Category / Funding opportunities

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

 Arts and Humanities Research Council

Ten debates with themes of ‘The Way We Live Now’ and other individual debates, will be held to mark the tenth anniversary of the AHRC at universities and cultural organisations around the UK over the next year. An essay competition linked to the debates, with a series of three deadlines for each debate series, will be opened to help capture the ideas expressed at the debates. The first essay will relate to the first four four debates (Curating the Nation, The Challenge of Change, Faith and Education and Social Cohesion and the Common Good).  there will be ten prizes of £250 for the best essay on each of the ten debates and a best overall essay prize of £500.  Closing Date:  30/10/15.

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

The Sustainable Agriculture Research & Innovation Club (SARIC) has funding available for research grants (£3.5M) and research translation grants (£1.5M). Applications must fit the key challenge of predicitve capabilities for sustainable agriculture.  Closing Date: 16/09/15 at 16:00.

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

The Commitment to Privacy and Trust in Internet of Things Security (ComPaTrIoTS) Research Hub  is seeking to make a step-change in the broad research areas of cyber security.  This call aims to invest up to £9.8M over three years to support a small number of leading UK universities working coherently together as a single internationally recognised “Research Hub”, across the relevant disciplines, carrying out inter-related and interdisciplinary research into privacy, security and trust in the Internet of Things. Deadline for Registration of Intent: 20/07/15 at 17:00 Closing Date: 02/09/15 at 16:00.

Synthetic Biology Applications for Protective Materials. The EPSRC and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) seek to establish a number of cross-disciplinary consortia to expand research capability in the area of Synthetic Biology around the central challenge of creating stronger, and more resilient protective materials. Funds of up to £2 million are available for projects up to three years in duration. Closing Date: 1/10/15 at 16:00.

The Thermal Energy Challenge  invites proposals for collaborative research projects to undertake fundamental research that will investigate novel solutions in the thermal energy area.  Up to £5M is available tfor proposals related to the themes of Integration of thermal energy solutions into buildings, Thermal energy conversion technologies and  Hot and Cold energy storage.  Deadline for Registration of Intent: 30/06/15 at 23:59 Closing Date: 4/8/15 at 16:00.

Innovate UK

Fuels and lubricants: reducing cost of ownership. This MOD call seeks proposals with a value of up to £1M for novel ideas to reduce the cost of ownership of military assets through innovative approaches to fuel and lubrication use. Application Registration Deadline: 29/7/15 Closing Date: 5/8/15

Medical Research Council

The MRC and Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD) are investing up to £2M into the Prevention and management of chronic lung diseases. Proposals are welcomed that will generate new knowledge on interventions and their implementation. Closing Date: 15/09/15 at 16:00.

Natural Environment Research Council

CONICYT-NERC joint call on “Determining the impacts of ice loss and deglaciation on marine and terrestrial ecosystems in a region of rapid climate change“. Up to £1.5m is available to fund  three grants at ~£500k each (at 80% FEC) and an additional £300K from the overall budget is set asside in total to cover collective logistics of the projects. Closing Date: 27/7/15.

South African National Research Foundation

The National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa in partnership with prominent UK academies (i.e. the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society) and the British Council is pleased to invite applications for the UK – South Africa Researcher Links grants. Closing Date: 30/06/15.

Wellcome Trust

A Four-year PhD Studentship has been created to allow promising students undertake in depth post-graduate training inclusive of a first year of taught courses and laboratory rotations followed by a three year PhD project at one of the 31 programmes based in centres of excellence which can provide specialist training in developmental biology and cell biology, genetics, statistics and epidemiology, immunology and infectious disease, molecular and cellular biology, neuroscience, physiological sciences or structural biology and bioinformatics.  Students are recruited annually by the individual Programmes for uptake in October each year but the recruitment begins in the preceding December. Closing Date: Open.

 Intermediate Clinical Fellowships fund is for medical, dental, veterinary or clinical psychology graduates who have had an outstanding start to their research career.  Fellowships can be for up to five years and will cover research expenses and salary. Closing Date: 30/10/15.

