Category / ESRC

ESRC 2013 Festival of Science

Funding opportunities

The ESRC has just posted on their website the news that the call for applications for the 2013 Festival has been delayed.

They now anticipate that the call will open on 15 April with a closing date of 13 May for applications requesting funding support of up to £2,000, and 7 May for applications to hold an event and not requesting funding.   This means that the call for applications will be open for only four weeks.  The message from the ESRC is to start planning your event as soon as possible.

BU held four events as part of the 2012 Festival.    Our successful applicants were:  Kip Jones, Richard Shipway, Debbie Sadd,  Ruth Towse and Martin Kretschmer.  This is what Debbie has to say about being part of the Festival:

“It is a wonderful opportunity to start a bidding journey and gain confidence in ‘winning’ some money!! The process was very straight forward and the support from the ESRC invaluable. The event itself was a resounding success.”

Looking for inspiration?  Clicking on the following links will take you to the posters that were designed for each event, which may give you some ideas for your own event.

Copyright Policy,  Going for Gold,  London 2012 Was it Worth it,  Pathways to Impact

Want to find out more?

Click here to find out more information about the call and the ESRC Festival of Science in general. 

Interested in applying?

Please contact Caroline O’Kane as soon as possible if you are interested in applying.

ESRC Retail Knowledge Exchange Opportunities

Funding opportunities

Exciting new funding opportunities are now available with the retail sector!

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) have recently made a call, after committing to invest £2 million to establish a cohort of new Knowledge Exchange Opportunities with the retail sector. 

The Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme is designed to promote the application of social science within non-academic communities. Which means that the target audience of the grant activity must be non-academic stakeholders within the private, public or civil society sectors. The flexibility built into the scheme is intended to encourage applicants to think creatively about knowledge exchange and the ESRC are welcoming applications for either a single activity or a combination of activities.

Potential activities could include:

  • new applied research, provided it is user-led or in collaboration with a user partner
  • setting up a network to encourage knowledge exchange between leading academics and retailers
  • an academic placement within a private sector retailer,  or other organisation focusing on the retail sector
  • developing tools such as podcasts and videos aimed at communicating the results of research to retailers
  • developing existing research to make it more applicable to the retail sector
  • seminars to encourage knowledge exchange between academics and retailers.

 Also, a targeted call has been made for:

  • Retail Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTPs)  (run by the Technology Strategy Board – for details and to apply visit www.ktponline.org.uk)

The call for all applications closes on 30 April 2013.

For further information please visit the ESRC website

ESRC: Celebrating impact prize

Funding opportunities

The Economic and Social Research Council invites applications for its celebrating impact prize.

This prize is intended to recognise and reward ESRC-funded researchers who have achieved, or are currently achieving outstanding economic or societal impacts through their research and collaborative working, partnerships, engagement and knowledge exchange activities. There are six categories for this prize: impact in business, impact in public policy, impact in society, international impact, early career impact, impact champion of the year.

A prize of £10,000 will be made to the winners of each category, with a further £10,000 for the department with the impact champion of the year.

The application deadline is 16.00 on 14 February 2013.

For further information please click here.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application. Please direct any enquiries to RKE Ops in the first instance.

 

Notes from ESRC ARMA WORKSHOP 2012 on challenges and opportunities for the social sciences in the current economic climate

Funding opportunities, Guidance

BU’s Teresa Coffin and Eva Papadopoulou (Research and Knowledge Exchange Operations) attended a training day hosted by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) aimed at discussing the challenges and opportunities for the social sciences in the current climate. The focus of the event included presentations from the main Department Heads who outlined their internal workings, grant application framework and advice for successful applications. They also discussed their amended research agenda, funding opportunities, various partnerships and current strategic priorities. Notes from the day can be found here:

ARMA Notes

Wanted: members for RC governing councils

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.

New Funding Programme on Quantitative Methods Training

Funding opportunities

         

                  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Nuffield Foundation, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) are launching a £15.5 million funding programme in October 2012 aimed at promoting a step-change in quantitative methods training for UK social science undergraduates.

