Category / Funding opportunities

Funding opportunity – Policy research programme NIHR

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities, NHS

There are currently two calls available under the Policy Research Programme offered by the NIHR.

Call 1 :  Infectious Disease Dynamic Modelling in Health Protection Call

The National Institute for Health Research Policy Research Programme (NIHR PRP) invites applications for the call: Infectious Disease Dynamic Modelling in Health Protection to address two key areas:

  • A stream of dynamical disease and health economic modelling relating to the national vaccination programme. This will provide an alternative or ‘second’ opinion to and run parallel with, that provided by Public Health England (PHE).
  • Modelling of other infectious diseases that lie outside the immunisation programme

This programme will provide a responsive dynamic resource to augment the analytical support currently provided within the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and PHE, which contributes towards the development of infectious disease and immunisation.

Submission Deadline : 2 October 2018 (Stage 1); 22 January 2019 (Stage 2)

Submission outcome : December 2018 (Stage 1); May 2019 (Stage 2)

Call 2: Health Inequalities Research Initiative

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Policy Research Programme (PRP) invites applications to undertake health inequalities research for the call: Health Inequalities Research Initiative to support policy makers in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in the following areas:

  • Assessing how to improve existing population wide policies aimed at improving health outcomes so that they so they also reduce health inequalities and/or do not exacerbate inequalities
  • Identifying which existing health system interventions that are specifically designed to reduce socio-economic health inequalities are effective and cost-effective
  • Assessing the effectiveness in reducing health inequalities of whole system approaches to improving the health of deprived communities;
  • Identifying opportunities and risks presented by advancements in digital technology, and practical measures to ensure such technology does not exacerbate socio-economic health inequalities

Submission Deadline : 2 October 2018 (Stage 1); 22 January 2019 (Stage 2)

Submission outcome : December 2018 (Stage 1); May 2019 (Stage 2)

Please see this link for more information about this call.

ERC Work Programme 2019 published

Funding opportunities, international

With a slight delay, the European Research Council (ERC) has published the Work Programme for 2019. While the Starting Grant 2019 call is open and preparation of proposals may already be at their final stage, academics may refer to ERC Work Programme 2019 for further information on ERC Consolidator Grant(submission deadline 07/02/2019), Advanced Grant (29/08/2019), Synergy grant (08/11/2018) and Proof of Concept Grant (cut-off dates 22/01/2019, 25/04/2019 and 19/09/2019).

In the meantime, ERC has published an article “Applying for ERC funding – myths vs reality”. Academics might be interested to find out more about ERC grant application process from the point of view of a person who has experience from both sides of the fence; Professor Superti-Furga, a molecular and systems biologist, has won several ERC grants from 2009 to 2015 and became a member of the ERC’s Scientific Council in 2017.

The fundamental activity of the ERC is to provide attractive, long-term funding to support excellent investigators and their research teams to pursue ground-breaking, high-gain/high-risk research.

There are great support opportunities available at BU for academics planning to apply for EU and International funding. If you are considering applying for international funding, contact international research facilitator or any member of RKEO Funding Development Team at your faculty to individually discuss your ideas and the ways we could support you.

EU funding – UKRO Annual Visit to BU

Funding opportunities, international

As announced earlier, RKEO will host annual UK Research Office visit to BU on 10th October 2018. The event will take place in FG06 seminar room (Fusion Building). Session will be delivered by Dr Andreas Kontogeorgos, European Advisor of the UK Research Office.

Bookings for this event are now open to BU Staff and, so that catering will be arranged, confirm attendance by Wednesday, 3rd October – please book your place following a link on event’s intranet page.

The sessions for BU academics will commence at 11:30 with an update on Brexit, followed by a networking lunch. In the afternoon session there will be a review of future ICT-related calls and more detailed overview of the COST Actions funding scheme – please see full agenda below.

Time Activity
11:30 – 12:00 Brexit News, Q&A (to be continued during lunch if necessary)

(All invited/registered from 11:30 to 15:15)
12:00 – 13:00 Networking lunch
13:00 – 14:15 Cross-disciplinary nature of ICT – forthcoming Horizon 2020 calls and topics under pillars of Industrial Leadership and Societal Challenges
14:15 – 14:30 Comfort break / over-run time / time for people to come and in and out
14:30 – 15:15 COST Actions – bottom-up driven networks for expanding European Cooperation in Science and Technology
15:15 – 16:30 15 minute 1-2-1s
16:30 Close

A number of 15 minute 1-2-1 sessions available with Andreas (UKRO) and Ainar (BU International Research Facilitator) – here, you can discuss your European funding plans and ambitions with either of them. To book your 1-2-1 meeting, please make a note about this when booking for the main event or email directly to RKEDevFramework@bournemouth.ac.uk with “UKRO 1-2-1” in subject field.