A Postdoctoral Research Training Fellowships for Clinicians has been created to allow the refreshing their research skills or to explore a new research field or environment, to gain the skills  that will  help with longer-term research visions.  Awards are two to four years and fellowships typically would range from £250K to £400K and would cover salary and some non-salary costs.  Closing Date: 30/10/15 at 17:00.

The Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC)programme funds public health research aiming to improve health outcomes of what works in humanitarian crises.  Proposals are being requested on Communicable diseases, including epidemics, Sexual and reproductive health and/or gender based violence, Cost effectiveness of health interventions or Ethical issues in the context of public health operations or research during humanitarian crises.  Those interested should send an expression of interest. Closing Date: 20/07/15.

The Translation Fund aims to develop new technologies in the biomedical area to help with unmet healthcare need. Concept notes must be provided in the first instance. Closing Date: 16/10/15 at 17:00.

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.

Interested in Opportunities in the New H2020 Research Infrastructure Work Programme?

Funding opportunities

The annual UK information day will take place on 21September 2015 in London at The Natural History Museum

The main focus of the event will be the integrated activities (IA) calls for Research Infrastructure (RI) networks.

These calls are aimed at existing national RIs wishing to network with other RIs in their field across Europe. Each proposal must offer transnational access to users as well as networking and joint research activities for the RI.

Find out about:

Starting communities: Up to €5 million available for groups not previously funded; two stage application process; open to all!

Advanced communities: Up to €10 million available for groups that have received previous IA funding; one stage application process; specific topics will be defined in the work programme.

Closing date: 30 March 2016

 There will also be a presentation about the E-infrastructures calls which will support implementation of the European policies on open research data, data and computing intensive science, research and education networking, high-performance computing and big data innovation.

–          User-driven e-infrastructure innovation: closing 31 March 2016

–          Platform-driven e-infrastructure innovation: closing 20 September 2016

 

A further email will be sent with additional  details and the registration link in the coming weeks. If others in your organisation would like to be notified please ask them to subscribe to the mailing list.

 

RKEO and Legal Services Coffee Morning at the Retreat – Thursday 25th of June

Coffee Morning, Funding opportunities

Our next RKEO coffee morning will be taking place on Thursday the 25th of June and will be held in conjunction with our colleagues from the Legal Services team.

Members of the RKEO and the Legal Services teams will be in the Retreat, Talbot Campus from 9.30 to 10.30am.

Come along and discuss your research plans with our RKEO team and check out how they can support you through the whole research funding process from applying to successful project management and delivery. We can also help you find the right funding opportunity, discuss the processes relating to funding schemes, as well as identifying potential collaborators and partners to strengthen your application. We can help with public engagement, knowledge transfer opportunities and much, much more….

Representatives from Legal Services will also be available to answer queries on matters such as contracting arrangements, freedom of information and data protection.

Come along and have a chat with us and see how we can help you, or just pop by and enjoy a coffee and a cake.

We look forward to seeing you!

Research Professional Funding Insight module – research active volunteers required

Funding opportunities

Research Professional are visiting BU on the morning of 23rd June to demonstrate their ‘Funding Insight’ module.  Their description of Funding Insight is that it ‘helps you avoid spending too much time on funding applications that fail. It reveals the hidden structures in the research funding landscape, giving you deeper insight and helping you make better applications’.

As part of the demonstration, they will also arrange trial access to the module.  If you are a research active academic and would like to attend the demonstration and participate in the trial of the module then please contact Jo Garrad by 12th June.

Launch of EPSRC communities

Funding opportunities

EPSRC logoAs part of the improvements to the EPSRC website they have been developing a new communities section where people can:

  • create accounts
  • manage subscriptions (calls email alert)
  • create favourites / bookmarks
  • update profiles

This will allow you to get the most from their website and enable EPSRC to communicate with you more effectively.  More details can be found on the EPSRC website here.

