generally indicate collaboration, but there may be exceptions, for example, where a paper acknowledges a significant number of contributing authors who have not collaborated on the work in a substantive sense.
4. You are a relative of the lead applicant, joint lead applicant, co-investigator or collaborator (“relative” for this purpose includes, but is not limited to, spouse or partner (current or past), children, siblings and parents).
5. You are a business partner of a lead applicant, joint lead applicant, co-investigator or collaborator, or have a direct or indirect financial interest in the grant application.
6. You are in a supervisory relationship with the lead applicant or joint lead applicant (now or in the previous five years).
7. You have any other relationship with the lead applicant, joint lead applicant, co-investigator or collaborator or their host institution(s) on the grant application which could compromise, or cause a reasonably informed outsider to doubt, the objectivity of the evaluation of the grant application or our decision-making. Any other relationships might include, but are not limited to: consultancies, advisory roles, directorships or board roles or membership of special interest groups.
Our conflicts of interest rules are set out in full in our code of practice for funding committees and panels.
Download the code of practice