If you have an interest in applying to Horizon 2020 and other European funding, please make full use of BU’s subscription by registering to receive updates from UKRO. On their website, you can access subscriber-exclusive support materials including call fact-sheets and details of future UKRO events.

Funding opportunity : ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities

The ESRC has announced funding opportunity for a new phase of its National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM), which is an exciting opportunity for a team to develop and deliver a strategy for methods training and capacity-building in the social sciences. The team will be responsible for :

  • co-ordinating ESRC’s investment in research methods training
  • delivering a strategically informed and diverse programme of research methods training
  • identifying, implementing and sharing best practice.

Please see below a summary of the funding opportunity:

Deadline for Expression of interest (EOI) : 18 October 2018

Deadline for full proposal : 22 November 2018

Project start date : 1 October 2019

Available funding: £3million for five years

Please see this link for more information about this funding opportunity.

Funding opportunity : Population Research Catalyst Award

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities

Cancer Research UK is announcing another round of funding in autumn 2018 for the Population Research Catalyst Award which supports capacity building and collaboration in population health with up to £5 million enabling groups to deliver impact over and above what they could do alone.

The Award aims to:

  • Boost progress aligned to our strategic priorities
  • Build new collaborations within and between institutions, nationally and internationally
  • Build capacity in population research

Applicants will need to:

  • Establish a hub across at least 3 locations creating a new collaboration (collaborating institutions may be international, but the hub should consist of at least one UK based institution)
  • Support a new research direction for the hub, in line with CRUK strategic priority areas
  • Commit to data sharing and open access to resources
  • Plan for sustainability beyond the lifetime of the award

For more information about this call and how to apply, please see this link.

Funding opportunity : Centre for Cultural Value

Funding opportunities

On 30 September 2018, the AHRC Centre for Cultural Value funding call will be open for application.

The creation of a new national Centre for Cultural Value through this AHRC funding will be first of its kind in the UK.

The aim of the Centre for Cultural Value will be to advance understanding of the value of arts and culture in the UK and abroad, to present how this value is being captured and to encourage organisations to act on that knowledge. As such, the Centre will function as a custodian and communicator, broker and facilitator; it will synthesise existing research and bring together organisations and sectors with an interest in using evidence about cultural value in their work.

The Centre will be funded jointly by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Paul Hamlyn Foundation (PHF) and Arts Council England, with a major investment of around £2.5 million over five years.

Please see below a summary of this funding opportunity:

Call opens : 30 September 2018

Deadline :  30 November 2018

Available funding : around £2.5m over five years

Please see this link for more information about this funding opportunity.

Funding opportunity : Hydrogen Supply Competition

BU Challenges, Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation

A £20m Hydrogen Supply Programme is now open for registration of interest with a deadline of 21 November 2018. This £20 million Hydrogen Supply programme aims to accelerate the development of low carbon bulk hydrogen supply solutions in industry, power, heat and transport. It is aimed at projects at a technology readiness level (TRL) of 4 to 7, which could result in lower capital or operating costs when compared to Steam Methane Reformer with Carbon Capture & Storage (SMR+CCS), or improve the capture rates at a comparable cost.

The deadline to submit proposals is 5 December 2018.

For more information, please see this link.

 

TENDER opportunity : Study on energy costs, taxes and the impact of government interventions on investments in the energy sector

BU Challenges, Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation

The European Commission is currently advertising a tender opportunity on the ‘Study on energy costs, taxes and the impact of government interventions on investments in the energy sector’ with the following aim:

The aim is to collect information on energy generation costs, system and external costs in the energy sector, in parallel with looking at taxes related the use of energy paid to the general budget, and to build up an inventory on government interventions related to energy. The study will cover the 28 Member States of the EU, all major energy sources and beyond the energy sector the main energy consuming branches, such as industry, transport and agriculture. Beyond the EU the study aims at building a database as complete as possible for G20 countries. In order to feed in the initiatives of the Energy Union, the study will identify best practices in the EU Member States to measure subsidies to fossil fuels, and it will analyse the impact of fossil fuel subsidies on decarbonisation objectives of EU policies and investments in climate friendly energy technologies. The next energy prices and costs report and the State of the energy Union report could use the results of the study.

