Innovate at Imperial - Guidance Notes

Informationforapplicants

What do we mean by innovation?

Our Innovate at Imperial programme is to help healthcare professionals and other hospital staff realise their ambition to make impactful changes in our healthcare system for the benefit of patients in our hospitals and in the communities we serve in north west London. Your innovation must be patient centred.

Innovation is not pure research. It must demonstrate tangible results in improving health outcomes in the short to medium term. Innovation includes taking research findings, and developing them into new solutions (drugs, devices, methods like platform trials), where new ideas are developed to solve problems, can be scaled up for wider benefit, testing and transferring ideas from one setting to another in our hospitals and communities, or drive improvements in how we could better communicate with or manage patient flow (i.e., systems-focussed).

Your proposed project must demonstrate the potential impact on our health service that will improve the safety and quality of patient care, and the need for external funding to explore these proposed changes.

What is Innovate at Imperial?

The programme is funded and managed by Imperial Health Charity (the Charity). It aims to provide opportunities for staff at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (the Trust) to explore, directly or indirectly, novel and innovative ways to improve patient health and care. We encourage our innovators to work collaboratively with other Trust teams, industry, other healthcare partners, and local communities.

Projects could include:

 establishing an approach to patient safety that focuses on identifying and sharing learning to achieve more sustainable and impactful improvement.

 designing and implementing better care pathways that are user-focused and can respond to the diverse needs of patients, such as booking and changing appointments, or reducing unnecessary variations in how things are done across different services and helping to join up patient care.

It is important that you involve and engage with patients, members of the public and relevant staff who might be impacted by the changes you propose to make with your project at key stages of its design and implementation before, during and after delivering it. We expect you to include a robust evaluation of this engagement in your End of Grant report if your application is successful.

Your funding request must be additional to the NHS budget.

This programme reflects the Charity’s five-year Strategic Plan (2026 to 2031) and its objectives:

 To support exceptional patient care in our hospitals: we will go above and beyond the standard of care by funding life-enhancing technology and refurbishing hospital spaces into healing environments.

 To support the health of the communities we serve: we will take healthcare into the heart of our neighbourhoods, focusing on prevention, thus closing the health gap and ensuring everyone has a fair chance of having a healthy life.

 To drive research and innovation: acting as a launchpad for discovery, we will fund novel research and new and innovative ways of working.

While the programme is open to all areas withinhealthcare, we will prioritise the Charity’s focused areas in Cancer, Women’s Health, Children’s Health, Staff wellbeing and Frailty.

Your project must also reflect the Trust’s strategic objectives:

 To help create a high-quality integrated care system with the population of north-west London

 To develop a sustainable portfolio of outstanding services

 To build learning, improvement and innovation into everything we do

The programme is open to permanent Trust staff at all levels from clinical and non-clinical backgrounds and must be team-led. Funding of up to £85,000 is available for each successful application Your application will be reviewed by the Innovate at Imperial Review Panel –comprising a Charity trustee, relevant Trust’s senior managers, a senior manager from Imperial College London and up to three lay partners.

We are able to provide a reasonable level of support to help you with the development of your project proposal - please go to p9 for further information.

For support with queries to do with eligibility, criteria, costings and the Charity’s grants portal, Beacon, please contact: Hani Ahmad, Senior Grants Manager, Research and Innovation (hani.ahmad@imperialcharity.org.uk).

For additional support e.g., understanding the Trust’s processes e-proc, HR, finance system, please contact: Jose Acuyo, Strategy, Partnerships & Innovation Programme Manager (jose.acuyo@nhs.net).

We understand that navigating the Trust’s internal systems and processes (e.g., e-proc, finance, ICT, Intellectual Property, GDPR and HR) can be challenging. It is essential that you and your project team familiarise yourselves with them as much as possible to avoid delays in starting your project if your application is successful. The Trust’s intranet has a range of useful resources that are signposted from p9 of the Guidance notes.

