Category / Funding opportunities

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

FLexible Interchange Programme (FLIP). This fund supports the movement of people from one environment to a different one to exchange knowledge/technology/skills, developing bioscience research/researchers. Awards last up to 24 months, can cost up to £150k.  Closing Date: 15/7/15

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Early Career Researchers bursaries. This fund covers travel expenses and accommodation costs to allow post-doctoral research fellows and academic staff in the first three years of their first academic appointment to attend Dial-a-Molecule events. Closing Date: Any time.

Funding for meetings. We welcome proposals for meetings to fund, or co-fund in relation to developing new collaborations. Closing Date: Any time.

Interdisciplinary mobility fund. The fund promotes collaborations by short term visits and exchanges. We expect a typical award to be £1-2000 and we aim to fund up to 40 exchanges over 3 yrs. Closing Date: Any time.

Medical Research Council
UK-Thailand: Joint Health Research Call. It is expected that this funding will support up to four joint projects at a level of up to £389k per project for infectious diseases, and three joint projects at a level of up to £444k per project for non-communicable diseases. Closing Date: 2/6/15 at 16:00

The Royal Society
Royal Society Research Professorship. The scheme provides salary costs, a one-off start-up grant and research expenses to world-class scientists. Appointments are usually made for up to 10 years. Closing Date: 3/11/15

Wellcome Trust

Health Innovation Challenge Fund. This fund aims to stimulate the creation of innovative healthcare products, technologies and interventions and to facilitate their development for the benefit of patients in the NHS and beyond for each £10m funding round. Closing Date: 5/5/15

Pathfinder Awards. This scheme, offering pilot funding to catalyse innovative early-stage applied research and development projects in areas of unmet medical need. The average award amount is envisaged to be in the region of £100,000, but up to £350,000 will be considered in exceptional circumstances. Closing Date: 29/6/15 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.

£4m funding for ‘Protecting data in Industry’

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

 

£4m collaborative R&D funding opening soon – 23 March 2015

Innovate UK is to invest up to £4 million in collaborative research and development (R&D) projects that tackle the growing risks of disruption to internet-enabled businesses and their digital supply. More information on this competition.

Competition Briefing Events – 25 March onwards at several locations

The event is an excellent opportunity for you to receive first hand information about the competition – its scope, application process, key dates etc. as well as meet and network with peers, potential partners, market leaders & innovators in the industry. More information & event registration page.

For queries about this competition, please contact support@innovateuk.gov.uk

If you are applying to the research councils soon, please note Je-S unavailability

Funding opportunities, Guidance

Please note that the Je-S system (the research councils e-submission site) will be unavailable from 16:00 GMT on Thursday 16th April 2015 until 08.30 GMT on Wednesday 22nd April 2015.  Further details are available on the Je-S Login page.

This is a significant amount of down time and so please bear this in mind if you are writing an application for funding to the research councils.

AHRC Advisory Board vacancies

Funding opportunities, Guidance

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is seeking expressions of interest from suitably experienced individuals in the academic and non-academic sectors to join the Advisory Board in 2015.

AHRC funds research and post graduate training across a wide disciplinary remit as well as facilitating opportunities for researchers to engage in international, knowledge exchange, partnerships and public policy activities. It is a non-departmental government body sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and is governed by the Council, which is responsible for the overarching strategic direction of the organisation.

The role of the Advisory Board is to advise AHRC Council and Executive on the development and implementation of strategic approaches to funding which reflect the challenges and opportunities arising for the arts and humanities research and those that engage with it.

The Board is looking particularly for expertise in the following areas:

  • Classics and/or Archaeology
  • Design
  • Digital Humanities
  • Performing Arts
  • Music
  • Theology
  • Modern Languages
  • Voluntary Sector

Please see the Terms of Reference for the Advisory Board (PDF 35KB, opens in a new window) and the Role and Person Specification (PDF 90KB, opens in a new window), which outline the skills and experience AHRC require for potential Board members.

If you are interested in becoming a member of the Board please submit an Expression of Interest form (Word 37KB, opens in a new window) (no longer than 500 words) outlining (in no more than 500 words) how you meet the criteria required, together with a short CV (no longer than 2 sides of A4) and the Equal Opportunities form (Word 41KB, opens in a new window) (which is not seen by the panel) to Rose Easton (r.easton@ahrc.ac.uk) by the deadline of 4pm on 20 April 2015.

Interviews will take place at Medical Research Council, Kemble St, London on 14 May 2015.

AHRC will seek to ensure a healthy balance of institutional and regional representation on the Board. AHRC is committed to openness and transparency of process and to provide equal opportunities to all, irrespective of age, gender, race, disability, marital status, religion, sexual orientation, transgender and working patterns.

