Category / Funding opportunities

Innovate UK launch open funding programme

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange

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Are you working with a business that would be interested in this funding opportunity? Research organisations can participate as project collaborators. (The level of total research participation is set at a maximum of 30% of total eligible project costs.)

UK businesses can apply for a share of up to £15 million to deliver transformational innovations with potential for impact on the UK economy.

The competition is now live and open to the best business-led, innovative or disruptive ideas or concepts. These can be drawn from any technology, engineering or industrial area. This area can be one that fits into, or be outside of, any one or more of Innovate UK’s 4 priority sectors for growth. (Emerging and Enabling Technologies, Health and Life Sciences, Infrastructure Systems, Manufacturing and Materials.)

To be in scope, a proposal must:

  • demonstrate transformational or disruptive innovation leading to novel, new products, processes or services
  • articulate a clear, anticipated growth and commercialisation impact for the business(es) with considerable, demonstrable (as you would set out in a pitch to any serious investor) potential to lead to a significant return on investment (ROI)

Priority will be given to proposals that are likely to lead to sustainable gains in productivity and/or access to new overseas markets through export-led business growth.

To lead a project you must:

  • be a UK-based business
  • be a business of any size
  • carry out your project in the UK
  • work alone or in collaboration with others (businesses, research base and third sector) – this could be BU

For more information click here for:

or more information on knowledge exchange at BU contact Jayne Codling within RKEO.

 

research*eu – latest update

Funding opportunities, international

EveryCORDIS research eu month the European Commission publishes research*eu, their round-up of the latest news from research projects funded by their various schemes.

The following highlights will be of interest to academics at BU:

October 2016 (Special feature: What we can learn from insects?)

November 2016 (Special feature: Shaping the future of offshore wind)

By taking a look at these items and the many others reported in research*eu, you may find potential partners or spark ideas for future research collaboration. In addition, CORDIS, the European Commission’s primary portal for results of EU-funded research projects, provides a wealth of information to assist you when building a new project.

If you are considering applying for EU funding, please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU & International, to discuss your ideas!

Researcher in residence programme

Funding opportunities, innovation

Technology in the hands

Open call

Digital Catapult and the RCUK Digital Economy (DE) Theme is now accepting applications for the Researchers in Residence Programme, to be hosted at the Digital Catapult Centre in London or at one of the local centres (Northern Ireland, Yorkshire, Brighton and North East & Tees Valley).

Projects can either be applied or more strategic in nature:

Applied projects will generally be user-centred and focused on impact generation in the short to medium term. Proposals should be relevant to one or more of the current Digital Catapult technology layers.

Strategic projects will help shape current Digital Catapult projects, and drive the creation of new activities or projects relevant to Digital Catapult’s overall mission. Proposals that highlight potential new directions, new users and novel means of impact generation are encouraged. The focus should be impact generation in the broadest sense. Projects could be undertaken on either a full time basis or via a series of short secondments to Digital Catapult.

Eligibility: Open to those with a contract of employment at a UK university, or PhD students who have submitted their thesis by the closing date, Sunday 8 January 2017.

Timeline: The closing date is 23:59, Sunday 8 January 2017 with decisions due by early March. The programme will run until 2018, with two funding calls each year. The next round will open for applications in summer.

Funding: all residencies will benefit from a grant of up to £25,000 to cover expenses, including travel and accommodation.

Further information

Newsletter and more information about Digtal Catapult

 

 

Research Professional – all you need to know

Funding opportunities

Research-Professional-logoEvery 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:

24th January 2017

28th February 2017

28th March 2017

25th April 2017

23rd May 2017

27th June 2017

25th July 2017

22nd August 2017

26th September 2017

24th October 2017

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.

BU host MRC regional visit

Funding opportunities

logo_mrcEvent Date: Wednesday the 1st March 2017

Time: 13:30pm – 15:30pm

On Wednesday, 1st March 2017, the Medical Research Council (MRC) will be visiting BU between 1.30pm and 3.30pm. The presentation will provide:

  • tips on writing a good application, including such documents as ‘pathways to impact’;
  • an overview of the peer review process for all types of application
  • how to respond to your reviewer comments
  • an overview of MRC fellowship schemes

The presentation is open to the regional university network, known as the M3 group, which includes: AUB, Bournemouth, Brighton, Portsmouth, Reading, Southampton, Southampton Solent, Surrey, Sussex and Winchester. All academics and research offices are welcome to attend.  If you are interested in applying to any of the research councils then this will be useful to you.

BU will host a pre-event networking lunch for all attendees from 12 noon. This is a great opportunity to learn about the inner workings of the research councils and how you can strengthen your applications for funding. If you would like to attend, then please book through Eventbrite.

About the MRC: The Medical Research Council improves human health through world-class medical research. They fund research across the biomedical spectrum, from fundamental lab-based science to clinical trials, and in all major disease areas. Their research has resulted in life-changing discoveries for over a hundred years. They are the largest research council with a budget expenditure of £927.8m in 2015/16.

For further information on this event please contact: RKEDevFramework@bournemouth.ac.uk

Research Networking Scheme – Funding opportunity

Funding opportunities

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The Research Networking Scheme is intended to support forums for the discussion and exchange of ideas on a specified thematic area, issue or problem. The intention is to facilitate interactions between researchers and stakeholders through, for example, a short-term series of workshops, seminars, networking activities or other events. The aim of these activities is to stimulate new debate across boundaries, for example, disciplinary, conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and/or international. Proposals should explore new areas, be multi-institutional and can include creative or innovative approaches or entrepreneurship. Proposals must justify the approach taken and clearly explain the novelty or added value for bringing the network participants together.

Proposals for full economic costs up to £30,000 for a period of up to two years may be submitted.

This scheme operates without formal deadlines

All applications to this scheme must be submitted via the cross-council Joint Electronic Submission – (JE-S) System. If you need any assistance to use the system, please contact the JE-S helpdesk on 01793 444164 or on JesHelp@rcuk.ac.uk.

For more information click here

Public Engagement Fund – Funding call

Funding opportunities

rfp-image-620x620Wellcome exists is a global charitable foundation, both politically and financially independent. It exists to improve health for everyone by helping great ideas to thrive.

They currently offer number of funding schemes and one of them is public engagement fund.

Public Engagement Fund is for anyone with a great idea for engaging the public in conversations about health-related science and research. It replaces the Society, People, Large Arts, Small Arts, Development, Co-production, Capital and International Engagement Awards. Read more here.

The fund is open to anyone, including those working in:

  • the arts
  • entertainment media
  • museums and heritage
  • leisure, sport and tourism
  • education and informal learning
  • the community, charity and public sectors.

Scheme at a glance

Proposal stage:

Research and development, Production and project delivery, Developing practice and building networks

Where your activity will take place:

UK, Republic of Ireland, Some low- and middle-income countries

Level of funding:

You can apply for anything from £5,000 up to £3 million

Duration of funding:

Up to 5 years

For more information click here.

Engagement Fellowships – Funding call

Funding opportunities

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Wellcome exists is a global charitable foundation, both politically and financially independent. It exists to improve health for everyone by helping great ideas to thrive.

They currently offer number of funding schemes and one of them is engagement fellowships.

 

Engagement Fellowships support and develop the careers of emerging leaders in public engagement.

Engagement Fellowships are open to a wide range of people, including:

  • professional science communicators
  • academics exploring health and wellbeing (eg, biomedical or social scientists and medical historians)
  • clinicians or healthcare professionals
  • professionals working in the arts and creative industries.

Scheme at a glance

Where your audience is:

UK, Republic of Ireland

Level of funding:

Salary and research expenses covered

Duration of funding:

Up to 2 years

For more information and how to apply click here.

AHRC – Securing the future of arts and humanities research in the UK

Funding opportunities, student research

ahrcPlans for a new round of Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) have been launched by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Designed to provide world-class training opportunities for arts and humanities doctoral students in the UK, this new round of DTPs will commence in 2018 and provide studentships that begin in October 2019.

Research organisations, based in the UK, that are interested in helping to deliver the scheme should look to form a consortium of at least two organisations. To meet the key criteria for DTP2, organisations will be required to focus on excellent training, championing inter-disciplinarity and deepening collaboration with the voluntary, public and commercial sectors.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council is the largest UK funder of postgraduate training in the arts and humanities.

Research organisations delivering the Doctoral Training Partnerships will make the decisions about tailored studentship awards based on the needs of each student.

Any consortium of research organisations that are interested in applying for a Doctoral Training Partnership need to submit a statement of intent by the 13th April 2017. Early in 2017, the AHRC will be running a series of town hall meetings and surgeries to discuss the schemes in more detail.  A research organisation can only be involved in one application.  Therefore, if you’re forming a consortium or have been asked to join one then you must inform RKEO by 31st January 2017.  Please contact Jo Garrad, RKEO Funding Development Manager.

More information and guidelines on the Doctoral Training Partnerships 2 Call can be found on the AHRC website.

RKEDF Workshop – Innovate UK: A Guide to Funding

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

rkeo-dev-logo-squareAs part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, RKEO are holding a workshop for academics to learn more about funding opportunities from Innovate UK.  This workshop will be led by our local Innovate UK KTP Adviser and the will be talking about various Innovate UK funding opportunities.  There will also be a drop-in session for one-to-one advice.

Venue: Talbot Campus

Date: Friday 9th December 2016

Time: 10.00-12.00

Book your space by contacting Organisational Development.

For further information, please contact Rachel Clarke, KE Adviser.

Latest Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

Money Bear FundingThe following is a snap-shot of funding opportunities that have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

Arts and Humanities Research Council

Follow-on funding for impact and engagement scheme

These support innovative and creative engagements with new audiences and user communities that stimulate pathways to impact within the area of arts and humanities. Grants are worth up to £100,000 over a maximum period of one year. Smaller grants of up to £30,000 may be awarded for shorter or higher risk activities.

Maximum award: £100,000

 Closing date: None open call

Research grants – early-career route

These enable individual researchers to collaborate with, and bring benefits to, other individuals and organisations through the conduct of research related to the arts and humanities, and support researchers at the start of their careers in gaining experience of managing and leading research projects. Provides grants for projects with a full economic cost (fEC) between £50,000 and £250,000 for a varying duration up to a limit of 60 months.

Maximum award: £200,000

Closing date: None open call

Research grants – standard route

These support research projects by enabling individual researchers to collaborate with, and bring benefits to, other individuals and organisations through the conduct of research related to the arts and humanities. The standard route provides grants for projects with a full economic cost (fEC) between £50,000 and £1,000,000 for a varying duration up to a limit of 60 months.

Maximum award: £800,000

Closing date: None open call

Economic and Social Research Council

COMING SOON: UK in changing Europe – Brexit priority grants

*** The Economic and Social Research Council will shortly be inviting applications for its UK in changing Europe – Brexit priority grants. Applications are expected to open at the beginning of December and to close on 25 January 2017. Call information will be published when applications open. The following information is subject to change. These grants support additional activity, including research synthesis and potential new short-term research activity, related to the process of the UK leaving the EU. The grants will be between £100,000 and £300,000 (100 per cent fEC, with the ESRC contributing 80 per cent fEC) and for a duration of up to 18 months. The ESRC expects grants to commence on 1 April 2017.

Be aware this is a pre-call and there may be further conditions announced in the full call.

Maximum award: £240,000

Closing date: 25 Jan 17 (forecast)

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Whole energy systems scoping studies

The EPSRC/Energy systems catapult will fund up to eight studies across the six areas identified. Scoping studies are expected to be up to a maximum of nine months in duration and up to £60k (80% FEC) in value. Funding could be used for researcher time, travel, workshops and other engagement activities to further develop consortia and larger programmes of work. Interdisciplinary collaboration and consortia building within applications is strongly encouraged as is partnership and engagement activities with organisations outside of academia e.g. Government, regulators and industry.

Maximum award: £60,000

Closing date: 19 Jan 17

 Medical Research Council

Health systems research initiative fourth call – providing evidence to strengthen health systems in low- and middle income countries

This is the fourth annual call for the Health Systems Research Initiative. Up to £6million is available for funding proposals under this call.  Innovative proposals are sought from across the public health, social and biomedical sciences and must clearly identify what health system challenge is being addressed. Proposals must situate this clearly-defined challenge within an understanding of the broader health system linkages and describe how and why findings from the project have the potential to improve the health of people living in low and middle-income countries. Funding is available for research only; we will not fund the routine delivery of health services.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 24 Jan 17

Improving cross-sector comparisons – beyond QALY

This supports research into the possibility of creating a measure of quality of life or wellbeing, which would have utility across health and social care. Grants may be awarded for any period of up to five years.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 21 Jun 17 (recurring)

 

Methodological research for health and care systems modelling – identifying and measuring spillover effects

Funding supports research into methodologies for developing models which may enable identification, measurement and understanding of spillover effects in health service and public health systems.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 21 Jun 17 (recurring)

Methods research to support the use of observational data in clinical decision making – highlight notice

Funding supports the development of innovative methods for identifying, synthesising, interpreting and presenting observational data for use in guidance development and clinical decision-making, both at the national level and for individual patients, and in particular, how one may interpret and rationalise data from different sources.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 21 Jun 17 (recurring)

Royal Society, GB

Royal Society/Leverhulme Trust senior research fellowships

These enable academic researchers to be relieved of all their teaching and administrative duties and to concentrate on full-time research in all areas of the life and physical sciences, including engineering, but excluding clinical medicine. A total of seven fellowships are provided each year. The fellow’s employing institution receives reimbursement for the full salary costs for the fellow. Research expenses of up to a maximum of £2,500 are available to cover the cost of consumables, equipment and travel.

Maximum award: Not known

Closing date: 18 Jan 17 (recurring)

Wellcome Trust, GB

Research bursaries

These support individuals working on small- and medium-scale research projects based on library or archive collections supported by the trust. Bursaries are usually worth between £5,000 and £25,000 each, and may contribute towards travel, subsistence and research expenses.