Research Professional Funding Insight module – research active volunteers required

Funding opportunities

Research Professional are visiting BU on the morning of 23rd June to demonstrate their ‘Funding Insight’ module.  Their description of Funding Insight is that it ‘helps you avoid spending too much time on funding applications that fail. It reveals the hidden structures in the research funding landscape, giving you deeper insight and helping you make better applications’.

As part of the demonstration, they will also arrange trial access to the module.  If you are a research active academic and would like to attend the demonstration and participate in the trial of the module then please contact Jo Garrad by 12th June.

AHRC Research Networking call for funding

Funding opportunities

The AHRC 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. The exact mechanism for networking and the duration is up to the applicants to decide but must be fully justified in the proposal. An additional threshold of up to £15,000 full economic cost may be sought to cover the costs of any international participants or activities in addition to the £30,000 fEC scheme limit. Proposals will need to be submitted by an eligible Research Organisation but must involve collaboration with at least one other organisation, as well as having significant relevance to beneficiaries in the UK.

A highlight notice is currently in operation under the research Networking Scheme. It encourages applications that explore innovative areas of cross-disciplinary enquiry across the remits of the AHRC and other Research Councils. The highlight notice will close at midnight on 31 July 2015. Further information can be found on the Highlight Notice page.

This scheme operates without formal deadlines.  You are able to submit proposals at any time of year.

All applications to this scheme must be submitted via the cross-council Joint Electronic Submission – (JE-S) System (opens in a new window). If you need any assistance to use the system, please contact the JE-S helpdesk on 01793 444164 or on JesHelp@rcuk.ac.uk.  AHRC Funding Guide (PDF 919KB) (opens in a new window) provides an overview of the Research Networking Scheme. It details the eligibility criteria, assessment criteria, information on how to apply, application deadlines, eligible dates and terms and conditions of awards.

You must contact your RKEO Funding Development Officer in the first instance if you wish to apply to this call.

Fair Access Project Fund – call for under £25,000 short term projects

Funding opportunities

BU’s Fair Access Agreement includes a project fund to support Fair Access (FA) and Widening Participation (WP) projects and innovation. Faculties and Professional Services are invited to bid for funding to support specific and targeted projects that will have a FA or WP impact. It is hoped the projects will contribute to and inform the growing evidence base on FA and WP work.

This call is open for short term projects costing under £25,000 that will complete spend by 31 July 2015. We would also welcome applications for projects involving organisations external to BU where there is a clear link to WP and there is a BU staff member sponsor who holds a steering role in the project.

To submit a proposal for funding, please complete the complete the application form and email and email it to Lukasz Naglik.  Please also contact Lukasz if you would like to discuss this opportunity further or if you would like to find out about current  Fair Access and Widening Participation projects.

Further opportunities for bidding for longer term projects and for projects costing over £25,000 will be advertised in September 2015.

Fusion Investment Fund open for applications

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund

FIF is open!

Excuse me? You don’t know what FIF is?

FIF stands for the Fusion Investment Fund. It is designed to support staff in developing as researchers, educators and practitioners. Since its inception in 2012, FIF has funded over 200 projects with awards totalling more than £2m.

Want to know more?

Two funding strands are available to staff: Co-creation and co-production strand (CC&CP), and Staff mobility and networking strand (SMN).

For all the policy documents, Fund FAQs and information about applying, please visit the FIF website.

Please direct all initial enquiries to the Fusion Investment Fund Co-ordinator, Sue Townrow, at Fusion Fund.

 

EPSRC Research Software Engineer (RSE) Fellowships

Funding opportunities

This EPSRC call will support Research Software Engineer (RSE) Fellowships for a period of up to five years. The RSE Fellowship describes exceptional individuals with combined expertise in programming and a solid knowledge of the research environment. The Research Software Engineer works with researchers to gain an understanding of the problems they face, and then develops, maintains and extends software to provide the answers.

To support the role of RSEs and establish a cohort in the academic environment, up to £3m is available for this pilot call. Candidates are invited to provide an ‘Intent to Submit’ document in the first instance to register interest. Full proposals will be subject to a rigorous peer review and sift process before a final selection by interview.

