If you have an idea or a research question that could be answered by our participants or with anonymised data then you can start the application process here. All types of enquiry are welcome:

The Register team will then invite you to have a telephone/video call to discuss your enquiry. This is to ascertain if we have the data you need, or if it’s a questionnaire - what are the details of it. We also need to establish any methods for paying for your project and provide you an estimate of cost. If your project is likely to be something that can be considered, we will then tell you to proceed to the next stage and complete an 'application form'.

The success of the application will be based on your content, potential participant burden, impact and relevance to people with MS, MS Register capacity and your planned outputs. The process from initial discussion to deployment of data can take up to six months, depending on what is required.

All Application forms are reviewed by the MS Register Scientific Steering Committee (SSC). This committee consists of the following people:

• Professor Alasdair Coles (Chair) - Neurologist
• Professor Kimme Hyrich - Epidemiologist
• Professor Colin Green- Health Economist
• Professor Jan Hillert - Neurologist, Sweden
• Dr Wallace Brownlee- Neurologist
• Professor Melinda Magyari - Neurologist, Denmark
• Dr Klaus Schmierer- Neurologist, Royal London

People with MS / MS Society Research Network members:

• Mary Douglas
• Allan Young
• Chris Rafaluk

The committee's purpose is to review incoming requests from researchers and to ensure that they have relevant and interesting scientific questions. They also take a position on how the question is likely to be received amongst the Register audience and a measure of what your outputs are likely to be.

Objectives

• To review collaboration requests to the MS Register based on their scientific merit and ability for the MS Register team to support the request.
• To steer the scientific strategy through updating the Research Agenda yearly and prioritising collaborations based on the Research Agenda.
• To steer and commission research based on the Research Agenda.

The SSC meets every three months to review applications, please see below for forthcoming meetings and application deadlines:

The MS Register also has a bank of specific data that can be used for PHD projects. Please get in touch if you are a PHD student or a supervisor who would like to work with MS Register data.