1. What is meant by “duplicate funding” in 'Section 7.2.4 – Funding Conditions?
TAAHC recognises that applicants may have received funding from other agencies to support their program of research. However, TAAHC will not fund research activity that has already been funded by another agency., i.e. the research activity funded by TAAHC must be sufficiently different from any other funded research activity being undertaken by the successful applicant. This would reasonably include that there is:
No scientific overlap (substantially the same research is proposed in more than one successful funding application) and/or the specific research objective and experimental design for achieving that objective are the same or closely related in two or more successful applications;
No budgetary overlap, where duplicate or equivalent budgetary items (e.g. equipment, salary) are requested but are already funded or provided by another source; or
Commitment overlap, where project-supported personnel has time commitments exceeding 100 percent, regardless of how the effort/salary is being supported or funded
Successful applicants will be asked to confirm that there is no duplication of funding when they accept their TAAHC funding. Where applicants are splitting costs across multiple funded projects, they should be able to demonstrate how each funded research activity is sufficiently different.
2. Section 7.1 says that Seed Funding can be used for salary costs for dedicated research/technical staff to support the project. Can this be over and above an existing staff member’s contract (i.e. part time staff can increase their hours to do the work?) Can the support staff contract be employed through JCU or another HHS, or must it be the lead organisation? Can the salary costs be used flexibly, such as 1 day a week, or in compressed blocks, or a combination of both?
Applicants must justify all budget item requests, including salary costs for research/technical staff to support the project. Individual employment contract arrangements for these staff, e.g. hours of work, employer organisation are the responsibility of the Lead Organisation.
3. What defines a “collaboration” between three or more TAAHC Members? (Section 4.1.4: Eligibility “The research project must be a collaboration between affiliated staff from three or more different TAAHC Member Organisations who have defined roles and responsibilities within the research project” and Section 4.2 – Assessment Criteria “Collaboration and Partnership”)
The eligibility requirement that the “research project must be a collaboration between affiliated staff from three or more different TAAHC Member Organisations” will be considered as being met if there are investigators from three or more TAAHC Members listed as part of the project team. Note that Investigators whose substantive affiliation is with a General Practice provider or Aboriginal and Islander Community Controlled organisation in the TAAHC region will be considered as affiliated with TAAHC Members the NQPHN or QAIHC.
When addressing the assessment criteria “Collaboration and partnership” applicants should clearly articulate how the project facilitates partnership and collaboration across TAAHC Members. Note that collaboration and partnership will look different across individual projects and it is therefore not possible to provide examples of what a collaboration might look like.