You may wish to explore opportunities to complement your project through engagement with Imperial Business School to support with evaluation design or other relevant academic input alongside delivery of your Innovation project. This could strengthen the likelihood of future adoption of your innovation. Please direct your query to Lauren Harding (lauren.harding@nhs.net).

This document includes further information to help you with your application. This and related documents (listed below) can be downloaded from our website.

 Innovate at Imperial Guidance notes

 Innovate at Imperial Application forms for Stage 1 and Stage 2 templates

Please note, this programme is different from the Charity’s Research Fellowships programme.

Yourapplication

Gettingstarted

Innovate at Imperial is a two-stage process. For Stage 1, you will need to submit an outline of your proposed project. Shortlisted applicants will then be invited to submit a full Stage 2 application.

We will not accept late or incomplete applications; so, we encourage you to read these documents carefully including the checklist on p9 beforehand.

Stage1

Stage 1 application is open on Monday,11May2026 on our online grants portal, Beacon, and closes on Sunday,5July2026. You will first need to complete a sign-up form on Beacon (https://imperialhealthcharity.beaconforms.com/form/ed9b419a) before you can access the application form.

If you are shortlisted, you will be notified by Wednesday,12August2026 and invited to submit a Stage 2 application

Stage2

Submit your Stage 2 application on Beacon by Sunday,8November2026. Make sure you include these documents: Gantt chart; relevant reports or images to support your project.

You will need to provide a letter of support from your Clinical/Divisional/DeputyDivisional Directorto indicate that they have read and support your application. Upload the letter with your application.

You will be notified of the outcome of your Stage 2 application, and successful applicants will receive their grant award letter by Wednesday, 10 February 2026

Managingyourgrant

Information about managing your grant, including our terms andconditions, will be set out in your GrantAward Letter. Make sure you accept our grant offer on BeaconbyFriday,26February2026 This is your grant activation date. Once you havedone this, you can start spending yourgrant. You’ll have 24 monthsfrom your activation date to complete your project

You willbeinvited to attendan in-person welcome &networking event onTuesday,2March

Reportingonyourgrant

If you’d like to make a major change to your project, extend your grant end date or move more than 10% between your approved budget lines, you’ll need to complete a Progressreport on Beacon. Please request any change at least six months before your grant end date.

You must submit your EndofGrantreportandfinalinvoicewithinthreemonthsofyourgrant enddate. We may ask you to submit: a Progress report within your 24-month period, and an Annualreport for up to three years after your grant end date.

Criteria

Your projectproposalmust:

 relate to one or more of the Charity’s strategic objectives

 develop and test an innovative approach to improve patient care

 address a problem that is concise, defined and measurable, and that explains how your project will be more effective than the current practices or approaches

 describe fully the evidence underpinning the problem

 identify and describe the most appropriate methodology to deliver your project including a robust evaluation plan. For examples of methodology, go to Trust’s QI resources

 accelerate progress (rather than to supplement funding for established practice or approach)

 be delivered within 24 months, including set-up and evaluation phases, and have a realistic budget

 provide a plan for disseminating your project results, and a plan to scale the innovation

 be team-led.

Projects we are looking to support include those that:

 are outward looking, community-centric and inter-sectoral, (i.e., working across Trust departments, and/or, with local health and care partners in north west London) and industry

 focus on equity and on reducing health inequalities or variations in accessing healthcare, and outcomes and experience of receiving care by different patient groups

 focus on improving patient flow

 replicate/repurpose existing work/system, provided these benefit, for example, a different group of patients, speciality, or industry

 focus on a new app, device or platform technology, provided you can demonstrate that it has the potential to be widely used, and/or benefit a unique group of patients that are significantly underserved. You must also secure prior approval from the Trust’s ICT team with your Stage 2 application.

We will not consider applications that:

 are purely scientific and/or bench-based medical research

 supplement a fellowship or active research projects, or the salary of a current/new research fellow or research nurse.

