Important Advisory from UKRI re references to COVID-19 in JeS Applications

The UKRI Funding Team have asked us to point out to applicants for Research Council funding that they should not include the words ‘Cov-19’, ‘Covid-19’ or ‘Coronavirus’ in the Summary or Title sections unless the application relates to proposed research in this area.

Their data team have realised that this practice is generating misleading statistics as researchers include ‘Covid-19’ or similar wording as comments in their summary or title sections (e.g. ‘recruitment delays are expected due to Covid-19’). Their guidelines have now been adjusted to read:

IMPORTANT NOTE: For data analysis purposes, we ask applicants not include the words ‘Cov-19’, ‘Covid-19’ or ‘Coronavirus’ in the Summary or Title sections unless the application relates to proposed research in this area.