Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University
NERC have published their annual report of 2014/15. This includes their strategic direction and highlights of the year.
Research Professional have written an article about the decrease in NERC success rates and why demand management measures have been put in place. You may find this a useful take on the report.
A new scheme to protect small businesses from cyber-attacks was announced by the Government last week.
Speaking at the Reform “Cyber Security: assurance, resilience, response” conference in London, Digital Economy Minister Ed Vaizey has outlined how a new voucher scheme designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) will launch later this month.
The launch of the voucher scheme is part of a package of initiatives designed to increase the resilience of UK businesses to cyber-attacks. The package also includes a new online learning and careers hub to help ensure the UK has the cyber skills talent pool to protect both the public and private sectors as we face the reality of increasing cyber threats.
The new UK £1m cyber security innovation vouchers scheme will offer micro, small and medium sized businesses up to £5,000 for specialist advice to boost their cyber security and protect new business ideas and intellectual property. The scheme will be overseen by the Government’s innovation experts at Innovate UK.
As well as helping protect businesses from cyber-attacks, the vouchers enable firms to access services from the UK cyber security industry. This new scheme will also help businesses to adopt Cyber Essentials, Government’s flagship scheme to protect businesses online.
The UK cyber security industry is strong and growing – worth £17.6bn and employs over 40,000 people – but more skilled people are needed to help protect the nation as the UK goes digital and adopts new technologies.
For more information on how to apply, contact the Bournemouth University Cyber Security Unit on 01202 962 557 or email us at bucsu@bournemouth.ac.uk.
The full text of this article can be found here.
The Leverhulme Trust are offering up to £15,000 for UK universities to foster a new creative collaboration with an artist working in a discipline outside the applicant institution’s usual curriculum.
Apply after 10 April and by 10 September 2015. An artist may not apply directly – all applications must be made by the host institution.
See the call at https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/funding/grant-schemes/artist-residence-grants
The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information.
Arts and Humanities Research Council
PaCCS Conflict Theme (2 calls). The call for Interdisciplinary Innovation Awards (up to 18 months and up to £100,000 fEC) aims to support the development of innovative, adventurous, higher risk, interdisciplinary research, including projects at an earlier stage of interdisciplinary evolution and/or led by early career researchers. The call for Interdisciplinary Research Grants (up to 48 months and between £400,000 and £800,000 fEC) aims to support innovative interdisciplinary research proposals related to specific conflict themes. Closing Date: 22/10/15
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Highlight notice in novel tools and technologies for vaccinology. The BBSRC, MRC and EPSRC are working together on a scheme which aims to fund cutting edge technology across the Councils’ portfolios into vaccine development and early-stage manufacturing research, and foster research that may be applicable across different diseases.Expression of Interest Closing Date: 17/9/15 at 16:00
Economic and Social Research Council
Future Research Leaders 2016. The Future Research Leaders scheme aims to enable outstanding early-career social scientists, in partnership with their host organisation, to acquire the skills set to become the future world leaders in their field. Grants will be for a maximum of two years, with a pro-rata duration option for those employed part-time on a contract of 0.5 FTE or above. There is an overall limit of £230,000 (at 100 per cent full economic cost) although the actual amount you can apply for will vary depending on when you submitted your PhD and your level of academic experience. Closing Date: 29/9/15 at 16:00
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Healthcare Impact Partnerships 2015/2016. This call is open to eligible UK academics who have held an EPSRC grant or portfolio of grants relevant to the capabilities of Disruptive Sensing and Analysis or Medical Device Design and Innovation. An overall budget of £5m is available. Intention to submit a proposal Closing Date: 27/8/15 at 16:00
The Health Foundation
Behavioural Insights Research Programme will make up to £1 million available to support a number of multidisciplinary research teams, consisting of psychology and behavioural economists, health care professionals, support-staff and managers, patients and those with design expertise. Awards will be between £200,000 and £350,000 for research completed over two to three years. Closing Date: 30/9/15 at Noon.
Innovate UK
Developing regenerative medicines and cell therapies. Innovate are to invest up to £8 million in collaborative R&D projects to stimulate the development of regenerative medicines and cell therapies in the UK. Proposals must be collaborative and led by a business and projects are expected to range in size from total costs of £500,000 to £2.5 million. Registration closes: 26/8/15 at Noon. Expression of Interest Closing Date: 2/9/15 at Noon.
