Tag Archives: EPSRC

EPSRC Strategic Advisory Routes – time for you to have your say!

Posted in BU research by Corrina Dickson

EPSRC logoThe EPSRC has recently commissioned an independent review of its strategic advisory routes. The review will focus on how the EPSRC obtains and utilises strategic advice at the Council and Theme levels and both the mechanisms and sources for obtaining such advice and how this influences strategic decision-making. Initial areas covered as part of the review are:

  • Nature of advice – who decides what advice is sought and needed;
  • Structures – to review the adequacy and effectiveness of the structures in place for obtaining strategic advice;
  • Credibility of Advisory Sources - assurance over the extent to which the individuals and bodies providing advice are credible sources;
  • Roles and responsibilities – to review the effectiveness, and clarity, of roles and responsibilities of those involved in commissioning, and those providing, strategic advice in EPSRC;
  • Provision and utilisation of advice – to review the effectiveness of the advice provided (e.g. its robustness and the degree to which it is free from bias or vested interest), and its value (e.g. its relevance and timeliness) in informing EPSRC’s strategic planning and decision making.
  • Transparency – to review the clarity and transparency of the strategic advisory processes to EPSRC’s wider stakeholder community;
  • Cost-effectiveness of the mechanisms and processes used. .

BU has been invited to submit evidence to assist in this review and I am collating responses. Please take a couple of minutes to complete this short survey; all responses will remain confidential. The deadline for completing the survey is 10am Tuesday 23rd April.

Wanted: members for RC governing councils

Posted in Research news, Uncategorized by Jo Garrad

Six research councils are inviting applications to fill governing council vacancies expected to arise in 2013.

Suitably qualified academics and experienced individuals from industry, commerce, government, and the voluntary, creative and cultural sectors, can apply.

The vacancies are at the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

The vacancies include some positions with audit committee responsibilities for part-time membership.

Annual honoraria of £6,850 will be paid. The closing date for applications is 19 November.

EPSRC UK-India partnership in smart energy grids and energy storage technologies

Posted in EU by Corrina Dickson

The EPSRC, under the Research Council UK’s energy programme, and the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, have launched a joint call for proposals for their UK-India partnership in smart energy grids and energy storage technologies. This seeks to strengthen collaboration between UK and Indian research institutions within an overarching focus on research relating to smart energy grids and energy storage technologies. Proposals must address one of the following areas:

•appropriate distributed storage technologies;

•on/off grid energy systems;

•DC networks;

•control and communications.

Projects must be joint activities involving research groups from both India and the UK, and must involve personnel exchange between the Indian and UK partners. All proposals must be for consortia, with equal or proportionate participation from UK and Indian researchers. UK applicants must be the principal investigator or co-investigator on a current Research Council award. Higher education institutions, some Research Council institutes and independent research organisations are eligible to apply.

The costs for UK institutions will be met by EPSRC, and those for Indian institutions will be met by DST. EPSRC will contribute up to £5 million for this call over a three-year period with matched resources from DST. The deadline is 15.11.12

EPSRC – Research Challenges in Geological Storage for Carbon Capture and Storage

Posted in BU research, Funding opportunities by Jo Garrad
Closing date: 16:00 on 13 November 2012

Issue date: 25 July 2012

Category: Invitation for proposals 

Related theme: Energy

EPSRC, as part of the RCUK Energy Programme invites proposals for collaborative research projects to undertake fundamental engineering and physical sciences research to tackle challenges around geological storage that will help advance carbon capture and storage (CCS) towards deployment.

The Energy Programme supports a substantial portfolio in carbon capture and storage research, but the majority of it supported through EPSRC focuses on carbon capture and transport. It is clear that geological storage aspects of CCS offer substantial research challenges so this call focuses on the contribution that engineering and physical sciences research can make to the challenges of geological storage for CCS.

The scope of the call was developed at a scoping workshop held on 10 July 2012. A report of the outputs from this workshop can be downloaded from this page.

