Justification appendix

Costs to include

Use the guidance below to complete your justification appendix. You can also review our costs guidance for information on eligible costs.

For any additional requirements related to specific funding schemes, please check the application guidelines for that scheme.

Categories requiring justification

Explore our guidance on the areas that require justification and should be addressed in your full application.

Staff

If you’re involving multiple staff members in your research project, you should clearly explain how each person will contribute to the different components of your project over the course of your grant.

PhD students

Clearly justify why the project is suitable for doctoral training and explain how students will access the same support, training and development opportunities as other Cancer Research UK-funded students at your institution.

Running expenses

You should list all lab consumable costs, separating specific costs from general consumables. Include any equipment requested under £5k. 

Equipment

Provide details and scientific justification for any equipment over £5k, including any contributions from the host institution toward the purchase.

Other funding

Provide a schematic diagram of all current funding held by you or your group, detailing the research it supports and how it adds value to your proposed research, or whether it is unrelated.

Statistical design and analysis plan

You'll need to provide a statistical design and analysis plan as part of your justification appendix. For each research question, you should:

• describe the statistical analysis used

• name the variable and describe the values

• describe how you will incorporate male and female tissues or non-immortalised cells

• you must provide a strong justification if you’re carrying out single sex studies

• if the sex of your sample tissues/cells is unknown, describe how you will determine it

• state the number of samples for each analysis and explain what you can achieve with this sample size

• include the associated level of statistical power

• suggest any potential limitations

• clarify any other relevant details, such as the number of clinical outcome events and the length of follow-up

Explore our requirements for incorporating sex in experimental design

Cell lines

Provide details of any cell lines you will use. You should specify how you will maintain good cell culture practices throughout your research, authenticate new cell lines introduced to your lab and how you'll make new cell lines you generate available for others to use. Also note any misidentified cell lines, for example, Chang liver cells.

You must ask for funding for cell line authentication, including screening for contamination by mycoplasma, Short Tandem Repeat profiling for human cell lines or DNA fingerprinting for non-human cells.

Cell lines must be validated according to the guidelines for the use of cell lines in biomedical research and should be referenced in any publications from the award.

Read the guidelines for cell line use in biomedical research

Justification for the use of animals in research

If you plan to use animals in your research, you must provide a clear justification. Refer to our guidance on explanations on costs, the use of protected species or studies conducted outside the UK.

Costs

Provide a detailed breakdown of purchase and husbandry costs. Make sure to list animal purchase, maintenance and experimental costs separately.

Justification of proposed animal research

You should justify the use of animals, outlining:

For critical experiments, outline your experimental design and power calculations, ideally in a table or diagram. You can also include an illustrative example where specific details aren’t known.

What to include

You should provide an overview of the experimental approach, including primary and secondary outcomes, the number of experimental and control groups, the number of experimental units in each experimental group, the total number of experimental units to be measured and the number of times each unit will be measured and number of independent replications of each experiment.

You must also explain in detail:

• how you plan to minimise experimental bias, for example, by randomisation or blinding, or reasons why this may not apply 

• how you will include both male and female animals or provide strong justification if using single-sex studies 

• how effect sizes are calculated and their biological relevance 

• the power calculations used to determine your sample size, or a valid explanation if not using statistical calculations, avoiding any explanations based on usual practice or previous data as these won’t be considered 

• details of breeding strategies 

• a brief description of your planned statistical analyses in relation to the sample size and any available statistical advice 

Protected species

Research involving certain species of animals requires additional independent peer review by the NC3Rs. If your research includes these species, you should contact us as soon as possible to arrange this review alongside the standard peer review process.

Find out more about NC3R peer review

Studies outside of the UK

For animal studies conducted outside the UK, you must upload a letter from the relevant co-investigator confirming that the research will follow local regulations and meet UK welfare standards.

Additional documents, guidelines and tools

In your application, you should describe how your proposed research adheres to the expectations set out in our guidelines. Make sure to read the following specific guidance for animal use in research before completing your application.

NC3Rs

A UK-based scientific organisation dedicated to helping the research community worldwide to identify, develop and use 3Rs – replacement, reduction and refinement approaches. NC3Rs provides guidance and support for animal accommodation, care and use in research.

Explore NC3Rs resources and guidelines

Read their general guidance on bioscience research using vertebrates

Animal research: reporting of in vivo experiments guidelines (ARRIVE)

These guidelines are a checklist to ensure full and transparent reporting of animal research, improve the quality and reliability of published research, and make it easier for others to evaluate and reproduce it.

Read the ARRIVE guidelines

Experimental Design Assistant

This is a free online tool from the NC3Rs, designed to help researchers optimise their experimental design. The tool can help make sure that you use the minimum number of animals consistent with your scientific objectives, methods to reduce subjective bias, and appropriate statistical analysis.

Explore the Experimental Design Assistant

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