If you have any question concerning the vacancies, please contact Rose Easton on 01793 416014 or email r.easton@ahrc.ac.uk.

Creative and Digital Business Briefings are out now!

Funding opportunities

The March edition of the  monthly creative business briefing for the UK’s creative industries is now live!

This is a monthly publication that provides a digest of useful information about funding, financing, support and events to assist creative entrepreneurs with their innovation and growth agendas. This month’s edition offers edited highlights of a number of public funding programmes from leading organisations supporting our sector including: Innovate UK, IC tomorrow, Nesta, British Film Institute, Creative England, Creative Scotland & more.

Now in it’s sixth month of publication, feedback from you the community continues to inform us that this is a valued resource.

Please click here for the digital business briefing.

£6m funding – ‘Creating smart products from smart materials’

Funding opportunities

 

£6m funding opening soon for registration – 16 March 2015

Innovate UK in partnership with Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) will invest up to £6 million in collaborative research and development (R&D) projects. Information on briefing events.

 The aim of  this funding competition is to encourage the development of smart products that use a combination of functional, hybrid and multiple materials. More information & Competition registration page. 

Competition Briefing & Consortia Building Events, 9th March onwards at several locations

The event is an excellent opportunity for you to receive first hand information about the competition – its scope, application process, key dates etc. as well as meet and network with peers, potential partners, market leaders & innovators in the industry. More information & event registration pages. 

For queries about this competition, please contact support@innovateuk.gov.uk. For queries about the events, please contact steve.morris@ktn-uk.org or Andy Sellars – andy.sellars@innovateuk.gov.uk
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Changes to MRC strategic skills priorities

Funding opportunities, Guidance

Following completion of a review of MRC’s strategic skills priorities, the revised priority list has now been published on their website along with a report of the skills survey outcomes.

The review has brought a refocus of the early career Skills Development Fellowships (previously Strategic Skills Fellowships) and will support training in two main areas:

– Development of Quantitative Expertise: covering mathematics, statistics, computation and informatics applicable to any biomedical or health related data sources, from molecular to population level.

– Development of Expertise at the Social Science interface: with a focus on areas of health economics and/or mixed methods research.

Applicants can either be seeking to move from a quantitative/economics/mixed methods background to biomedical research or can have a background in biomedical sciences and be seeking to develop skills in one of the priority areas.  All proposals must include development of new expertise and skills in the areas described above.  Eligible applicants would normally be in the early years of post-doctoral research or seeking a clear change of discipline to one of the priority areas.  Pre-doctoral applicants or those ready to transition to independence will be redirected to other MRC support mechanisms.

The next deadline for this competition is 16th June 2015.  For further details, deadlines and how to apply, please visit the pages here: http://www.mrc.ac.uk/skills-careers/fellowships/skills-development-fellowships/ .  If you have any specific MRC queries, please contact the team at fellows@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk

If you wish to apply to this scheme then please contact the RKEO Funding Development Team in the first instance.

Changes to ESRC Standard Grants

Funding opportunities, Guidance

ESRC are introducing changes to the funding thresholds for their Standard Grants scheme. They currently accept applications between £200,000 and £2 million. Under the new arrangements the lower threshold will rise to £350,000 and the upper threshold will be reduced to £1 million at Full Economic Costs. These changes will come into effect from 1 July 2015. Current thresholds will continue to operate for any application submitted up to 30 June 2015.

The changes are a response to the pattern of demand that is being placed on the standard grants scheme by the social science community. The average value of a standard grant application has steadily increased and is now close to £500,000, so they have adjusted the centre of gravity of the scheme to reflect applicant behaviour.

The changes are also a response to feedback from their Grant Assessment Panels who have found it increasingly difficult to assess and compare the value of applications ranging from £200,000 to £2 million, where there is variable level of detail on project design, costs and deliverables. This issue has become more acute as the number of grant applications over £1 million has steadily increased over the last two years. Narrowing the funding range of the scheme will help to maintain the robustness of the assessment process, ensuring all applications get a fair hearing.

They anticipate that these changes will reduce the volume of applications they receive through the Standard Grants scheme and will increase overall success rates for those who do apply as well as reducing the peer review requirements they need to place on the social science community.

In making these changes they remain committed to the funding of longer, larger responsive grants. They intend to introduce an annual open competition for grants between £1 million and £2.5 million and are currently considering how this will operate alongside their existing Centres and Large Grants Competition.

If you are intending to apply to the ESRC standard grant scheme then please contact the RKEO Funding Development Team in the first instance.