Eligibility

 The programme is open to all permanent Trust clinical and non-clinical staff. You can be the lead applicant or co-applicant

 Lead applicants (and any co-applicants) with a Trust honorary contracts are also eligible to apply, provided their roles at the Trust include directly delivering or supporting services to Trust patients (e.g., running clinics at one of the Trust’s hospitals, delivering operational functions such as ICT). Your Trust honorary contract must not have an end date

 If you are employed by another NHS Trust but your Trust has a service level agreement with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and 80% of your role is dedicated to directly delivering or supporting services to our patients, you can be a co-applicant on the application, but not the lead applicant

 If you are employed by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust or The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, you can be a co-applicant on the application, but not the lead applicant

 You can only submit one application, either as the lead applicant or as a co-applicant.

You are not eligible to apply if:

• you have a fixed-term contract or any other type of Trust contract outside of those mentioned above

• you are employed by Imperial College London (the College) *

• your team have previously been awarded an Innovate at Imperial grant that is still active.

*If your project is co-located at the College, we are supportive of College employees being part of the project team. If you would like to include a College employee’s salary in the project cost, you must first discuss this with us before submitting your Stage 1 application.

Costswecanandcannotsupport

You can apply for between £5,000 and £85,000 and can include:

 a new role (breakdown to include salary, high-cost area supplement, and employer’s pension and National Insurance contributions). You must provide a full justification for the role (e.g., a full job description is required for Stage 2)

 if the salary cost is intended to support an existing Trust role and is essential to delivering your project, you must provide a breakdown and tell us how the role will be backfilled. We will not pay towards current/new research fellows or research nurses.*

 reasonable focus group costs, including room hire and refreshments**

 reasonable travel within Greater London for project team members’ attendance at meetings with north west London partners**

 reasonable volunteer expenses and/or consumable for Patient Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) studies**

 reasonable open access publication costs

 non-medical equipment that is essential to delivering your project and provided it is not of high value. At the end of your project, the equipment must remain the property of the Trust. We will not pay towards servicing, maintenance or insurance associated with that equipment, or equipment or any item that should be paid from core NHS budget or Trust departmental budgets

*Please see our separate Research Fellowships programme, which supports the academic and research careers of Trust staff.

**For these costs, we are not able to make individual reimbursements to you, your project team members or PPIE participants. You’ll need to work with your Trust budget holder/finance teams to manage these expenses. We can only pay the Trust in quarterly arrears and for costs incurred. No advance payments will be made, and we cannot pay suppliers directly (except in exceptional circumstances and with prior discussion with us first).

We cannot support:

 any item that has already been purchased/delivered (i.e. no retrospective funding)

 replacement of equipment that is ‘new for old’ on a like-for-like basis

 general staff hospitality (e.g. socials, staff rewards, meeting or travel expenses)

 conference attendance and training course fees

 salaries that are not directly associated with delivering the project

 purely scientific and/or bench-based medical research

 supplementing a fellowship or active research

 College overhead costs for either non-C-stream activity or any activity that you aim to deliver as part of your project. Bear in mind that we expect your project to be largely based at the Trust and will only accept Trust invoices for your project.

This list is not exhaustive. If you have any queries, please contact: Hani Ahmad, Senior Grants Manager, Research and Innovation (hani.ahmad@imperialcharity.org.uk)

Grantawardperiod

If you are awarded a Grant, you must deliver your project within 24 months (to include the set-up and evaluation phases).