Contact: Jacqui Williams

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application. 

EPSRC Call for Ground and Structural Engineering

Posted in BU research, Funding opportunities by Jo Garrad

Closing date: 16:00 on 20 September 2012

Summary

Engineers have an important contribution to make by solving major challenges. The government has recognised key challenges pertaining to our nation’s long term construction and infrastructure needs and associated quality of life and economic competitiveness. This call focuses on one aspect of this where engineers and physical scientists have a leadership role to play.

The Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) invites proposals for research into Ground and Structural Engineering focussed on the challenges highlighted in the EPSRC Review of the area. EPSRC has a possible £8M to support up to five high quality consortia led proposals in the area of Ground and Structural Engineering.

Proposals will be assessed using a two stage process. First there will be an expert reviewers sift panel followed by an interview stage for invited applicants.

Applicants will be expected to demonstrate that the two networks funded by EPSRC in this research area in 2011 have facilitated the proposed research.

Furthermore applicants must complete the intent to submit web form found here by 24 August 2012 indicating their intention to submit. In the event of the likelihood of multiple submissions from the same institution or group ESPRC reserve the right to require bids to be consolidated prior to final submission.

Documents to download

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

EPSRC Overseas Travel Grants – Call

Posted in BU research, Funding opportunities, Uncategorized by Jo Garrad

Introduction

Overseas travel grants provide funding for international travel and subsistence. You can use them to visit recognised non-UK centres to study new techniques and to travel from the UK to start or develop international collaborations.

There is no limit on amount of funding and no closing dates.

Salary and indirect costs

In addition to travel and subsistence, the principal investigator can request funds to cover their salary and indirect costs. But funding is not available through this scheme to specifically support sabbatical absences or conference attendance. Consumables and equipment (e.g. laptops) are not covered under this scheme.

Number of people

The OTG should normally be for the support of the named principal investigator only. Support for other staff such as PhD students and researcher co-investigators can be requested although their inclusion should be fully justified.

Timing and the length of the grant

There is no upper limit on the length of grant.

If the funding decision for an OTG comes after the requested start date of the grant, the funding cannot be backdated. EPSRC do not allow any expenditure incurred before the announcement date to be charged to the grant. So please ensure you leave enough time for processing, which is currently at least 12 weeks before the proposed visit.

Where can you go

As long as the visit is to a recognised research centre there are no restrictions on which countries can be visited. If you need a visa to enter a country, you can include the cost of obtaining a visa in your proposal. But OTGs are exclusively for travel abroad, outside the UK. However you can apply for funding for researchers from abroad to visit the UK as a visiting researcher on a research grant proposal.

Linking OTG proposals to an existing ESPRC research grant

You do not need to link an OTG proposal to an existing EPSRC research grant. But there is an expectation that any new techniques learned or collaborations formed may lead to future research proposals.

OTGs and first grants

An applicant who has been a Principle Investigator on an OTG would be eligible to apply for a first grant. Applying for an OTG does not affect eligibility for the first grant scheme.

Support for researchers applying to Framework Programme 7

You can use overseas travel grants to help UK researchers to start or foster international collaborations to develop high-quality bids to Framework Programme 7 (FP7). Your application should address how the grant will help develop collaborations with European researchers for a FP7 bid.

Who can apply

Overseas travel grants (OTGs) are open to any full-time investigator employed by a recognised UK research organisation (excluding PhD students and PDRAs). Our funding guide gives full details of eligibility of organisations and individuals.

How to apply

You can apply for travel and subsistence, salary costs of the principal investigator for time spent on the grant, and indirect costs. There are no closing dates and you can apply at any time. You can apply for funding to visit one centre or several centres.

You should submit your proposal through the research councils’ joint electronic submission (Je-S) system. Select document type ‘standard proposal’ and scheme ‘overseas travel grant’. As these are usually smaller grants than standard responsive mode applications, it may not be appropriate for your description of the proposed research to fill the allocated 6 sides A4. Please complete as much as required to fully justify your intended visit.

