As part of the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), the UK research councils, led by NERC, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), are taking a leadership role in generating inter-disciplinary research and communities which can address the issue of ‘Building Resilience’.
Building resilience rests on the ability to take a holistic approach which encompasses environmental knowledge, socio-economics, infrastructure, governance, and the history and culture of a community or region that is affected. It will require new inter-disciplinary research and recognition of the importance of engaging with local actors to understand what knowledge is required and how it can be implemented to design solutions that help all parts of society.
The call is open to proposals addressing resilience to natural and man-made environmental hazards in a range of developing world contexts. The focus is on how to build resilience in relation to both sudden and slow-onset environmental hazards (eg land-degradation, deforestation, drought, hurricanes, climate change) taking into account the intersections and relationships with other contexts such as conflict and fragility, poverty and famine, urbanisation, economics and health / disease risks.
The call will fund foundation-building activities to stimulate the creation of inter-disciplinary international research communities; to enable broader, deeper and more effective collaborations with beneficiaries and user organisations at the forefront of the development agenda; test new innovative ideas and inter-disciplinary approaches for addressing the issue of developing resilience. All proposals are expected to take an inter-disciplinary approach, bringing together environmental science with social science and arts and humanities.
A total of £3.3 million of funding is available for this call. Awards are expected to vary in scale according to the nature of the activities proposed and not to exceed £200,000 (at 100 per cent full economic costs). The funders anticipate funding 15-20 projects ranging from 3-9 months. A small number of projects of 12 months duration can be funded. Successful projects will be expected to start no later than 1 November 2016.
The closing date for applications is 16.00 on 6 September 2016.
Workshop
There will be a workshop on 19 July 2016 to provide more information on the call and facilitate the development of collaborations between academics from different disciplines and between academics, beneficiaries and users. To apply to attend please complete the online application form by 27 June 2016.
Further information
Further details about the call and workshop can be found on the NERC website. If you are interested in applying to this call then please contact the RKEO Funding Development Team in the first instance.
UKCDS have launched
As you will know, the Government has published a 
Newton Fund RCUK-DIPI-TRF-NAFOSTED Research Partnerships Call
Academics who are applying for external funding from the EU, such as Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellowships, have been asking whether the EU referendum results will impact on funding available. The RKEO advise that at this stage, there has been no confirmation received that funding will not be available to UK HEIs. As we are unsure how things are going to pan out and it potentially could take 2 years for us to leave the EU from when they operationalise article 50, we would suggest you continue as planned. We should operate on the basis of business as usual and continue to develop high quality bids.
Open funding competition 
As part of the Global Challenges Research Fund, NERC, AHRC & ESRC
MRC have written to us outlining a recent update to its funding policy to allow the inclusion of a one-page ‘methodology and experimental design’ annex to the case for support.










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