2015 Call for Participation. Being Human-A festival of the humanities

Funding opportunities

 

Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, in partnership with the Arts & Humanities Research Council and the British Academy, Being Human is the UK’s only national festival of the humanities. It engages the public with innovative research taking place across the humanities and in collaboration with other disciplines. Demonstrating the role the humanities play in our everyday lives, Being Human aims to make humanities research accessible to the public.

Funding has been made available for universities and Independent Research Organisations to bid for support to stage events during the festival week. The festival runs from 12-22 November 2015. It is anticipated that  each award will be a maximum of £2000. Funding up to £5000 may be considered for proposals of exceptional quality or where institutions will coordinate more than one event. The deadline for applications is 17/04/15. Further details can be found here

 

 

ESRC-DFID Education and development: Raising learning outcomes in education systems programme – 2015 pre-call announcement

Funding opportunities

 

ESRC and DFID  will be inviting applications to a second call under the Raising Learning Outcomes in Education Systems programme in March 2015. The aim is to provide policymakers and practitioners with concrete ideas on how to improve learning, and understanding of how these will translate to their specific contexts and institutions.

The 2015 call will focus on the theme of ‘challenging contexts’ – where education systems face particular challenges, what enables or inhibits the raising of learning outcomes. An overview of the thematic focus and scope of call two, and eligibility and application requirements, are set out in the documents below. This pre-call announcement is being made to enable interested researchers to begin discussions with potential research partners and research users in advance of the formal call for proposals.

The deadline for proposals will be in May 2015 and further information can be found here.

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

BBSRC, GB

The Animal Welfare Research Network call aims to foster multidisciplinary collaborations that add benefit to animal welfare research by creating links between animal welfare researchers and the broader academic community. The focus is on research that contributes to the welfare of managed animals, including farmed, laboratory and companion animals, as well as on both vertebrates and relevant invertebrates, such as bees. The network encourages links to researchers working on non-managed species.

Maximum award: Unspecified.  Closing date: 24/03/15

EPSRC, GB

EPSRC invites proposals for its Fellowships in Manufacturing. The Fellowship will support those who have the potential to be future research leaders in their field in Manufacturing research; either academics who have recently moved from industry, or people in industry, involved in innovation, looking to move into academia. The aim is to offer up to five years of support for suitable candidates who not only have an appropriate background but can also articulate their vision for utilising their industrial experience to inform their future research direction.

Maximum award: Unspecified. Mandatory registration: 31/03/15. Closing date: 14/05/15.

 EPSRC, GB

EPSRC invites submissions of intent for its network and multidisciplinary research consortia call under the towards engineering grand challenges scheme. This supports multidisciplinary research consortia that can further advance engineering grand challenges in the following areas: Sustainable engineering solutions to provide water for all; Future Cities: engineering approaches that restore the balance between engineered and natural systems; Engineering across length scales, from atoms to applications. This call will support three consortia.

Maximum award: Approximately £12 million is available for three consortia for up to five years. Mandatory submissions of intent: 26/03/15.  Full proposals: 28/04/15.

EPSRC, GB

The EPSRC, under its themes of engineering, manufacturing the future and physical sciences, invites expressions of interest for its call on the future formulation of complex products. Supporting a series of projects addressing challenges in formulation science, the goal is to develop and improve manufacturing processes for the production of complex structured products, based on interdisciplinary research in fundamental and applied science.

Maximum award: Unspecified. Closing date: 23/04/15

 Wellcome Trust/Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, GB

The Wellcome Trust, in collaboration with the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, invites applications for its Fellowship in Society and Ethics. This scheme enables a Wellcome Trust-funded PhD student or junior fellow to undertake a three-month fellowship. It is intended to help the Fellow develop an awareness of policy environments and processes, and to raise an issue relevant to the Trust’s Society and Ethics programme among a parliamentary audience.

Maximum award: Fully funded three-month minimum extension to your PhD or fellowship award. Closing date: 02/04/15

Wellcome Trust, GB

The Wellcome Trust invites proposals for its intermediate fellowships for researchers in India. This is a five year fellowship supporting excellent scientists who wish to undertake high-quality research and to establish themselves as independent researchers in an academic institution in India.

Maximum award: Unspecified. Closing date: Preliminary applications due 02/04/15

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.

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

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

BBSRC Enterprise Fellowships – Royal Society of Edinburgh, UK

The Enterprise Fellowships are designed to enable an individual to advance the commercialisation of existing research results or technological developments and are tenable for a period of one year.  The Fellowships enable the holder to concentrate on developing the commercial potential of their research, whilst also receiving formal training in relevant business skills.

Award max: Unspecified  
Closing date: 27/04/2015

Industry Fellowships – Royal Society, UK

This scheme is for academic scientists who want to work on a collaborative project with industry and for scientists in industry who want to work on a collaborative project with an academic organisation.

The scheme provides a basic salary for the researcher and a contribution towards research costs.

