Research Fellowship: Irish Cancer Society

YFlyer

I was looking at some posters of the careers/research notice boards at the University of Limerick this morning. What caught my eye was the Research Fellowship in cancer research (not my field) funded by the Irish Cancer Society. What I noticed is that the fellowship covers 'salary and materials will be up to €75,000 per year for a maximum of three years.'

How on earth would €75,000 cover salaries, materials plus the overheads that are required when carrying out research at a 3rd level institute? Surely to carry out top quality research, a researcher would need alot more than €75,000.

In chemistry and material sciences, this amount would not be adequate.

What does other here feel about the amount that the Irish Cancer Society contribute to individual research projects?

http://www.cancer.ie/research/funding.php

Research Fellowship

Are you committed to making a real difference to cancer patients through a career in cancer research?
The Irish Cancer Society invites eligible applicants to submit applications for Irish Cancer Society Research Fellowships for 2011.
Applications in the areas of Epidemiology, Prevention, Laboratory, Clinical, Translational and Health Services Research are welcome. Applications in line with our strategic areas and in other areas of cancer research, including prostate cancer are sought. All applications will be assessed on merit, and awarded on excellence.
The Fellowship scheme is open to:
a) untenured postdoctoral scientists
b) medical doctors in training
c) nurses and other researchers
with a post-graduate degree, a further minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 years research experience and a commitment to developing a career in cancer research.
The total value of the Irish Cancer Society Research fellowship covering salary and materials will be up to €75,000 per year for a maximum of three years. Applicants will need to choose a research area of specific interest for them and identify a suitable mentor to collaborate with on writing the proposal.
Closing Date for Receipt of Applications: 3pm on Wednesday 2nd February 2011. This call is now closed.

Ihaveanopinion

You have to start somewhere. You generally dont get much of a salary from those kinds of grants.

Once you have proven your mettle in the science world - you can successfully apply for one of the multi-million euro grants you obviously deserve :rolleyes:

Tree

Well, you'd be hoping to have more than one funding scheme if possible, and it'd be a good start. you could keep a pet phd student on it and the guts of yourself or a postdoc i reckon.

YFlyer

Ihaveanopinion wrote: »

You have to start somewhere. You generally dont get much of a salary from those kinds of grants.

Once you have proven your mettle in the science world - you can successfully apply for one of the multi-million euro grants you obviously deserve :rolleyes:

I'm not talking about what I deserve. I'm currently undertaken a PhD in Organic Chemistry (biorefinery related) so most likely not be applying for any cancer related research position.

With that amount of funding for a Post Doc. They usually start at about €42,000. Then include paying for overheads to the college. Oh yeah I forgot, well in UL anyway, money is usually set aside for pension fund. There would then be very little available to buy materials and if needed to buy or repair equipment. I know that some funding schemes/grants insist that equipment is not to be purchased or repaired.

YFlyer

Tree wrote: »

Well, you'd be hoping to have more than one funding scheme if possible, and it'd be a good start. you could keep a pet phd student on it and the guts of yourself or a postdoc i reckon.

Yes I can see that this funding scheme would be good to fund extra personnel within a research group.

lonestargirl

YFlyer wrote: »

Yes I can see that this funding scheme would be good to fund extra personnel within a research group.

This would be the usual situation for someone applying for this kind of fellowship. Also, the project might not be a lab-based basic science kind, there is a lot of outcomes based research in cancer care which is relatively resourse light. I would only need a decent computer, some software licences and the odd conference/meeting to conduct my research.

opinion guy

lonestargirl wrote: »

This would be the usual situation for someone applying for this kind of fellowship. Also, the project might not be a lab-based basic science kind, there is a lot of outcomes based research in cancer care which is relatively resourse light. I would only need a decent computer, some software licences and the odd conference/meeting to conduct my research.

In which case 75000 would be quite nice!

YFlyer

Yes I agree that for desktop related studies, this grant would be adequate.

El_Dangeroso

Don't forget that 75,000 will most likely include overheads such as employer PRSI and pension, so you could probably knock another 15,000.

I was looking though clinicaltrials.gov the other day and of ALL clinical trials being performed in Ireland at this moment in time only 7 were non-cancer related.

As a result, I've seen some recent research calls come out with 'anything but cancer' as the brief, so if someone is interested in this area I'd jump at this opportunity as there may not be many more in the future.

lonestargirl

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

I was looking though clinicaltrials.gov the other day and of ALL clinical trials being performed in Ireland at this moment in time only 7 were non-cancer related.

I get 289 open Irish trials - there are more than 7 non-cancer ones (although a lot of cancer ones too).

My field is radiation oncology. We know how to kill cancer with radiation, doing so without also killing the patient is the difficulty. As a result studies tend to be very incremental, e.g.

• fractionation schedule A vs. fractionation schedule B
• chemo RT vs. RT only
• RT with radiation sensitiser vs. without
• new technology increasing precision thus reducing normal tissue dose
• new immobiliasation technique increasing accuracy and allowing a reduction of the volume treated

In terms of hospital resources these kinds of studies don't really have a big impact. The patients are going to be treated one way or another. Often these new schedules/techniques may already be used in another site so new equipment etc may not be needed.

opinion guy

lonestargirl wrote: »

289 open Irish trials

so freaking cool that link

El_Dangeroso

lonestargirl wrote: »

I get 289 open Irish trials - there are more than 7 non-cancer ones (although a lot of cancer ones too).

