Education funding decisions

Most of our educational activities will be strategically initiated based on the advice of the Education Strategy Committee  (ESC). 

These activities will either be delivered by our Head Office Staff or outsourced to other bodies, as appropriate. 

Outsourcing may be done by competitive application or be devolved to our staff depending on the nature of the task.

We are always pleased to receive suggestions for educational activities from informed individuals and bodies, however there is no direct process of application for support that has not been given strategic priority.

Where the task was a delivery task, the decision, in principle, to fund a third party would be made after due deliberation of the issues involved.

Applications for completing research tasks commissioned by the ESC for open competition would be subject to external peer review.

Decisions to fund any of the educational activities would be based on expert review to ensure quality and value for money.

As most of the activities would be based on identified strategic needs, any external review process would be facilitative, i.e. aiming to secure success for an appropriate application, though the expertise of the applicants would be subject to scrutiny.

Funding committees

Where relevant our ESC will establish funding committees to scrutinise and review applications received in response to its strategic needs.

Such calls may be for research proposals in specific areas, training posts for educators or for the development of specific courses.

The funding committee(s) would be expected to assess the value of the proposal in regards to the strategic aim and the methods proposed to achieve the goals.

They would also scrutinise the costs and the contribution of others.

Consumer involvement, where relevant based on the target for a particular strategy, for example patient, student or health professional, will be part of the process.