Please make sure you are project-ready by reading the checklist on p9

Examplesofinnovation

We have supported 50 Innovate at Imperial projects with awards totaling almost £3.5 million since the programme launched in 2019. Below the projects we have funded between 2022 and 2026,

2025/26

 Rachel Watson, Milica Stjepanovic - Co-designing a ‘customer care’ approach which tailors planned care administration processes for frail patients

 Barry Seemungal, Rebecca Smith, Kate Lewis - Vertigo Screening and Treatment App –VESTA

 Lina Johansson, Dawn Goodall, Thushara Dassanayake - WEIGHT-QI: Wraparound Evaluation and Integration for GIP/GLP-1ReceptorAgonists in Transplant Health: A Quality Improvement Programme

 Gareth Thompson - Clean Air Care: Connecting Air Pollution Data to Patient Records to Empower Personal Health Messaging

 Shehan Hettiaratchy - Smartphone based recovery tracking after lower limb surgery

 Ramesh Nair - Brain Irrigation Device

 David Leonard, Alison Oliver - Virtual Reality Training to Enhance Exposure to Aseptic Services for Pharmacy Professionals.

2023/24

 Patrik Bachtiger, Brendan Milanes and Gillian Twigg - NWL PEBBLE Pathway: Innovative, Equitable, & Sustainable Diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnoea Using AcuPebble Technology

 Simona Avramova-Cholakova, Pedrum Kamali and Eugenia Kulama - Optimisation of radiography spine imaging procedures

 Gregory Scott, Anastasia Gontsarova and Paresh Malhotra - The Imperial Quantitative Imaging Platform

 Robert Latchford - insightFall: delivering data-driven insight to support safe mobility in hospital

 Shelley Vaughan - Pass-through numbering

2022/23

 Donna Kennedy - Co-design and Evaluation of a Hand Therapist Delivered Fracture Clinic; Improving Patient Experience & Outcome

 Emma Schofield - Innovative approach to the management and prevention of domestic abuse in Charing Cross Emergency Department

 Farah Rehman - Development of an oral systemic anti-cancer treatment service in breast cancer

 Mufaddal Moonim, Neil Tolley, Praya Bhagwat and Alexandra Marks - Pathologist led image guided Fine needle aspiration clinic

 Benjamin Ellis - A population health approach improving health and wellbeing for people with high-impact chronic musculoskeletal pain

 Katherine Buxton, Beth Cregan and Rachel Watson - Improving EOL experience through the utilisation of user insights and quality improvement methodology

Checklist

To help you with your application, we have included some useful information about relevant Trust systems - from procurement and finance to HR and ICT. The checklist below will help you think about these systems before you apply, and if your application is successful in the delivery of your project.

Intellectual property

Intellectual property and commercial exploitation are highly complex and can take significant time to set up. The Trust has a service level agreement with the College to provide additional support to the Trust’s intellectual property team. It is important that you have discussions with the Trust team before you submit your Stage 1 (and Stage 2) application. We will ask you to confirm that you have done this in both applications.

Your key contacts are:

 Dr Brunel Eiliazadeh, Trust’s Head of Commercial and Innovation, brunel.eiliazadeh@nhs.net

 Manish Patel, College’s Head of NHS Technology Transfer, manish.patel@imperial.ac.uk

You will need to email both contacts. If you are awarded a grant, our grant contract will be with you, your co-applicants and the Trust. We expect a fair share of any revenue and equity generated projects we support to be negotiated in good faith when intellectual property is to be licensed or assigned by the Trust or College or their appointed representatives to a third party.

Apps,

devices, use of technology and websites

If your project involves developing a new or adapting an existing app or device, and/or the use of technology, you must ensure they are compliant with the Trust’s wider ICT systems and data protection policies. We advise you to contact the Trust’s ICT team at Stage 1. More information can be found here: https://intranet.imperial.nhs.uk/page/17887?SearchId=0

We advise you to email: imperial.newsystemrequests@nhs.net

If your project involves creating a new website, you must first seek approval from the Trust’s communications team. For further information, go to https://intranet.imperial.nhs.uk/Interact/Pages/Section/Default.aspx?section=6166

For website sign off and support: Nadine Silverside (nadine.silverside@nhs.net) For innovation and research comms: Maria Tennant (maria.tennant@nhs.net)

For data protection queries: imperial.dpo@nhs.net

Research

The programme does not support bench-based research projects, in whole or in part.

