This is a preliminary description, please consult the linked accessions. Series consists of records from three electronic systems maintained by the Medical Research Council (MRC) to assist in running the grants and awards competitions and to administer the disbursement of funds to successful applicants.
The three electronic systems are: the CV system; the Grants Competition System; and the Awards Competition System. The CV System, created in 1988, is a relational database containing demographic and other personal information for those individuals with whom the MRC does business, including grant and award recipients, referees, Council members, committee members, and partners. The data contained in this system is transcribed from applications and correspondence and includes information such as name, address, date of birth, sex, degrees held or sought, responsibility codes, areas of subject expertise, committee roles/tenure, qualifications, academic appointments, other languages spoken/written, and general comments.The CV System provided all of the detailed personal information necessary to use the two main relational databases, the Grants Competition System (created in August 1985) and the Awards Competition System (created in 1988). Both of these systems rely upon the creation of an individual record in the CV system before data entry from the appropriate hardcopy application form can begin, and they are both used in similar fashions to handle applications for specific competitions. However, they differ slightly in their internal structures and operations because of the difference between a grant (project and individual based) and an award (individual based); for example, all grants begin at the same time, whereas awards will have start dates based on the individual's own arrangements or plans. Information within the Grants Competition System includes: the competition date, project title, amount requested and breakdown by year, nature of support, flags for the completion of appropriate forms for human research, ethics, animal research, and containment, exceptions (early/late, renewal), classification codes for research, suggested referees, funding partners (where applicable), names of committee and external reviewers, committee ratings(5), recommended funding, competition ranking for that project, the "cutoff" for each committee, and the formal council decision. The information within the Awards Competition System includes: the degree sought or in progress, supervisors, institute of tenure, project title, the competition entered, the committee and reviewers to which the application was assigned, classification codes, research area codes, keywords, recommendations for funding, and the formal Council decision.