Ah, I see what you did, you put Ireland in the keyword field instead of the country field.

Here is the correct link.

Was wondering why there was suddenly double the amount of studies! Although, makes you wonder why the keyword search is throwing up studies that are not marked as recruiting here.

Sorry, that 7 is actually studies funded by the HRB. But still, over 70% of studies are cancer related, which I found surprising.

lonestargirl

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Here is the correct link.

Was wondering why there was suddenly double the amount of studies! Although, makes you wonder why the keyword search is throwing up studies that are not marked as recruiting here.

Maybe my search includes international studies that Ireland is participating in but that are not based here? Or maybe I'm wrong and it's thowing in some spurious results?

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Sorry, that 7 is actually studies funded by the HRB. But still, over 70% of studies are cancer related, which I found surprising.

I would have thought about 50%, 70% seems high to me too. I guess that's where the funding is at the moment.

El_Dangeroso

lonestargirl wrote: »

I would have thought about 50%, 70% seems high to me too. I guess that's where the funding is at the moment.

It's definitely where all the spending is, predicted spending on oncology medication is expected to be 75-80bn worldwide by 2015. The next biggest spend group, diabetes is expected to reach 43-48bn.

Still doesn't explain the massive discrepancy in research funding though. Could be down to the fact that cancer is one of those hot-button issues. It probably gets more awareness than heart disease, even though heart disease will kill more of us eventually.

A good example is breast cancer, you'd think it was the most common cancer given the attention it gets (there's loads of breast cancer studies on that list), lung cancer is a much more common cause of death for women but doesn't have a coloured ribbon as far as I know.

lonestargirl

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

A good example is breast cancer, you'd think it was the most common cancer given the attention it gets (there's loads of breast cancer studies on that list), lung cancer is a much more common cause of death for women but doesn't have a coloured ribbon as far as I know.

Or prostate cancer too. Breast/prostate are easy to do studies in as you have large patient populations with few co-morbidities who tend to be be very compliant with treatment and follow-up. Also, because they are not primarily lifesytle related they strike across the soco-economic spectrum.

El_Dangeroso

lonestargirl wrote: »

Or prostate cancer too. Breast/prostate are easy to do studies in as you have large patient populations with few co-morbidities who tend to be be very compliant with treatment and follow-up. Also, because they are not primarily lifesytle related they strike across the soco-economic spectrum.

Isn't prostate the most common cancer found in men though? Although infinitely more treatable than lung, which causes more deaths.

Interesting graph:

lonestargirl

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Isn't prostate the most common cancer found in men though? Although infinitely more treatable than lung, which causes more deaths.

It is a very common cancer but far more men die with prostate cancer than from it. Given that all treatment options have potential side effects there is a case for watchful waiting in certain categories of patient. Prostate cancer is important but it recieves proportionally more funding/publicity than its impact.

drzhivago

YFlyer wrote: »

I was looking at some posters of the careers/research notice boards at the University of Limerick this morning. What caught my eye was the Research Fellowship in cancer research (not my field) funded by the Irish Cancer Society. What I noticed is that the fellowship covers 'salary and materials will be up to €75,000 per year for a maximum of three years.'

How on earth would €75,000 cover salaries, materials plus the overheads that are required when carrying out research at a 3rd level institute? Surely to carry out top quality research, a researcher would need alot more than €75,000.

In chemistry and material sciences, this amount would not be adequate.

What does other here feel about the amount that the Irish Cancer Society contribute to individual research projects?

http://www.cancer.ie/research/funding.php

Research Fellowship

Are you committed to making a real difference to cancer patients through a career in cancer research?
The Irish Cancer Society invites eligible applicants to submit applications for Irish Cancer Society Research Fellowships for 2011.
Applications in the areas of Epidemiology, Prevention, Laboratory, Clinical, Translational and Health Services Research are welcome. Applications in line with our strategic areas and in other areas of cancer research, including prostate cancer are sought. All applications will be assessed on merit, and awarded on excellence.
The Fellowship scheme is open to:
a) untenured postdoctoral scientists
b) medical doctors in training
c) nurses and other researchers
with a post-graduate degree, a further minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 years research experience and a commitment to developing a career in cancer research.
The total value of the Irish Cancer Society Research fellowship covering salary and materials will be up to €75,000 per year for a maximum of three years. Applicants will need to choose a research area of specific interest for them and identify a suitable mentor to collaborate with on writing the proposal.
Closing Date for Receipt of Applications: 3pm on Wednesday 2nd February 2011. This call is now closed.

try 70,00 for HSE scholarship to go to US and covering materials, travel, accommodation, random course fees etc
Unlike regular HSE employees dont qualify for travel expenses
Unlike regular HSE employees dont qualify for accommodation expenses

I think the powers that be forget that doctors eat too occasionally and that they need to be housed somewhere despite living like vampires being predominantly night stalkers they cannot live in a coffin