Assessment

Proposals are assessed through our peer review process. If a proposal gets supportive referees’ comments, funding may be approved without consideration at a prioritisation panel. We try to provide a fast turnaround for these proposals but advise you to apply at least 12 weeks before the proposed visit.

More information

If you would like to discuss a possible proposal, or if you have any questions regarding applications for funding to develop collaborations for FP7 proposals than please search our staff contacts to find the person responsible for your research area. We cannot supply examples of successful OTG applications as these proposals have been submitted to us in confidence.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

EPSRC Visiting Researchers call

Posted in BU research, Funding opportunities by Jo Garrad

EPSRC can provide funding for research scientists and engineers of acknowledged standing to visit a UK research organisation. The visiting researcher can be from anywhere in the world, including the UK.

Funding

Up to 12 months’ funding is available per visiting researcher to cover salary costs, travel and subsistence. The researcher can either make one long visit or a series of shorter visits within the 12-month period.

If the proposal is successful, EPSRC will make a grant to the host UK research organisation.

How to apply

There are no closing dates – you can apply at any time. The host UK researcher needs to apply for funding, not the visiting researcher.

Visiting researchers are part of EPSRC’s research base funding where you can apply at any time and in any area of our remit. You can ask for funding for one or more visiting researchers only as part of a larger research proposal.

You should submit your proposal electronically through the Research Councils’ joint electronic submission system (Je-S) as a standard proposal.

The research organisation should include Estates Costs and Indirect Costs for any Visiting Researcher regardless of whether the support being requested includes a salary contribution or is only Travel and Subsistence.

Assessment

Funding applications are assessed using the same peer review process as other responsive mode research proposals.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

EPSRC call for UK and India Partnership in Advanced Manufacturing Research Challenges

Posted in BU research, Funding opportunities by Jo Garrad
Summary

Twenty-first century manufacturing is an increasingly global endeavour, driven by the rapid pace of technological change. High-value manufacturing processes are increasingly moving towards flexible, intelligent production systems that involve the inter-play of novel technologies, advanced materials, in-line analysis and ICT, dual working of people and automated systems, and precision engineered products and systems. Vital to all industrial sectors, modern manufacturing is more than merely production – it encompasses R&D, design, prototyping, production, distribution, service and support provision, and end-of-life repair, recycle or reuse.

Manufacturing is a top priority in both UK and Indian plans for economic growth. In 2011, India launched a National Manufacturing Policy that aims to increase manufacturing activity from a current 16% GDP to 25% by 2022. This equates to a growth rate of 12 14% per year, and aims to generate 100 million new jobs. The UK’s coalition government has also placed manufacturing at the heart of the economic recovery, and has published a series of policy announcements and reviews on the subject.

EPSRC and the Department of Science & Technology (DST) expect to commit up to £3M (Rs 23 crore) each on research programmes of up to three years in length. The funded programmes are expected to vary in size according to the demands of the proposed research, up to a maximum of £1M total, and will involve both UK and Indian researchers. This call invites applicants to submit a proposal for funding.

The proposal will be assessed by expert postal peer review, and those that are sufficiently supported will be advanced to a funding decision panel in February 2013. Funding decisions are expected to be made in March 2013.

Key dates

Activity Date
India and UK announcement date          02 July 2012
Call opens in Je-S for proposals 2 July 2012
Closing date for proposals 27 September 2012
UK (Je-S submission) deadline 16:00 GMT
India (DST receipt) deadline 20:30 Indian time
Postal peer review Early October 2012
Prioritisation panel for proposals February 2013
Grants announced March 2013
Funded projects to start January 2014 onwards
 

Documents to download

 
Contacts:
 
The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

Adele Ladkin joins the EPSRC workshop ‘Sustainable Society: Achieving work-life balance on a digitally dependent world’

Posted in BU research, Featured academics by Jo Garrad

EPSRC issued an expression of interest in April for applicants to participate in a virtual workshop on the topic of Sustainable Society.