Please see below a summary of this funding opportunity:

Deadline for requests to participate: 24 October 2018

Available funding : EURO 2,000,000 (excluding VAT)

Duration : 18 months

Please see this link for more information on this tender opportunity.

 

 

Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security – EPSRC funding opportunity

Funding opportunities, Industry collaboration, innovation

EPSRC intends to establish a NetworkPlus to develop and build on industry-academic relationships in Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security (TIPS), bringing together relevant parts of the TIPS community and a variety of stakeholders, including the CyberInvest members and other users, to identify the key opportunities where industry-academic collaboration is needed, build collaborations and grow the area of research and innovation for the benefit of the UK.

Involvement from a broad range of disciplines relevant to TIPS is required to include those beyond the purely technical elements, such as psychology, politics, legal and ethical studies among others. Non-academic stakeholders, including CyberInvest partners, will be essential participants. The NetworkPlus could undertake a variety of activities including workshops, events, feasibility studies, secondments and horizon scanning. Applicants are encouraged to be innovative in their approach.

Please find a summary of the call below:

Opening date : 3 September 2018

Closing date : 3 December 2018

Available funding : £1.7m

There will be a webinar on 18 October at 14:30 which will feature a presentation from EPSRC contacts and an opportunity to ask any questions. To register to participate, please complete the registration form embedded on this call page. Please note: registration for the webinar will close on 17 October 2018 at 17:00.

Please see this link for more information about this funding call.

Predictive Cyber Analytics – Funding opportunity

BU Challenges, Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation

The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) competition welcomes proposals for novel approaches to predictive cyber security to address challenges in defence and/or security.

A total funding of £1M will be available in this Phase 1 of this competition. Around 5 to 10 proof-of-concept research projects up to 6 months of duration are expected. Further funding into future phases beyond this competition is anticipated to be available.

Details on how to apply will be included in the full competition document which will be available soon. Please sign up to alerts to keep up to date.

In the meantime, you will need to register for the new DASA Submission Service, noting you will not be able to view the competition until the full competition document is published.

Please click on this link to find out more about this competition and more on the submission process can be found here.

Queries should be sent to accelerator@dstl.gov.uk.

Research Professional – all you need to know

Funding opportunities

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise. The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using ResearchProfessional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of ResearchProfessional. To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on ResearchProfessional. They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional. The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat. Each session will cover:

  • Self registration and logging in
  • Building searches
  • Setting personalised alerts
  • Saving and bookmarking items
  • Subscribing to news alerts
  • Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the fourth Tuesday of each month. You can register here for your preferred date:

25th September 2018

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you.

Have you noticed a new box appear on the BU Research Blog homepage?

By clicking on this box, on the left of the Research Blog home page just under the text ‘Funding Opportunities‘, you access a Research Professional real-time search of the calls announced by the Major UK Funders. Use this feature to stay up to date with funding calls. Please note that you will have to be on campus or connecting to your desktop via our VPN to fully access this service.

Save the date – 10 October 2018 – UKRO Annual Visit to BU

Funding opportunities

RKEO will host annual UK Research Office visit on 10th October 2018. The event will take place provisionally in FG06 seminar room. All staff interested in EU funding are invited to attend. This session will be delivered by Dr Andreas Kontogeorgos, European Advisor of the UK Research Office.

We are preparing agenda which is expected to include such topics as Brexit and the next EU framework programme Horizon Europe. More information on agenda will be provided in September. Academics are kindly requested to submit any other EU funding related topics for discussion to Ainar Blaudums at RKEO by the end of August.

UKRO is the European office of the UK Research Councils. It delivers a subscription-based advisory service for research organisations (in the main UK HEIs) and provides National Contact Point services on behalf of the UK Government. UKRO’s mission is to maximise UK engagement in EU-funded research, innovation and higher education activities. As part of UKRO services, BU members of staff may sign up to receive personalised email alerts.

N.B. BU staff considering applying for EU and other international funding should contact Research Facilitator for EU and International funding Ainar Blaudums for further information and support.

International funding opportunities – upcoming information and brokerage events

Funding opportunities, international

The following events may be of interest for BU academics considering applying for grants in their respective research area.

Thursday 13 September 2018 (between 09:00 – 11:00) – Work towards a greener future at Low Carbon Vehicles

Enterprise Europe Network and Innovate UK invite you to participate in a B2B matchmaking event as part of Low Carbon Vehicles 2018 (In order to participate in the B2B matchmaking event, attendees must be also registered for LCV2018 event). The aim of the event is to provide the opportunity for UK and overseas delegates to arrange 1-2-1 meetings to identify and explore potential areas of mutual benefit.