However, if your project involves in-part non-bench-based research, we encourage you to seek advice from the Trust’s divisional research manager (DRM) for your division at Stage 1.

At Stage 2, you’ll need to email your DRM your completed application (before you submit it to us) to make sure the research element of your project has been fully considered. Your DRM can also help you with costing your project accurately.

Your DRMs are:

 Medicine and Integrated Care, Christopher Khuoge, c.khuoge@nhs.net

 Surgery and Cancer, Donna Copeland, donna.copeland@nhs.net

 Women’s, Children’s, Cardiovascular and Clinical Support, Ella Johnson, ella.johnson@nhs.net

Finance

It is important that your project costs are accurate. If you are awarded a grant, we will not be able to increase your original grant amount. We strongly advise you to speak with your local Finance Business Partner (Directorate or Divisional).

If you are awarded a grant, the Trust will first pay any approved costs that you have incurred. The Trust will then invoice us for reimbursement, quarterly and in arrears.

We will not pay any costs in advance, and/or directly to any supplier, individual or to the College. If your Stage 2 application is successful, we will email you and your local Finance Business Partner (Directorate or Divisional). They will provide you with a cost centre code and account code, against which you can spend your grant.

Procurement

Procurement can be complicated and may cause delays to your project. It is therefore best if you seek the right advice before you submit your Stage 2 application and comply with NWLPS (North West London Procurement Services is a single shared procurement service)https://intranet.imperial.nhs.uk/Interact/Pages/Content/Document.aspx?id=14896&SearchId=338372 75

We also advise you to contact the business partner for your department. More information can be found on NWLPS portal herehttps://intranet.imperial.nhs.uk/Interact/Pages/Section/Default.aspx?Section=7650

Contact details for NWLPS team can be found herehttps://intranet.imperial.nhs.uk/Interact/Pages/Content/Document.aspx?id=8694&SearchId=3383727 5&utm_source=interact&utm_medium=general_search&utm_term=e-procurement

Project team and recruitment/backfill

As Innovate at Imperial projects are team-led, you can include both the Trust and non-Trust staff to help you to deliver your project.

Recruitment of paid new roles, and/or existing Trust staff (who will be paid from your grant) can be complex and may cause delays to your project.

The substantive post of any existing Trust staff who will be paid from your grant will need to be backfilled, unless you have prior agreement with your line manager and your department that the post does not need to be backfilled.

It is important to us that the Trust and patients should not be disadvantaged by our funding.

 For information about the process: https://intranet.imperial.nhs.uk/Interact/Pages/Content/Document.aspx?id=3019&SearchId=64 31190

 For new JDs/banding of roles: contact your local HR business partner (new JD/banding)

 For new ERAFs + backfill: contact your service manager/general manager

Getting support from your Clinical/Divisional/Deputy DivisionalDirectors

For Stage 2, you will need to provide a letter of support from your Clinical/Division/Deputy Divisional Director toindicate that they have read your full application and are supportive of your project. You will need to upload the letter with your application.

We will also ask you for your line manager’s name, job title and work email address and for you to confirm that they read and supports your project.

Supporting information

We only ask for essential information at Stage 1.

For Stage 2, It is crucial that you provide additional relevant information to support your application. Among other things, you will need to upload the following documents with your application (they cannot be emailed to us separately):

 Letter of support from your Clinical/Divisional/Deputy Divisional Director and a signature of approval from your line manager

 Gantt chart for your project (including set-up phase and evaluation phase

 Job description for any new posts to be paid from your grant and associated with directly delivering your project (posts for current/new research fellows or research nurses cannot be included)

Further information

For any further enquiries or additional support, please contact:

Hani Ahmad, Senior Grants Manager, Research and Innovation

T: 020 3006 5328

E: hani.ahmad@imperialcharity.org.uk