Adele Ladkin, Professor of Tourism Employment, from the School of Tourism has been accepted to join the workshop to be held in two stages, in July.  Adele’s application focused around work-life balance in the tourism and hospitality sectors.  These sectors raise two issues, the first is the long hours culture and shift work characteristic of many jobs that invariably leads to reduced leisure time for employees, compounded with the emotional and physical strain of irregular working hours.  Second, in the accommodation sector, particularly small accommodation providers such as B&B’s, there is often no physical separation of work from home.  Business takes place within the home resulting in the boundaries between work and home becoming blurred, creating another dimension to work life balance.

Adele is looking forward to participating in the two events that will give her the opportunity to potentially work across different disciplines.

Good luck Adele!

Digital Economy finds NEMODE

Posted in Funding opportunities, Fusion, Media Studies by John Oliver

Academics from multi-disciplinary backgrounds recently attended a two day Digital Economy Network+ event at the University of Cambridge. The aim of the event was to continue the process of building a network of people interested researching New Economic Models for the Digital Economy.

The focus of the event was to share the diverse perspectives on new economic models for the digital economy and to develop and shape the research agenda on two key themes;

  • What are economic models and how do different communities define them?
  • Does an economic model differ from a business model?

Both days consisted of a number of brainstorm and discussion activities that opened with each academic presenting their views on the ‘big questions’ in relation to their own subject domain, which in my case is Media Management. It was certainly interesting to look at the same research questions from very different perspectives, and it this has helped inform my thinking for the Advances in Media Management (AiMM) research group that I lead and our forthcoming symposium on New Economic Models.

Further network events are planned, but for those BU academics researching within our own  Creative & Digital Economy Theme – the funding headlines are;

  • The EPSRC are managing the New Economic Models sub-theme of the Digital Economy
  • The network will now be known as NEMODE
  • NEMODE have £980k to support network activities including funding 10 small (£50k) feasibility/scoping studies. A call for the first two projects will be made in October this year.
  • Successful feasibility studies can be scaled up via direct applications to the RCUK Digital Economy.
  • Funding Applications that involve practitioners will be looked upon more favourably – which sits nicely with BU’s Fusion Strategy!

First grant proposal submitted

Posted in Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Computer Science by Indre Zliobaite

I joined DEC as a lecturer about a year ago. My research focuses on mining streaming data. We are building predictive models (e.g. to recommend an interesting text to a user) that can diagnose themselves and automatically adapt to changes in data over time.

This week I submitted my first grant proposal as a principal investigator. When I was asked to share my experiences on preparing the proposal, I thought I’d rather wait for the outcome. Still, in this post I will share some experiences and tips for those planning to apply for their first grant, which I think are valid no matter if my proposal gets funded.

Start early. Preparing the proposal took about six months. I started drafting the proposal back in October-November. In November I attended an excellent internal workshop on bidding given by Dr. Martin Pickard. I highly recommend to attend his workshops if you have an opportunity. They give you an insight perspective on bidding processes.

Decide about the funding program and stick to it (right after you have an idea about the content and potential collaborators). I have some experience in preparing proposals at my previous institutions (not as a PI, including successful bids), The content requirements seem to vary a lot. So you need to tailor your proposal. I picked the First Grant Scheme within EPSRC, which is a very nice option for early career researchers. The proposals are evaluated only against other early career researchers and no previous experience as a PI is expected.

Decide what you want to get from the bid. A research assistant? Equipment? Contact RKE OPS right from the start, you may be surprised how little fits under the estimated budget, because there are overheads. For instance, the funding cap for the First Grant within EPSRC is 125 TGBP, which effectively means that you can budget a research assistant for up to one year, some of your time, maybe some equipment or some traveling and that’s it. RKE OPS will give you advices on the financial side and help you to do your budget. Your budget restricts how much content you can plan for the proposal to be realistic and feasible, so this should be one of the first decisions to make.