Background

Software developed for experimental facilities and instrumentation, modelling, simulation and data-analysis is a critical and valuable resource. Software and algorithm development represents major investments by skilled scientists and engineers, and the large suite of codes and algorithms used in research should be regarded as a research infrastructure, requiring support and maintenance along the innovation chain, and throughout its lifecycle.

Through the publication of “EPSRC Software as an Infrastructure strategy”, EPSRC has recognised the importance of investing in software development. Previous funding has focused on support for the development of the key software codes that are used by the EPS community in their research. However, other important aspects of the strategy are the development of skills and career development for those engaged in software engineering, and it is these aspects that this call addresses.

The EPSRC-funded Software Sustainability Institute has begun a campaign to develop a UK community of Research Software Engineers, with the aim of raising awareness of their roles, and improving their career paths and reward/recognition within Universities.

This funding opportunity is a pilot in support of the concept of Research Software Engineers. For further background, please see the following links:

Resources

Closing date for Statement of Intent is 4pm, 12 June 2015.  You mush submit a Statement of Intent first and these will be used to select who can submit a full application.  The full application closing date is 4pm, 21 July 2015.

If you are interested in applying for this fellowship then you must contact RKEO Funding Development Team in the first instance.

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information:

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, GB

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, together with the Medical Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council, invites outline proposals for its Diet and Health Research Industry Club. Funding enables UK universities and institutes to carry out research that will enhance understanding and facilitate the development of products with health and nutrition benefits, and help address diet-related health issues in the longer term. Research proposals must address at least one of the challenges: Understanding the relationship between food processing and nutrition; designing foods to maintain and improve health; understanding food choice and eating behaviour to improve health through diet. Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 4pm, 01/07/15 for outline proposals. Full proposals are by invitation.

Economic and Social Research Council, GB

The Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the National Council of State Funding Agencies (CONFAP) and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) invite applications for their Healthy Urban Living call and the Social Science of the Food-Water-Energy Nexus, under the Newton Fund. For the Healthy Urban Living stream, all proposals must address the theme of health inequalities and justice and one or more of the following areas: urban design, planning housing and infrastructure; communities, culture and heritage; leadership, governance and institutions. The total fund from the Research Councils is £2.5m, with matched equivalent for Brazilian partners. For the Social Science of the Food-Water-Energy Nexus stream, proposals should clearly identify one or more of these themes as the focus of the research project and demonstrate how it will be applied to the development of the Social Science of the Food-Water-Energy Nexus: Measuring, modelling and understanding the Nexus; innovation for sustainable transformations; the political economy and governance of the Nexus; human welfare, development and the Nexus. The total fund from the Research Councils is £1.25m, with matched equivalent for Brazilian partners. Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 4pm, 02/07/15.

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, GB

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Innovate UK invite expressions of interest to attend their state of the art in simulation and design workshop. This aims to identify the state of the art in fundamental simulation and modelling techniques that can help improve the design process within engineering design, and to enable users to progress in their use of these tools and determine key areas of need not currently being addressed by research programmes. The workshop will be held on 16 July 2015. The workshop will focus on the areas of optimisation, multiphysics, materials modelling and multiscale, with challenges identified in the sectors of automotive, aerospace, energy, built environment, healthcare technologies, electronics, and the process industries of chemicals and food.Awards cover reasonable travel and subsistence costs, including accommodation, refreshments and meal costs. Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 4pm, 10/06/15.

Innovate UK, GB

Innovate UK, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council invite expressions of interest for the fourth round of their Early-stage Translation studies, under the Industrial Biotechnology Catalyst. This supports research and development for the processing and production of materials, chemicals and bioenergy through the sustainable exploitation of biological resources, including tissues, enzymes, and genes from organisms that include algae, marine life, fungi, microorganisms and plants, and accelerate commercialisation. Projects must be pre-competitive and academic-led. Funding is only available to academics in line with the standard BBSRC and EPSRC eligibility rules. Total project costs should be between £2m and £5m and projects should last between three and five years. Maximum award: £5m. Closing date: 12pm, 05/08/15 for expressions of interest.