This 5-year programme will fund the creation of a network of up to 15 Quantitative Methods Centres to develop new approaches aimed at embedding the acquisition and application of quantitative skills to substantive issues in disciplines across the UK social science undergraduate curricula.

Centres will be able to apply for funding of up to £350k per year to develop and deliver a wide range of fundable training activities, including bursaries for students attending holiday courses or in relevant work placements, recruitment of new staff and the development of new courses and pathways to careers requiring skills in quantitative methods.

Centres are expected to be within single Higher Education Institutions, with limited scope for any consortia arrangements. Single departments or groups of departments within an Institution may apply, but only one application per Higher Education Institution will be allowed.

We expect that competition for funds will be intense. Applying Institutions should therefore already have demonstrable expertise in and commitment to developing quantitative skills in the social sciences.

More information about the programme can be found on the Nuffield Foundation website www.nuffieldfoundation.org from October 15th.  They will also be holding two launch events in London and Manchester to present this initiative:

Friday 19th October @ 11.00am British Academy, London

Thursday 8th November @ 11.15am Manchester University

If you are interested in applying, they hope that you will be able to attend one of these events. This is an open invitation, but all who wish to attend must register so that they can plan for numbers. Initially, no more than 2 attendees per HEI, but if they have room they would be happy to allow more.

If you would like to attend, please RSVP by e-mail using the attached form to QMEnquiries@nuffieldfoundation.org by Monday 8th October.  They will send further information about the events to registered attendees.

RSVP form

ESRC Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme

Funding opportunities

The scheme provides the opportunity to apply for funding for knowledge exchange activities at any stage of the research lifecycle, and is aimed at maximising the impact of social science research outside academia.

The flexibility built into the scheme is intended to encourage applicants to think creatively about knowledge exchange, and applications are welcomed for either a single activity or a combination of activities; be it setting up a network to help inform the development of a research proposal, arranging an academic placement with a voluntary or business organisation, or developing tools such as podcasts and videos aimed at communicating the results of research to the general public, or developing existing research to make it more applicable to policy or practice.

Important changes to the Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme

Following comments from the community on the difficulty of securing cash contributions from user stakeholders, we have changed the scheme’s co-funding requirement so that partner contributions can now consist of any combination of cash or in-kind resources. The scheme has also been broadened to allow applications for new applied research, provided this is user-led or in collaboration with a user partner. Further details regarding these changes are outlined in the guidance documents below.

The call opened on 20 August 2012 and closes at 16.00 on 2 October 2012.

Call documents, including the scheme guidance are provided below:

Fellowship opportunities

Within this round of the Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme there is also the opportunity to apply for two prespecified placement fellowship projects. The first placement is with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency, and the second placement is with the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The specification for each placement, including details of how to apply, can be found below:

ESRC aim to inform applicants of a decision on all applications within 26 weeks of the closing date for the call. Funding decisions will then be advertised on this website.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application. Please direct any enquiries to RKE Ops in the first instance. Alternatively, contact ESRC at knowledgeexchange@esrc.ac.uk.

Future calls

  • 3 December 2012 – 7 February 2013
  • 3 April 2013 – 6 June 2013
  • 5 August 2013 – 3 October 2013

Work in Social Sciences? Have contacts in India and the EU? Then this could be for you!

The first awards under the India-Europe research grants scheme for the social sciences have been made.

The Open Research Area (ORA) scheme is a multi-funded (including the ESRC) EU focused programme which supports collaborations between researchers in India and Europe. This year, the three-year research projects will each include an Indian partner alongside researchers from UK, French, German or the Netherlands. They will study areas such as ageing and wellbeing, the global accessibility of medicine and the cultural authority of science. You can read about the funded projects on the DFG (German funders) website.

The funding scheme is designed to provide top-up resources to established working groups, to enhance collaborative efforts as part of a cross-continent social sciences network. A new call for proposals will be launched in September and close in January 2013.

ESRC Future Research Leaders scheme 2012/2013 – how to apply

Funding opportunities

The ESRC’s Future Research Leaders call is currently open with a closing date of 4th October 2012.