Get as much feedback as you can. During the process I got three reviews from the internal review process (the RPRS, contact Caroline O’Kane), multiple feedbacks from Caroline herself, feedbacks from my line manager, feedbacks from the organizer and the participants of an external workshop on bidding that I attended, and from Dr. Martin Pickard by phone as a follow up of the workshop in November. All this feedback was extremely valuable and helped me to shape my proposal. That also gave a perspective how people from different fields see the proposal and which parts need to be clarified. I must say incorporating the feedback was much more challenging than writing the first draft. Naturally, there were quite some opposing comments and contradicting views by different people. First I was confused, but later I found that extremely valuable, as that helped me to form a big picture of the bidding philosophy.

I’ve learned a lot during this process. I am very grateful to all the reviewers and the research support people for their support. Thanks!

EPSRC Call for Feasibility Study Proposals: Through-life engineering services

Posted in Funding opportunities by Jo Garrad

Summary

The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Through-life Engineering Services is offering funding for feasibility studies in the field of through-life engineering services. Through-life Engineering Services are technical services that are necessary to guarantee required and predictable performance of a complex engineering system throughout its expected operational life with the optimum whole life cost. The feasibility studies should examine a subject area in the field, review activity in it, identify key challenges and research questions not currently being addressed and develop full proposals for funding by established routes. Awardees are expected to attract significant new industrial support and the subsequent major award will form a strategic part of the Centre activities. Awards are limited to £20,000 at 80% FEC and to a maximum duration of six months.

How to apply

Feasibility study applications should be submitted to Professor Rajkumar Roy, the National Centre Director (director@through-life-engineering-services.org), and copied to Andy Shaw, the National Centre Manager (manager@through-life-engineering-services.org).

Key dates

Activity Date
First Call Launched 14 May 212
Closing date for applications 30 June 2012
Evaluation of applications by the Centre Executive Committee                13 July 2012
Grants announced and feedback given by 30 July 2012
Expected start of the projects by 15th August 2012
 
Documents to download
Contact:

Stephanie Lewis

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

EPSRC call ‘Design for Wellbeing: Ageing and Mobility in the Built Environment’

Posted in Funding opportunities by Jo Garrad

                             

Summary

EPSRC is leading a call with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and invites proposals from interdisciplinary consortia for evidence led research into ageing and mobility in the built environment. This call is being run under the auspices of the Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) cross-council ageing research programme which supports research addressing factors throughout life that influence health and wellbeing in older age.

This call is seeking to create a step change in interdisciplinary engineering, social science and design research for wellbeing in the built environment. There is up to £7M available (EPSRC up to £4M, ESRC up to £2M and AHRC up to £1M) to support a maximum of five large multi-disciplinary projects of up to three years duration.

Prospective applicants will need to complete an Expression of Interest form by 12:00 on Monday 10 September 2012.

The expressions of interest will be assessed by an expert short listing panel in September 2012 and those aligned appropriately with the assessment criteria will be invited to submit full proposals. The deadline for submitting an Expression of Interest is 12:00 on 10 September 2012. Those invited to submit a full proposal will be notified by the end of September 2012. The deadline for the submission of full proposals will be 28 November 2012, and will be peer-reviewed in March 2013 with the expectation that funding decisions will be made by the end of March 2013.

Timetable

There are two stages in the assessment process. This call invites Expressions of Interest (EoIs) which will be assessed by a shortlisting panel in September 2012. Shortlisted applicants will then be invited to submit full proposals.

Activity Date/Time
Call for Expressions of Interest May 2012
Call for Expressions of Interest submission deadline 12:00 noon on 10 September 2012
Applicants informed of outcome and full proposals invited        26 September 2012
Deadline for submission of full proposals 16:00 on 28 November 2012
Prioritisation panel March 2013
 
Documents to download
 
The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

EPSRC Sandpit: More with Less: Engineering Solutions for Resource Efficiency

Posted in Funding opportunities, General Engineering by Jo Garrad

The EPSRC has announced a call for Expressions of Interest for attendance at their Sandpit for ‘More with Less: Engineering Solutions for Resource Efficiency’.