Medical Research Council, GB

The Medical Research Council, together with the Economic and Social Research Council, the Brazilian Council of State Funding Agencies and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, invite proposals for the UK-Brazil Neglected Infectious Diseases Partnership. The initiative will provide funding for collaborative research projects, focussed on neglected infectious diseases in Brazil. Proposals may focus on Dengue Fever and other vector-borne diseases, Leishmaniasis, Chagas Disease, Leprosy, Schistosomiasis, Omtestinal Helminth Infectious, Rotaviruses and emerging viruses. Projects should last between two and three years. Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 01/06/15.

Natural Environment Research Council, GB

The Natural Environment Research Council invites applications for its Industrial CASE Studentships. This scheme promotes collaboration between the research community and the end users of research. Applicants must demonstrate excellent science research along with the potential for societal or economic impact through strong collaboration with the non-academic partners and the provision of high quality training in research skills. The CASE partner must be an end user organisation that can use the outputs of research in developing business, technology, regulation, policy or social and environmental enterprise, within the public, private or third sector. The CASE partner must have a base in the UK.  Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 4pm, 08/07/15.

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.

 

ESRC NCRM International Visitor Exchange Scheme launched

Funding opportunities

The National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) has launched its International Visitor Exchange Scheme (IVES). This will fund visits of between one and three months to or from experts at the forefront of key methodological developments. The scheme aims to enable “UK social scientists to engage with methods development internationally, in order to stimulate debate and develop ideas (with associated outputs) in relation to methodological innovation in the social sciences.” Awards can begin from 1 January 2016, with a deadline for submissions of 25 September 2015. Up to 6 awards of £5000 are expected to be available.

For more information, please see http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/research/IVES/ and, if you are interested in applying, please contact a member of the Funding Development Team.

NERC Industrial CASE Studentship Competition

Funding opportunities

Background 

NERC studentships can be delivered in collaboration with non-academic partners from the private, public and third/civil sectors; where studentships are delivered in collaboration they are referred to as ‘CASE studentships’. CASE studentships provide the PhD students with enhanced training opportunities by ensuring they spend between three and eighteen months in total with their CASE partner in a workplace outside the academic environment.

2015 NERC Industrial CASE Studentship Competition

This call is now open. The closing date is 16:00 Wednesday 8 July 2015.

Please see the guidance for applicants document below for full details of this call. Applications will be assessed on the following criteria:

  • research excellence (30%)
  • training excellence and multidisciplinary training environments (30%)
  • collaboration and impact (20%)
  • student recruitment, monitoring and management (20%)

Update

  • Please note, CASE partner financial contributions are to be paid to the lead Research Organisation to supplement the studentship and project, and will no longer be paid directly to the student.
  • In most instances organisations eligible for Research Council funding cannot act as a CASE partner. This includes NERC Research Centres (BAS, BGS, CEH, NCAS, NCEO, NOC)

Guidance for applicants (PDF, 229KB)

All proposals should include a case for support, using the ‘case for support form’, and the ‘Industrial CASE non-academic partner form’. Both forms are provided below. Applications must be submitted via the research councils’ joint electronic submission system (Je-S).

Case for support form (Word, 57KB)

Industrial CASE non-academic partner form (PDF, 35KB)

The assessment panel will meet on 17-18 November 2015. Applicants will be notified of the outcomes by the end of December 2015.

For further information, please contact NERC Studentships & Training Awards Group at stag@nerc.ac.uk.

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

EU Funding – Tenders

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities

Although most people associate EU funding with Horizon 2020, other sources of funding are available, such as Tenders.

 

 

The EU’s Tenders Electronic Daily or TED  is the database to search for all European public procurement.

Registering with TED:

  • To access the entire content of TED, including the archive.
  • To personalise search profiles, according to your needs.
  • To get e-mail alerts based on your search profiles.
  • To personalise RSS feeds for your web sites and RSS readers.
  • Registration and use of TED is absolutely free, and will remain so.

By way of examples only, here are some current tenders with relevance to BU: