BU Research Blog

The following opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

Do you want to collaborate with overseas researchers? If so, consider the Japan, India,  Brazil , China, Taiwan, USA  and Europe Partnering Awards announced (or forthcoming) by the BBSRC. These awards are to set up partnership links between UK and overseas laboratories; to promote the exchange of scientists, particularly early career scientists and to promote access to facilities. Funds can only be used for travel, subsistence and other activities, such as workshops or exchanges.  Funding varies with each award. Amongst other eligibility criteria, the lead applicant must be BBSRC funded. Closing date: 13/11/14.

For those interested in working with academics from other nations, the BBSRC Other Countries Partnering Awards may be applicable. These are designed to: establish partnerships between UK and overseas laboratories; promote the exchange of scientists, particularly early career scientists; promote access to facilities;  enhance collaborative activities with CGIAR Centres and programmes (Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research Centres). While this scheme will consider applications for partnership activities with any country not currently covered by individual schemes, BBSRC particularly welcomes applications which seek to partner with researchers in South Africa, South Korea, Australia, Mexico, Vietnam, Argentina, Canada, New Zealand and Russia. Typically up to £30k over a four-year period is available for partnerships with one or more life science laboratories in countries not currently eligible through their existing partnering award schemes. Amongst other eligibility criteria, the lead applicant must be BBSRC funded. Closing date: 13/11/14.

The BBSRC is also promoting its International Workshops scheme. These aim to: stimulate joint working in topics important to BBSRC’s strategy; match numbers of scientists from the UK with other countries to identify areas of commonality and explore the potential for international collaboration and to receive applications involving collaborations with any other country, although the US, Canada, Brazil, EU member states, Japan, China, India Australia and New Zealand are particularly encouraged. There will be around 8 awards each year, of approximately £10k each. This scheme is open to current BBSRC research grant holders and researchers employed at BBSRC sponsored institutes who are in receipt of BBSRC funding. Closing date: 13/11/14.

The BBSRC‘s New Investigator Scheme assists early-career researchers – newly employed university lecturers, lecturer level equivalent fellows whose awards were secured in open competition, and researchers in Research Council Institutes at the unified Research Council Band E or its equivalent – to secure their first major element of research funding. Closing date: 24/09/14

The BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship Scheme is aimed at scientists who have demonstrated high potential and who wish to establish themselves as independent researchers. Awards are for 5 years, up to 5 are available, and include personal salary and a significant research support grant. Applications are welcome from candidates seeking flexible working arrangements. Proposals can relate to in any area of science within the BBSRC portfolio but the BBSRC particularly encourages proposals that are aligned with BBSRC’s overarching strategic priorities. Closing date: 05/11/14.

Looking ahead, The Animal Health and Welfare ERA-Net plans a third call in the area of animal health and welfare. This call is expected to be open from around mid-November 2014. If this is your discipline, why not set a date in your calendar to check this call nearer the time?

Similarly, CHIST-ERA (European Coordinated Research on Long-term Challenges in Information and Communication Sciences & Technologies ERA-Net) expects to open a call regarding Resilient Trustworthy Cyber-Physical Systems and Human Language Understanding in October 2014. Their conference in June 2014 will bring together scientists and CHIST-ERA representatives in order to identify and formulate promising scientific and technological challenges at the frontier of research with a view to refine the scientific content of the call.

The ESRC, in association with the Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo, Brazil (FAPESP) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)  has made a Joint Call for Proposals on Sustainable Urban Development. The aim of this call is to strengthen research cooperation between researchers from the state of São Paulo, Brazil, the UK and the Netherlands. Based on consultation with the research community in the participating countries, the research themes which have been identified are Resilience, Social justice and Governance and democracy. An application can only be submitted via the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research’s electronic application system Iris. A total budget of approximately €5.4 million is jointly made available. Closing date: 23/09/14

Applications are invited to the MRC – Biomedical Catalyst: Regenerative Medicine Research Committee. The RMRC provides support for high quality proposals aiming to develop regenerative medicine therapies to improve human health and funds pre-clinical development and early clinical testing of novel regenerative medicine therapies. Closing date: 10/07/14.

 The TSB is investing up to £2.5m to support the development of low-power energy harvesting technologies for autonomous electronic systems. Energy harvesting is the ‘scavenging’ of energy from the surrounding environment and converting it into useable electrical energy. This call seeks to explore ways to extend battery life in low-power devices or to eliminate batteries altogether. A briefing day for potential applicants will be held in London on 09/06/14. Applicants must register by noon on 18/09/14 and the full application submitted by noon on 28/09/14.

The TSB is to invest £6m in collaborative R&D projects and feasibility studies to accelerate the proving and commercial application of a wide range of recent or emerging manufacturing technologies involving mechanical conversion processes such as machining, casting, forging, moulding and joining. The main aim of this competition is to help companies of all sizes overcome the technical and business challenges of transforming novel technologies and leading-edge application knowledge into robust, competitive manufacturing capabilities and business processes. Successful projects will be driven by industrial needs and delivered through collaborative innovation teams, often involving new sources of expertise and organisations that have not previously worked together. A briefing event and webinar for potential applicants will be held in London on 17/06/14. Applicants must register by noon on 27/08/14 and the full application submitted by noon on 03/09/14.

The Wellcome Trust, through the Sustaining Heath Scheme seeks to invest in pilot research projects investigating novel aspects of any aspect of the interplay between health, environment and nutrition . Proposals should be designed to open up new research avenues, ultimately leading to work that will have a significant impact on human health. As general guidance, awards are of the order of £250,000, exceptionally up to £500,000. Closing date for concept notes: 25/07/14 with preliminary applications by 20/08/14. Invited full applications are to be submitted by 14/02/15.

The Wellcome Trust’s Pathfinder Awards  provide pilot funding for Academic-Industry partnerships to develop early-stage applied research and development projects in orphan and neglected disease areas. The Scheme is intended to kick-start pilot projects that have significant potential to help develop innovative new products in these disease areas. In the scheme, an academic lead (or a lead from a not-for-profit entity) will build on or establish a partnership with a company that has specialist knowledge and access to technologies to facilitate the development of a specific product. There is a rolling deadline for this scheme with the next deadline being 07/07/14.

Please note that some funders specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKE Support Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on ResearchProfessional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s RKE Officer in RKE Operations or see the recent post on this topic, which includes forthcoming training dates up to November 2014.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on ResearchProfessional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.