Award max: Basic salary & research expenses up to £2000/year
Closing Date: 26/03/2015

Biotechnology Young Entrepreneurs Scheme – BBSRC

Participants enter as teams and develop a business plan for a company based on a hypothetical but plausible idea based on real markets over the course of a three day residential workshop. The workshop encompasses presentations and mentoring sessions from leading figures in industry and culminates in the presentation of the business plans to a panel of ‘equity investors’ drawn from industry and academia. Up to three teams for each workshop are selected to progress to the final in London.

Award max: Prize fund of £5000, including first prize of £2,500, trip to USA, invite to BIA Gala Dinner
Closing Date: 29/05/2015

Brian Mercer Award for Innovation – Royal Society

This scheme is for scientists who wish to develop an already proven concept or prototype into a near-market product ready for commercial exploitation. The scheme covers natural sciences, excluding medical devices.

Award max: £250,000
Closing date: 23/04/2015

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.

New KTP vacancies

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

You may have seen lots about Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP), perhaps from the KTP Academic Development Scheme or on blog posts, or perhaps even whilst in conversation with your colleagues.  At Bournemouth University, we’re working hard to maximise our KTP provision and this is working..!

We currently have two KTP projects in recruitment stages where we are looking for KTP associates (a graduate hired to work on the projects, full time for the duration of the project) to fill these KTP positions.

Chantacre

Following on from a successful series of shorter KTP, this position is a 25-month fixed term appointment for an IT Systems Project Manager.  This is a challenging yet potentially very rewarding opportunity to apply creative and innovative thinking, as well as strong technical skills that will result in an innovative and exploitable capability.  The role will involve the creation of a mobile convergence solution within a company operating over a wide geographical area enabling information and data exchange in real time whilst maintaining data integrity and security. As this is a KTP the Associate will not only be required to research, develop and install the solution but also embed sufficient knowledge within the company to enable them to both use and develop the system in an efficient and sustainable manner.

Nautilus

This is the company’s first KTP and is for a Computer Graphics/Games Programmer for a 30-month project.  The role will involve the researching of all types of 3D terrain generation applications and then the development of proprietary prototype software that will allow for rapid, automatic/semi-automatic 3D terrain content generation for use within the Virtual Battle Space (VBS) 3 game engine. In addition to this, the role will involve embedding the capability within the company to enable further development and exploitation of the software.

 

Both of these vacancies are in recruitment and they close on Monday 23 March.  Please do share with any candidates who may be interested in these roles.

For further information about KTP, please contact Rachel Clarke, KE Adviser (KTP) on 61347 or email clarker@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

KTP Academic Development Scheme – join us!

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

Following on from the launch of the Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) Academic Development Scheme last Autumn, the second cohort is currently in recruitment.

Academics on this scheme now are working towards a target of submitting a KTP proposal within a year of starting the scheme and are currently in various stages leading up to this.  KTP is an excellent way of developing knowledge exchange whilst demonstrating impact and also bringing in income.

The KTP scheme is 40 years old this year and there is a is a lot of funding (managed by Innovate UK) to dedicate to KTP, so why not join in and find out more about KTP?  KTP submissions have a 90% success rate which shows us that there is an huge potential for us to grow our KTP portfolio with a funded scheme that has such a great and solid history.

If you’re working with a business, or want to work with business, find out how KTP could work for you.

For an informal chat about the scheme or an application form, please contact Rachel Clarke Knowledge Exchange Adviser (KTP) on 61347 or email clarker@bournemouth.ac.uk

£5,000 business funding available – Innovation Vouchers

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer

Are you working with business?

Innovation Vouchers are open to all kinds of small businesses.    Businesses  can claim up to £5,000 towards the cost of expert advice if they classify as a start-up, micro or  SME . The funding encourages SMEs and start-ups to seek out fresh knowledge that can help their business to grow and develop. This could include advice on an innovative idea, learning more about using design within the  business or how to make the most of intellectual property.

Business challenge

Innovation Vouchers  have in the past been available only in specific technology areas. Now a business can apply if  they  just meet these simple tests:

• you need specialist help to meet a business challenge

• it’s the first time you have worked with the university (a great first rung on the ladder before a KTP  perhaps?)

You can apply at any time with around 100 vouchers being awarded every 3 months – for 2015 this is April and July. 

For more information, visit the website  Innovation Vouchers .

Innovation Vouchers are funded by Innovate UK. A short guide to  help make clear what an assessor for Innovate UK competitions is looking for has been produced. All of the Innovate UK funding programmes follow a similar pattern and you should bear in mind that the questions are designed to help rather than trip you up. It is important that you answer the questions asked and cover all aspects the Guidance for Applicants describes.