Natural Environment Research Council
Green Infrastructure Innovation Projects. Proposals are invited that address the issues and opportunities around green infrastructure (GI) in the planning and investment decisions that are made by local policymakers, local planners and organisations responsible for developing the built environment. A maximum of £125k may be requested for projects lasting up to two years. Closing Date: 22/10/15 at 16:00
Independent Research Fellowship (IRF) Scheme is designed to develop scientific leadership among the most promising early-career environmental scientists, by giving all fellows five years’ support. Closing Date: 1/10/15
Science for Humanitarian Emergencies & Resilience (SHEAR) research programme Research Consortia Grants 2015. Outline proposals are invited for world-leading research into hydrological controls on landslide hazard in South Asia or flood and drought risk assessment, modelling and forecasting in Sub-Saharan Africa. Funding of up to £2m full economic cost (FEC) will be available per consortium with a total available budget of £8m. Closing Date: 1/9/15 at 16:00
Understanding the Value of the Natural Environment for Improving Human Health & Wellbeing. A funding pot of up to £3·96m (80% FEC) from NERC, AHRC and ESRC is available, which is expected to support between three and six interdisciplinary proposals of up to three years duration. This will provide an opportunity for natural and social scientists, arts and humanities researchers to form substantial interdisciplinary research collaborations. Closing Date: 22/9/15
Royal Society
Newton International Fellowship. The scheme provides the opportunity for the best early stage post-doctoral researchers from all over the world to work at UK research institutions. Newton Fellowships last for two years. Funding consists of £24,000 per annum for subsistence costs, and up to £8,000 per annum research expenses, as well as a one-off payment of up to £2,000 for relocation expenses and may also be eligible to receive up to £6,000 annually following the tenure of their Fellowship to support networking activities with UK-based researchers. Closing Date: 9/9/15
Wellcome Trust
Seed Awards in Science. Grants of of up to £100,000 for up to two years will be made available to help researchers develop original and innovative ideas which propose to carry out interdisciplinary research across our Science, Medical Humanities, Society and Ethics and Innovations funding. Closing Date: 22/10/15
Sustaining Excellence Awards. The fund is targeted towards organisations which have an excellent track record with the Wellcome Trust (at least 3 awards drawn from any of the Engaging Science schemes) and a desire to maintain best practice in public engagement. Sustaining Excellence awards will typically be in the range of £90,000 to £1,000,000, spread across three to five years. Expression of Interest Closing Date: 25/9/15
World Health Organisation, EDCTP and the UK Medical Research Council
Research and capacity development in support of the EVD response. Proposals is to build and strengthen regional, national, institutional and individual capacities to conduct high quality health research (e.g. clinical trials, operational and/or implementation research) during infectious disease outbreaks resulting in health emergencies. Up to €250k is available per proposal. Closing Date: 6/8/15
Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Funding Development Officer
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.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have published their Annual Report and Accounts for 2014-15.
The report highlights key acheivements, how they performed, and consolidated accounts. The accounts show that the department’s spending on science and innovation in 2014-15 was around £500m, with £561m planned for 2015-16, including the budget for Innovate UK. Spending through the research councils remains stable at around £4.6 billion.
The MRC have published their Annual Report for 2014/15. This includes a strategic overview and highlights their key activities.
You can also read Research Professionals article on the decrease in MRC’s success rates.
The EPSRC have issued their annual report where they are focussing on securing better value for money and investing in skills training and research. You can read Research Professionals article on the EPSRC’s annual report here.
EPSRC have also issued a report of their funding rates for last year. In this period, EPSRC considered 2,386 research grant proposals through peer review and provided funding for 914, giving a funding rate of 38%. This amounted to a demand of £1,823M, with funding for £713M and funding rate by value of 39%.
According to Science|Business, the EU is considering mechanisms to manage the increasingly low EU grant success rates before research universities shy away from the EU calls.
“It’s more popular than ever before. But with our success rates we’re heading to a situation where we have to be very careful not to scare away top researchers,” Robert-Jan Smits, the European Commission’s Director-General for Research and Innovation, told Science|Business.
Apparently, the Commission is considering three approaches:
To read this article in full, please go to Science|Business, where you can also register for newsletter updates.
Fund now open !
The Follow-on Fund is a ‘proof of concept’ fund to support the commercialisation of ideas arising from that NERC-funded research.
This funding picks up where research programme and discovery science (responsive mode) grants leave off and enables those research outputs to be further developed so their commercial potential can be realised.
Examples of activities funded include technology licensing, launching technology-based products or services, selling know-how based consultancy services, and the commercialisation of NERC-funded datasets. Proposals are invited for projects pursuing any of these approaches or, indeed, others.
The Follow-on Fund will opens today – 14 July 2015 and close on 22 October 2015. This call will allow proposals for up to £125k at 100% FEC (£100k NERC contribution at 80% FEC) for up to 12 months, starting in April 2016.
For further information: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/available/schemes/followon/
The BBSRC have released their annual report for 2014-15. The report contains their highlights of the year as well as their strategy, priority and themes ‘the age of bioscience’
.
You may also be interested to see Research Professional’s article on BBSRC’s increased success rates for women.
The AHRC have released their annual report for 2014-15. The report contains their highlights of the year as well as their strategy, which highlights the trend towards increasing funding for those applications with non-academic partners.
You may also be interested to see Research Professional’s article on AHRC’s reduction of spend on research.
The following international workshops are all being advertised on the British Council website.
If you are an early-career researcher based in the UK or the partner country you can apply for a grant to participate.
Promotion of clean energy in resource-rich countries: case study of Kazakhstan
Date of workshop: 17-19 August 2015
Location of workshop: Astana, Kazakhstan
Partner country: Kazakhstan
Deadline for application: 7 July
Science, Technology and Innovation in Neglected Diseases: Policies, Funding and Knowledge Creation
Date of workshop: 17-20 November 2015
Location of workshop: Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Partner country: Brazil
Deadline for application: 17 August 2015
Date of workshop: 28 October – 1 November 2015
Location of workshop: Institute of Technology Bandung, Indonesia
Partner country: Indonesia
Deadline for applications: 13th July 2015
Materials Chemistry for Energy and the Environment: A UK-Indonesia Initiative
Date of workshop: 26-29 January 2016
Location of workshop: Bogor, Indonesia
Partner country: Indonesia
Deadline for applications: 1 September 2015
Date of workshop: 12-16 October 2015
Location of workshop: Sao Paulo, Brazil
Partner country: Brazil
Deadline for applications: 29 July 2015
Date of workshop: 3-6 November 2015
Location of workshop: Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico
Partner country: Mexico
Deadline for applications: 31 July 2015
The European Institute for Innovation and Technology (A European Commission body) has announced their Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC) calls for 2016:
To find out more and how you can get involved, the first port of call is the dedicated website, which includes slides outlining the announcement and timeline. There is also specific information for potential partners in the HE sector.
If you are not sure what a KIC does, the EIT website details:
As new types of partnerships within the European innovation landscape, KICs are characterised by the following features:
Still not sure? Take a look at the websites for the existing KICs: EIT Raw Materials, Climate-KIC, EIT Digital, EIT Health and KIC Innoenergy to see who is involved and what they have achieved.
The ESRC have released their annual report for 2014-15. As well as highlighting research that they have funded, it also sets out their strategy. This includes ‘Big Data’, building capability, impact, and international partnerships.
There are interesting sections on demand management (p.21-22) and Research Professional have written an article following up on this and success rates.
Announcement of Opportunity
The Innovation Projects Open Call will fund projects that increase and accelerate the uptake and impact of NERC funded research outputs by supporting translational and knowledge exchange activity which delivers direct tangible and demonstrable benefits to end users, particularly businesses.
Funds will be used to support projects which focus upon generating user applicable outputs from past and/or current NERC supported research and which translates them into outcomes that achieve impact.
The Innovation Projects Open call will open on 14 July 2015 and close on 22 October 2015. This call will allow proposals for up to £125k at 100% FEC (£100k NERC contribution at 80% FEC) for up to 24 months, starting in April 2016. NERC anticipates seeing a range of requests within the £125k limit/24 month limits, reflecting the range of potential projects and activities.
For further information: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/available/schemes/innovation-projects/
The Newton Fund have announced the following international funding opportunities with their closing dates. If you wish to apply for any of these, please contact Emily Cieciura, Research Facilitator – EU & International as soon as possible.
Announcement of Opportunity
The Follow-on Fund is a ‘proof of concept’ fund to support the commercialisation of ideas arising from that NERC-funded research.
This funding picks up where research programme and discovery science (responsive mode) grants leave off and enables those research outputs to be further developed so their commercial potential can be realised.
Examples of activities funded include technology licensing, launching technology-based products or services, selling know-how based consultancy services, and the commercialisation of NERC-funded datasets. Proposals are invited for projects pursuing any of these approaches or, indeed, others.
The Follow-on Fund will open on 14 July 2015 and close on 22 October 2015. This call will allow proposals for up to £125k at 100% FEC (£100k NERC contribution at 80% FEC) for up to 12 months, starting in April 2016.
For further information: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/available/schemes/followon/
NERC introduced demand management measures in 2012. These were revised in 2015 to reduce the number and size of applications from research organisations for NERC’s discovery science standard grant scheme. Full details can be found in the BU policy document for NERC demand management measures.
As at March 2015, BU has been capped at one application per standard grant round. The measures only apply to NERC standard grants (including new investigators). An application counts towards an organisation, where the organisation is applying as the grant holding organisation (of the lead or component grant). This will be the organisation of the Principal Investigator of the lead or component grant.
BU process
As a result, BU has introduced a process for determining which application will be submitted to each NERC Standard Grant round. This will take the form of an internal competition, which will include peer review. An Expression of Interest for NERC Standard Grant call (EoI) form will need to be completed. The next available standard grant round is January 2016. The process for selecting an application for this round will be as follows:
NERC have advised that where a research organisation submits more applications to any round than allowed under the cap, NERC will office-reject any excess applications, based purely on the time of submission through the Je-S system (last submitted = first rejected). However, as RKEO submit applications through Je-S on behalf of NERC applicants, RKEO will not submit any applications that do not have prior agreement from the internal competition.
Appeals process
If an EoI is not selected to be submitted as an application, the Principal Investigator can appeal to Professor Tim McIntyre-Bhatty, Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Any appeals must be submitted within ten working days of the original decision. All appeals will be considered within ten working days of receipt.
RKEO Contacts
Please contact Jennifer Roddis, RKEO Research Facilitator – jroddis@bournemouth.ac.uk or Jo Garrad, RKEO Funding Development Manager – jgarrad@bournemouth.ac.uk if you wish to submit an expression of interest.
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MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 Call
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