The UK is a small nation with limited resources that has a high material dependency. With the ever growing concern of material and resource scarcity we look to the ingenuity of the research base to find long-term sustainable solutions.

The Engineering theme will lead a sandpit in response to the challenges raised by the research community in the Resource Efficiency Scoping Workshop in April 2012 and in line with EPSRC strategy. The primary aim is to invest in ambitious, engineering-led, cross-disciplinary research with the potential for long-term transformation across many and diverse sectors, especially among those that have yet to embrace these concepts.

EPSRC are looking for enthusiastic participants from a wide range of disciplines who will bring their expertise to explore the challenges of:

  • Dematerialisation (eg lightweighting, novel materials functionality, novel materials from waste products, materials security and efficiency);
  • Designing for resource sustainability (eg energy, water and materials efficiency, considerations for engineering processes, whole systems and resource flow modelling);
  • Reuseability at any scale (closed and open loop recycling, remanufacturing, extended product life).

Closing Date: 13.00 on 11 June 2012

Documents to Download:

Resource efficiency sandpit call document

Resource efficiency workshop challenge outcomes

Ideas Factory Sandpit expression of interest form: Return form to sandpit@epsrc.ac.uk

Equal Opportunities Form

A Sandpit for Ideas: The concept of the IDEAS Factory is to organise interactive workshops (sandpits) on particular topics, involving 20-25 participants. The focus for this sandpit is MORE WITH LESS: Engineering solutions for resource efficiency. Anyone eligible to apply for funding from Research Councils UK can apply.

The Sandpit Event: The sandpit will run over five days starting mid-morning on day one and finishing mid-afternoon on day five.

As the sandpit progresses, participants will build up thoughts on how the identified ‘challenges’ may be addressed and develop their innovative ideas and activities into research projects. Projects will contain genuinely novel and speculative investigations that address new approaches to resource efficiency. The sandpit will include inputs from a variety of sources.

Location and Date

The date for this sandpit is 23rd – 27th July 2012. Location to be confirmed.

EPSRC announce call: Working together in ICT

Posted in Computer Science, Funding opportunities by Jo Garrad

Summary

EPSRC’s ICT Theme intends to commit around £5M of funding for research projects which will directly address its Working Together priority.

Projects submitted in response to this call should comprise two or more ‘streams’ of research which run concurrently and show significant mutual benefit. These streams may include ICT researchers working with researchers in areas outside ICT, as long as the potential benefit to ICT research is the main driver for the project.

Full call document including background, funding available, aims and scope of call, eligibilty, how to apply and assessment can be found here.

Closing date: 16:00 on 10 July 2012

Submitting application

You should prepare and submit your proposal using the Research Councils’ Joint electronic Submission (Je-S) System (https://je-s.rcuk.ac.uk/).

When adding a new proposal, you should select: Council ‘EPSRC’; Document type ‘Standard Proposal’; Scheme ‘Standard Research’; On the Project Details page you should select the ‘Working Together in ICT’ call.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

EPSRC/ESRC Invitation for Outlines: Consortia for Exploratory Research in Security

Posted in Computer Science, Funding opportunities, Media Studies, Research news by Jo Garrad

                                                                                                                                                                                                         

As part of their contribution to the RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme, EPSRC and ESRC are jointly inviting proposals for research consortia (PDF 79KB) to explore current and future cyber security challenges.

CEReS consortia are encouraged to work across or between established disciplines and to draw on expertise from multiple research organisations wherever necessary. They particularly welcome proposals with significant novel mathematics and/or social science content.

Initially, outline proposals will be assessed for their novelty and fit to the aims of the call. Successful outline applicants will be invited to submit full proposals later in 2012.