Maximum award: £25,000

Closing date: 31 Mar 17 (recurring)

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact your  RKEO Funding Development Officer with adequate notice before the deadline.

For more funding opportunities that are most relevant to you, you can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in  RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

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

Science and Technology Committee – Leaving the EU report

Funding opportunities

The House of Commons Science and Technology committee’s report into leaving the EU has been published.

To quote the main points from the summary:

  • “The Government has provided some helpful and welcome short-term reassurances in relation to underwriting EU funding for research and maintaining access to student loans, but the Government’s strategy for communicating these recent announcements is insufficient.”
  • “we are not convinced that the needs of science and research are at the heart of the Department for Exiting the European Union’s (DExEU) thinking and planning for Brexit. Science should have a strong voice as part of the negotiations. DExEU needs a Chief Scientific Adviser urgently. The Government should also involve the interim Chair of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)”
  • “the Government should now act to reduce uncertainty by setting out a vision for science. This should include commitments to raise science expenditure as a percentage of GDP (as we have previously urged).  It should also include measures to attract skilled researchers and students, to be taken forward in Brexit negotiations separately from immigration controls more broadly, and should include an immediate commitment to exempt EU researchers already working here from any wider potential immigration controls.”
  • “The Government must also seek to capitalise on the opportunities of Brexit, including in terms of setting regulations to facilitate accessing markets and research collaborations beyond the EU.”

On the EU funding guarantee, the report concludes that this is helpful to provide reassurance but that it doesn’t go very far, because it would be strange if the EU were not required to honour its contractual commitments under awards made before the UK leaves the EU and so it is unlikely that there will ever be a call under the guarantee.  However, given that there was widespread concern – whether justified or not – in the summer, the guarantee has been given in order to encourage people to keep bidding and to provide reassurance of the government’s commitment to mitigating these potential direct negative effects of Brexit.  However, if this is its main purpose, the report notes that it hasn’t really been communicated very well – hence the high level point noted in the report’s summary.

What matters to science and research?  The report highlights 5 main issues:

  • Funding – e.g. on-going participation in H2020 after Brexit or a UK replacement for it
  • People – guarantees for those already here and attracting EU researchers after Brexit, and Erasmus
  • Collaboration – being able to participate in international projects and influence the EU research agenda
  • Regulation – influencing EU regulation which might otherwise stifle innovation
  • Facilities – access for UK researchers to EU facilities

Note on people that the Education Committee are running a separate inquiry into the impact of Brexit on staff and students, and we have just submitted evidence – read it here.  The report notes that it is not clear whether Brexit will mean that EU staff become subject to the same controls as international staff – and of course there is about to be a new consultation on what the controls for international employees are going to be.

The report calls for a specific guarantee for staff already in post.  Note that Jo Johnson made helpful noises about this in the House of Commons this week – he “expects” that this assurance will be given but it depends on reciprocity (so it will come later in the negotitations?).

ESRC – UK in a Changing Europe – Brexit Priority Grants

Funding opportunities

ESRC logoPre-call announcement

The ESRC will shortly be launching a call under the UK in a Changing Europe initiative for Brexit Priority Grants. These are to support additional activity (including research synthesis and potential new short-term research activity) related to the process of the UK leaving the European Union.

The grants will be between £100,000 and £300,000 (100 per cent fEC, with the ESRC contributing 80 per cent fEC) and for a duration of up to 18 months. The ESRC expects grants to commence on 1 April 2017.

Whilst grants under the call will be able to support new research, grant holders will be expected to undertake stakeholder and public engagement activity throughout the grant’s duration. Grant holders will also be expected to work closely with the initiative, led by Director Professor Anand Menon in communicating the research.

The ESRC intends to launch the call at the beginning of December 2016, and it is expected to close at 16.00 on 25 January 2017.

The following initial themes have been identified as potential priorities:

  • Key policy areas and their impact on the UK: the single market and its implications for trade, labour market dynamics, and internal migration (within Europe); financial services regulation, monetary policy, and the future of the eurozone; the EU’s external relations; policies relating to internal security and justice; energy and environmental policy.
  • The UK and the workings of European institutions: European institutions, democracy, governance, regulation; the influence of member states and sub-national regions on EU decision making; the implications of multi speed integration, including of further eurozone integration on non euro members; legal aspects of membership and non-membership.
  • Attitudes towards the EU: Social and political attitudes; the nature of euroscepticism; the role of the media in shaping public and political attitudes.
  • A Changing UK: The impact of legal, constitutional, policy and political change in the UK on the relationship.

If you are interested in applying then please contact your RKEO Funding Development Officer in the first instance.