Project summary

Bridge Health Research is a new UK-based organisation connecting health researchers across low-, middle-, and high-income countries through free mentoring and research collaboration. Our application for registration as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation has been submitted to the UK Charity Commission and is awaiting approval. We operate three services: an Academic Publishing Skills programme matching early-career researchers in LMICs with senior mentors to support their first peer-reviewed publication, a Grant Application Skills programme doing the same for grant applications, and a Health Researcher Global Collaboration Service connecting researchers across income settings for interdisciplinary projects.

The website is live (www.bridgehealthresearch.org), the sign-up forms are operational, and what we need now is funding to recruit our first cohort of mentors and researchers.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

The goal is to recruit at least 50 volunteer mentors and 100 early-/mid-career researchers within 6 months, enabling us to begin matching and deliver our first mentoring cycles. We will achieve this through targeted LinkedIn advertising to reach senior health researchers (mentor recruitment) and early-/mid-career researchers across LMICs (researcher recruitment), structured email outreach to research offices at universities in LMICs, and professional promotional materials to support both channels. Every sign-up is trackable and we will report outcomes publicly on Manifund.

How will this funding be used?

• LinkedIn advertising (~$2,500): targeted campaigns reaching senior health researchers and ECRs/EMCRs in LMICs.

• Email outreach infrastructure (~$500): a professional email marketing tool (e.g. Mailchimp) for structured outreach to research offices at LMIC universities.

• Design and promotional materials (~$500): a professional one-pager, social media graphics, and a short promotional video for the website and outreach.

• Additional advertising spend (~$1,500): allocated to whichever recruitment channel performs best based on early results.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

Bridge Health Research was co-founded by Dr Richard Armitage and Dr Amani Al-Oraibi. Richard is a British medical doctor (GP), Honorary Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham, Associate Editor of the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, MPhil student at the University of Cambridge, and incoming DPhil student in Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford. Amani is a Jordanian pharmacist and Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham, holding a PhD in Infection, Inflammation and Immunity. Both have extensive publishing records: Richard https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1165-6753; Amani https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1502-2627.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

If funding is not secured, recruitment will rely entirely on unpaid organic outreach — personal networks, word of mouth, and cold emails sent manually by the two co-founders. This would significantly slow the time to reach critical mass, delay the first mentoring matches, and postpone the impact data needed to approach institutional funders such as NIHR and the Wellcome Trust. The charity's core infrastructure is built and ready — the constraint is reaching the researchers who need it.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

No external funds have been raised for Bridge Health Research. All costs to date — website, domain, email hosting — have been covered personally by the co-founders.