COLLABORATION REQUESTS

Collaboration request guidance

Thank you for your interest in working with NIHR Children and Young People MedTech Co-operative.

Please take time to read over the guidance below before submitting a collaboration request. We will endeavour to help where we can, but if requests fall outside of these guidelines, we may not be able to support your request.

We will ask you to confirm that you have read this guidance when submitting a collaboration request.

Please visit our FAQs page if you have further questions about how to collaborate with us.

The button below will redirect you to our collaboration request form. The information collected in the form will be treated as strictly confidential and will not be shared with third parties without express permission. The information collected in this form will be stored on a secure database.

COLLABORATION REQUEST REMIT

  1. Collaboration requests can either include:
  • Unmet needs i.e. things which make day-to-day living difficult for children and young people with long-term health conditions or a problem in a health care setting that does not currently have a solution. You do not need to have a solution for the unmet need.
  • Innovations in response to unmet needs. We focus on early stage technology development (Technology Readiness Levels 1 – 3) but will consider technology at later stages on a case by case basis.
  1. Unmet needs and innovations must relate to children and young people with long-term health conditions, including their physical health and/or mental health and wellbeing.
  1. Unmet needs and innovations must fit within one or more of our seven themes:
  • Cancer
  • Epilepsy, Movement, and Muscle Disorders
  • Neonatal Technologies
  • Rare Diseases
  • Respiratory, Sleep, and Ventilation
  • Surgical Technologies
  • Transition (cross-cutting)
  1. If your unmet need or innovation falls outside of our seven themes, we may be able to provide support through the TITCH network. Please indicate this when submitting your collaboration request. Please note that we are usually unable to provide the same level of support for unmet needs and innovations that do not fit within one of our seven themes.
  1. While we support innovations at all stages, we prioritise early stage product development (Technology Readiness Level 1 – 3). We are not a sales team and will not support an innovation if you are only looking for market traction or to have your product adopted into the NHS. We advise you to contact the Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) if you are looking for this support.
  1. If your unmet need or innovation fits within one of our seven themes, we can provide the following support. Please visit our Support page to find out more.
  • Validation of unmet needs
  • Advice from leading clinicians
  • Input from children, young people, and families (patient and public involvement and engagement)
  • Access to NHS and NIHR infrastructure
  • Facilitate collaborations between stakeholders
  • Project management
  • Clinical evaluation
  • Access to the national paediatric technology test bed
  • Support and guidance to secure funding
  • Regulatory and IP guidance
  • Access to the TITCH network
  1. We expect unmet needs to be validated with children, young people, families, and NHS health professionals across multiple NHS settings. We can work with you to validate unmet needs, but funding for our time and any required resources will need to be secured. We can collaborate with you to submit grant applications from relevant funding bodies.
  1. We expect innovations to have considerable input from children, young people, families, and NHS health professionals. We will only support innovations where this input can be demonstrated or where collaborators are willing to work closely with these groups and modify their ideas and innovations accordingly. We can work with you to provide input from these groups, but only for innovations that are in early stage development.
  1. We are required to raise funds for our involvement with collaborative projects. We can therefore only support grant applications if we are a named collaborator, are actively involved in the project, and have our time costed for.
  1. All medical devices need to conform to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) standards.

COLLABORATION REQUEST PROCESS

  1. Submitted collaboration requests will be discussed by the NIHR CYP MedTech team to determine whether we are able to support the request in principle and the most appropriate next steps. Please make sure your request is clear and detailed as we use the information in the form to determine whether we are able to support your request. We will arrange a phone or video call with you if we need further clarity before deciding whether your innovation is within our remit.
  1. If your unmet need or innovation is within NIHR CYP MedTech’s remit, we will send your collaboration request to the relevant Theme Lead(s) and/or our national paediatric mental health stakeholder network to gain their expert clinical opinion.
  1. If the Theme Lead(s) is interested in supporting the unmet need or innovation and/or the national paediatric mental health stakeholder network agree that the unmet need or innovation is worth supporting, we will arrange a call or meeting with you and the relevant stakeholders to discuss further collaboration.
  1. We can support unmet needs and innovations without the direct involvement of our Theme Leads or national paediatric mental health stakeholder network where appropriate.
  1. If your unmet need or innovation is not within our remit, we may be able to provide support through the TITCH network.
  1. In some circumstances, one of our partner organisations may be better equipped to progress the unmet need or innovation. If NIHR CYP MedTech cannot help or support, we will, where possible, signpost to other infrastructure that can.
  1. Due to the nature of NIHR CYP MedTech, no promise is made that an outcome can be achieved.
  1. We aim to respond to all collaboration requests within four to six weeks.
  1. Please refer to our support page for more details on the support we can offer.