Universities are expected to consider applications very carefully prior to submitting them to the ESRC through this call, and all applications need to be supported with a letter from the PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation).

With this in mind BU has established a process for submissions to this call. All proposals must be submitted to a special version of our internal peer review scheme (the RPRS) first and must be signed off by Matthew Bennett as PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) prior to submission.

For applicants interested in the scheme, the key internal dates are as follows:

28th Aug Proposals to be submitted to the RPRS and sent for review.
10th Sept Proposal feedback to be returned to applicants.
10th Sept – 21st Sept Applicants to finalise proposals based on reviewer feedback.
21st Sept Final proposals to be sent to Matthew Bennett (via RKE Ops).
  Matthew Bennett to review and approve final proposals (and write the PVC letter of support). Once reviewed, CRE Operations will let applicants know when to submit via Je-S.
26th Sept Final decision from Matthew Bennett re: proposals to submit
26th – 1st Oct Selected applicants finalise proposals
1st Oct Final proposals submitted via Je-S
4th October ESRC deadline
   

If you are considering applying to the scheme but have not yet confirmed this with the RKE Ops team please could you do so as soon as possible.

Please take the time to read through the call documentation available on the ESRC website – it contains a lot of important information about assessment criteria and what the ESRC are looking for in a proposal.

If you have any questions about this call or the Resarch Proposal Review Service please contact Caroline O’Kane

ESRC – Workshop for Google Data Analytics Social Science Research

Funding opportunities

“Data is the new raw material of the 21st century, it allows citizens to hold governments to account, drives improvements in public services by informing choice, and provides a feedstock for innovation and growth.” As open-source data is set to grow, this is a key time to better understand how it maps onto and possibly significantly strengthens, the ability of academics to understand society. The ESRC and Google are therefore pleased to announce the Google Data Analytics Social Science Research Call.

The call for Google Data Analytics Social Science Research aims to provide funding for projects that demonstrate the potential of how publicly accessible online data, analytical and presentational tools, such as those provided by Google, can be used to address social and economic research topics, showcasing how academics can use online data analytical tools in creative, intellectual and creative ways. As part of this process, the projects should:

  • transmit best practice in use of such tools for social science
  • show how the tools can be used to test social-science theories
  • suggest possible improvements/innovations in the tools to help integrate analytics and open-source data tools in general into the teaching/learning community.

They have allocated £200,000 to fund a maximum of four research projects lasting up to one year. The call will open on 20 August 2012 and close on 2 October 2012.

To register for this call launch workshop please send a brief description of your area of interest to:knowledgeexchange@esrc.ac.uk by 2 August 2012. Please note, this information may be circulated to other attendees unless you state otherwise.

Further Information

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

ESRC – Student Internship Scheme

Funding opportunities

The ESRC student internship scheme provides current ESRC-funded PhD students with the opportunity to spend up to six months in a non-academic organisation within the public, civil society (voluntary) or private sector where they can work as part of a team involved with policy and practice development.

The internship scheme provides both student and host organisations with a clear set of benefits and contributes to the skills and professional development of PhD students.

Students can benefit from:

  • networking within the policy arena
  • transferable skills and knowledge
  • time management skills
  • report writing skills.

Hosts can benefit from:

  • additional resources
  • production of briefing papers
  • adding to the organisation’s policy evidence base.

ESRC students

If you are an ESRC-funded student wishing to undertake an internship award during 2012, you will need to complete and return an application form for each of the host organisation(s) you wish to apply to by the closing date of 10 August 2012.

Application forms and project details for participating hosts are available using the host organisations links below.

Participating host organisations for the 2012 internships:

Internship holders receive a three month extension to their ESRC award (conditions apply), and will be able to claim for reasonable travel and accommodation costs (conditions apply).

End of Award Report

Students and host organisations must complete and submit an End of Award Report within three months of completing the internship.

Contacts

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

ESRC/NIHR Dementia Initiative

Funding opportunities

Dementia initiative

The Prime Minister has announced plans to tackle what he is calling a ‘national crisis’ posed by dementia, including a doubling of research funding into dementia to £66 million per annum by 2015. As part of the funding being made available, the ESRC and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) will be working together to support an initiative with up to £13 million funding available for social science research on dementia.

