Sands aims to save babies’ lives and improve care and support for anyone affected by pregnancy loss or the death of a baby.
Research is a vital part of our efforts to achieve this, and we are committed to supporting research that will make care safer, help us understand why babies die, and improve bereavement care and support.
Research funding
Please note that we are not currently accepting research funding applications.
Sands has run funding calls in the past – you can find more information about our previous funding processes on the research funding page. We can offer support for researchers in applying to other funders, please see below for more information.
Requesting support for research studies
We regularly receive requests asking if we can provide support to research studies, including help with recruitment, parent involvement (PPI) and sharing outputs. We have limited capacity and unfortunately cannot support every request that we receive, so we have a procedure for identifying projects in line with our aims and priorities, and to ensure that research we support is sensitive to the experiences of anyone affected by pregnancy loss or baby death.
To make this decision-making process clearer, we have developed a Research support framework and process guidance document that explains the different levels of research support we can offer, the prioritisation framework we use to decide which requests to support, and information about the support process. This document also includes a list of expectations that researchers are asked to fulfil if support is agreed. Please read the guidance document carefully before submitting a request for support.
Please use the Research request form to submit a request for research support.
Please note that it can take up to 6 weeks to fully review requests for research support, so please allow for this when submitting a request.
Before submitting a request for research support or getting in touch, please see the FAQs below. If you have any further questions, please contact us by email: research@sands.org.uk