Tuesday 18 September 2018 (09:00 – 16:30) – UK Info & Brokerage Event: Horizon 2020 – Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Biotechnology and Advanced Manufacturing and Processing

Innovate UK and the Knowledge Transfer Network are hosting the Horizon 2020 NMBP event which is aimed at supporting collaboration across the UK and Europe. Event is organised to promote funding opportunities available for Nanotechnologies, Advanced Materials, Biotechnology and Advanced Manufacturing and Processing through Horizon 2020 programme.

Wednesday 26 September 2018 (09:45 – 16:15) – Horizon 2020 Information & Brokerage Event: Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy

Innovate UK and the Knowledge Transfer Network are hosting the Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 2 event which is aimed at supporting collaboration across the UK and Europe. Event is organised to promote funding opportunities available for food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy through Horizon 2020 programme.

 

Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body funded by a grant-in-aid from the UK government. The aim of Innovate UK is to drive productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas, including those from the UK’s world-class research base.

Enterprise Europe Network mainly provides specialist support to small businesses to help to do business in Europe and beyond, however their database of events may also be useful for academics.

Funding available : Developing early-stage, user-centred design

Funding opportunities, innovation

Up to £1million is available to UK businesses to apply for early-stage, human-centred research and design projects to influence future R&D activity, with an aim to help businesses that want to explore opportunities to innovate based on customer, user and stakeholder needs and behaviours.

To be eligible to lead a project you must:

  • be a UK-registered business or RTO (non-profit research and technology organisations including catapults)
  • carry out your project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results in or from the UK

Businesses can work alone or in collaboration with project partners. If an RTO is leading the application, they must have at least one business collaborator.

Collaborative project partners can include:

  • businesses
  • universities (higher education institutions)
  • non-profit research and technology organisations (RTOs) including catapults
  • public sector research establishments (PSRE)
  • research council institutes
  • public sector organisations or charities undertaking research activity

See a summary of the funding opportunity below:

Deadline : Wednesday, 19 September 2018, 12noon

Funding available : between £10,000 and £40,000

Project dates : must start by 1 January 2019; end by 31 March 2019 and last no more than 3 months

Click this link to find out more.

Funding available : boosting SME productivity through proof of concept

BU Challenges, Funding opportunities, innovation

The government has announced the Business Basics Programme through its Industrial Strategy which will test innovative ways of encouraging micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt existing technologies and business practices that can boost productivity.

This is the first phase of the Business Basics Fund. This strand of funding is for undertaking proof of concept (PoC) or feasibility projects with a potential of applying for further funding to scale up successful PoC or feasibility projects into full trials in the future.

Please see below a summary of this funding opportunity:

Deadline : 4 September 2018; 12noon

Funding available : £60,000

Project dates : Must start by 1 November 2018; end by 31 April 2019; can last between 3 and 6 months.

Click on this link for more information on how to apply.

 

Update on ERC Starting Grant 2019 call opening

Funding opportunities

European Research Council has announced that the adoption of the 2019 ERC Work Programme, originally planned for mid-July, is expected in mid-September. The 2019 Starting Grant call, which was expected to be opened in mid-July, will open upon Work Programme adoption. It means that the Starting Grant call will be open for a shorter time than usual, as the call closure date is expected to be 17 October 2018.

The annual Work Programme for the European Research Council is the legal document which sets out how the ERC will allocate its funding for the corresponding year. It is established by the Scientific Council of the ERC and subsequently adopted by the European Commission.

Although, the new Work Programme will be similar to the Work Programme 2018, the Scientific Council has decided on the introduction of some novelties. Main changes expected in the ERC Work Programme 2019 relate to the following:

– evaluation criteria of Frontier Research Grants;
– calculation adjustments for Starting and Consolidator Grants eligibility windows;
– Open Access.

You may find more information on anticipated changes in this document.

According to the UK Research Office whilst none of these changes can be confirmed definitively until the publication of the 2019 Work Programme, applicants are encouraged to begin their development of proposals on this basis and to utilise the support documents available for the Starting Grant 2018 call as an initial guide.

If you are interested in applying to any of ERC grants, please contact your RKEO Funding Development Officer or Research Facilitator – International Ainar Blaudums for further information and support regarding ERC and other international funding opportunities.