EPSRC and ESRC have made available up to £4M available to fund full proposals funded through the CEReS call. They expect to support a range of projects which is broad in terms of scale (likely to be between £500k and £1M for each consortium), duration (two to four years), mix of disciplines (with single discipline proposals being the exception rather than the norm) and subject matter (although all must focus on cyber security-related challenges in the broadest sense).  Activities funded through CEReS are limited to those currently allowed on EPSRC grants. As a result they will not be able to accept applications which request funding for PhD studentships, even if they are outside EPSRC’s remit.

CEReS is a call for exploratory research. Consortia should identify ambitious goals with far-reaching impacts on future research and, potentially at least, practice in cyber security. Projects which continue or extend current work in a straightforward or obvious way will not be supported. Collaboration between disciplines is strongly encouraged. Although it is not essential that all projects include cross- or intra-disciplinary working it is likely that the assessment process will select positively for consortia which adopt this approach.

Although it is being managed by EPSRC the CEReS call is also open to researchers eligible to apply for targeted funding from ESRC. There is no quota of applications or funding based on Research Council remits. It is possible for the same researcher(s) to be associated with more than one consortium application.

For further information visit the call website: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/calls/open/Pages/ceres.aspx and read the call documentation: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/Calls/2012/CEReSCall.pdf. Outline proposals should be prepared and submitted using the Research Councils’ Joint electronic Submission (JeS) System (https://je-s.rcuk.ac.uk/).

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

The closing date is 14 June 2012.

Taking part in EPSRC’s Digital Economy Theme

Posted in BU research by John Oliver

EPSRC logoRCUK have a cross-cutting Digital Economy Theme which aims to support research into the transformational impact of digital technologies. In December last year the BU Research Blog advertised a notice from the EPSRC who were looking to build a community of researchers to invesitgate ‘New Economic Models’ as a sub-category of the Digital Economy Theme. As my own area of research into media management investigates the transformational changes of media organisations to the digital environment, I thought it would be worth applying.

After successfully navigating the EPSRC peer review process I was invited to attend the first of many Network Meetings in Reading. It was a very professional event, with researchers attending from across the UK and from diverse academic disciplines. The aim of the first event was to scope out the size and shape of a future research agenda into this area and to get researchers to develop collaborative projects ideas for researching new economic models.

The EPSRC will soon be putting out a call for funded research, and in readiness for this, the Media School’s Advances in Media Management (AiMM) research group are organising a ‘Brainstorm Session’ with academics and high level media industry partners to scope out ideas to submit to this call.

This is an excellent example of how you can get involved with shaping the future research agenda within your discipline and preparing to respond to calls before they are released.

EPSRC applications now need to include ‘national importance’

Posted in Research news by Susan Dowdle

The EPSRC has announced that from the 15th November 2011 their peer reviewers will be asked to assess the national importance of research proposals.  The Council have tried to reassure people that research quality will remain the key criteria by which research proposals are assessed.

The EPSRC added the following definition of National Importance to their website:

What is National Importance?

National importance looks over a 10 to 50 year time frame. It takes into account the national importance of the research in relation to other research in the area, how it aligns to national UK priorities, user/stakeholder pull or if it underpins priority areas for other research councils.

When considering National Importance for research and training we take into account;

  • the potential impact of a research area on the current or future success of the UK economy,
  • whether it has been identified as an area that will enable the future development of key emerging industry(s),
  • if the area makes a clear contribution to meeting key societal challenges facing the UK,
  • If the area is key to the health of other research disciplines.

We are asking applicants to demonstrate the importance of their proposed research project to the UK in relation to other research in that area. We do not expect applicants to be able to predict the impact of their research, nor do we expect reviewers to make assumptions about the probability of the benefits being fully delivered. The purpose of national importance is to encourage applicants to articulate how their research aligns to national UK priorities, user/stakeholder pull or if it underpins other research areas. We encourage and recognise the research we invest in has a global impact.

A full list of the FAQs can be found on their website here.

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