Scope

The initiative will fund large grants which will be national or international focal points for social science research in Dementia which make a significant contribution to scientific, economic and social impact. The call will address the following areas, see Research Agenda (PDF, 71Kb) for full details:

  • Prevention, including public awareness and early presentation
  • Public health of behaviour change, including the role of social interventions in slowing cognitive decline
  • Delivery of interventions in hospitals care homes and carers, including the interface between professionals, lay people and patients

Documentation

Timetable

  • Meeting for potential applicants – 3 July 2012
  • Launch/open call – w/c 9 July 2012
  • Closing date for outline call – w/c 11 September 2012
  • Announce decisions for outline call – mid December 2012
  • Closing date for full call – February 2013
  • Inviting short-listed applicants for interviews – June 2013
  • Interviews – June 2013
  • Announce final decisions – July 2013

Links

Contact

For further information please email: dementia@esrc.ac.uk

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

ESRC – Grant linked studentships funding opportunity

Funding opportunities

Grant Linked studentships are designed to add value to the proposed research outlined in the grant application, whilst providing a clear opportunity for a distinct and independent course of enquiry for the student. Through being embedded with a high quality research team, they should offer the student an opportunity to both develop their substantive research skills, alongside broader professional development.

Grant linked studentships may be requested on any research application (with the exception of the Future Leaders scheme) as long as:

  • the grant applied for is for 3 years or more
  • the Principal or Co-Investigators are approved to act as primary supervisors for PhD students
  • the student(s) will be located in an ESRC accredited Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) and they are studying on an accredited pathway.

Up to three studentships can be applied for on any single grant application. It must also be clear that the studentship is not a displacement for the normal research support required on the grant. The student must have a distinct, independent area of enquiry that will add value to the overall research objectives of the grant.  

For further details on the application process for Grant Linked Studentships please read the information available within the Research Funding Guide.

More information on the details on the rules and regulations for Grant linked studentships can be found within the Postgraduate Funding Guidelines.

If you require further assistance please contact ptdenquiries@esrc.ac.uk

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

ESRC Social Science Festival

Funding opportunities

Professor Ruth Towse and Professor Martin Kretschmer have been awarded funding from the ESRC (RES-622-26-565) to organise an event as part of the Festival of Social Science 2012.

The symposium ‘What constitutes evidence for copyright policy?’ will be held on 8 November 2012 in the Executive Business Centre.

Professors Towse and Kretschmer write: “This interactive event offers the opportunity for discussion on evidence for copyright policy between social scientists, policy-makers and producers and users of copyright works. Copyright law is a topical and contentious area that affects a wide range of stakeholders with differing views on copyright policy. The need for evidence-based policy on copyright policy was emphasised in the Hargreaves Review and has led to several calls for evidence from stakeholders. The responses they provide to the Intellectual Policy Office are varied in nature and quality; the IPO has responded by issuing guidelines on what constitutes acceptable evidence (which itself is contested).

“Besides being a matter of pressing public concern, copyright also attracts the interest of a broad range of social science disciplines each with its own rules of evidence. The emphasis on economic growth as the objective of copyright policy has shifted the need for evidence in the direction of economics but economic evidence is not always easily available. Nor it is the case that only quantitative evidence is regarded as valid.”

The event will involve the following:

  1. Social scientists in a range of disciplines will explore their perceptions of evidence in non-technical terms and discuss their research findings on copyright. The aim is to develop a perspective on what evidence social scientists believe is relevant for copyright policy-making purposes.
  2. Representatives of stakeholder organisations that have responded with evidence to the IPO’s calls for evidence will explain what to them is relevant evidence.
  3. IPO staff responsible for assessing responses to calls for evidence have already committed to participate in this event. They will explain how they use the information they receive from stakeholder meetings and calls for evidence to develop policy measures.

If you are interested to participate, please contact Dr Rebecca Edwards (Research Development Officer, Public Engagement): redwards@bournemouth.ac.uk