The Health Research Council of New Zealand (HRC) and the Ministry of Health (Ministry) have formed this funding initiative to invest in health research that will contribute evidence to help achieve equitable maternal and infant health outcomes. 

Through this Request for Proposals (RFP), the HRC and the Ministry (‘the funding partners’) are seeking to fund high-quality research and knowledge translation projects that will directly inform development of policy and practice for Aotearoa New Zealand’s maternity services to achieve equitable maternal and infant health outcomes and support a quality improvement culture within maternity services. 

There are two separate funding opportunities available to apply for: 

• Research projects that will generate evidence with clear line of sight to how the research will advance the RFP objectives. 
• Knowledge translation grants that will increase the use of existing evidence within maternity services with clear line of sight to how the translation activity will advance the RFP objectives. 

Both opportunities will be funded within a total funding pool of $1.5 million (exclusive of GST). The funding partners expect to fund a portfolio of research project and knowledge translation grants at a range of values within this funding pool. Proposals with a maximum duration of 2 years are invited. 

Eligibility criteria 

If you are the first-named investigator (i.e. lead researcher) on an application, you must be based in New Zealand and employed with a New Zealand host organisation. 

Collaborating researchers from outside New Zealand can, at the HRC’s discretion, be included as named investigators on a HRC contract. However, the HRC will not contribute to the overhead of the overseas investigator, and the total proportion of contract budget allocated to overseas investigators must not exceed 20 percent. 

For more information about our contract requirements, please read the HRC Rules document under 'Helpful links'. 

Application process 

If you’re applying for funding through this partnership, you’ll need to submit a registration via HRC Gateway. You’ll then need to complete a full application using the 2020 Maternity Services Research Application Form. You will also need to complete the 2020 Maternity Services Research Budget Form. Full applications are submitted via HRC Gateway. 

Got a question? 

If you have read through the documents below and the ‘How to apply for HRC funding’ section under ‘Helpful links’ and still have a question about the 2020 Maternity Services Research RFP, please email Scott Aitken, Research Investment Coordinator.

UPDATE:  The Ministry of Health’s Maternity Action Plan (MAP) referred to in the background section of the RFP has not yet been published as a stand-alone document. However, the MAP workstreams have been published through the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy which is publicly available here.

Documents

Request for proposals

2020 Maternity Services Research Request for Proposals
4 Sep, 2020 2:08pm - 281KB

Guidelines

2020 Maternity Services Research Application Guidelines
4 Sep, 2020 2:06pm - 402KB

2020 Maternity Services Research Assessment Criteria
4 Sep, 2020 2:06pm - 47KB