BU Research Blog

The ESRC in partnership with a range of funding partners jointly invites full proposals from eligible research organisations to bid for funding to undertake evidence programmes to underpin a new and independent What Works Centre for Wellbeing.

Interest in wellbeing is growing both nationally and internationally and the UK is regarded as one of the leading countries in this area in terms of measurement, innovative uses of wellbeing data and academics in the field. International focus has been on how societies, governments, communities and populations measure their progress, in more holistic ways – including the UK’s Legatum Institute’s Commission on Wellbeing and Policy. In November 2010, a national ‘measuring wellbeing’ programme was launched by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) driven by public consultation. ONS now publishes regular wellbeing reports and data at a national and local level and has developed a measurement tool for wellbeing comprising 10 domains. A recent All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics has published a report on translating wellbeing evidence into policy, which argues that ‘the time is right to move from national wellbeing measurement to a national wellbeing strategy’.

Proposals are invited for the 2015-16 Advanced Training: Short Courses (ATSC) training initiative. Initiatives funded as part of this scheme must be completed by 31 March 2016.

This call invites proposals offering training initiatives in a variety of forms that fall both within the NERC science remit as well as addressing one or more of the Priority Training Areas contained within the ATSC Announcement of Opportunity document. These training initiatives must prioritise NERC-funded PhD students or develop the skills of environmental sciences early career researchers (working within academic and/or non-academic settings) for future careers in research and other contexts.

NERC has a total budget of £1m for this scheme. The maximum applicants can apply for to run a training initiative is £100k although it is expected that most training initiatives will request £20k-£50k.

The AHRC and BBC Radio 3 are looking for applications for the New Generation Thinkers of 2015.  This pioneering scheme aims to develop a new generation of academics who can bring the best of university research and scholarly ideas to a broad audience – through BBC broadcasting. It’s a chance for early career researchers to cultivate the skills to communicate their research findings to those outside the academic community.Each year, up to sixty successful applicants have a chance to develop their programme-making ideas with experienced BBC producers at a series of dedicated workshops and, of these up to ten will become Radio 3’s resident New Generation Thinkers. They will benefit from a unique opportunity to develop their own programmes for BBC Radio 3 and a chance to regularly appear on air.

The aim of the scheme is to provide a development opportunity for early career researchers to cultivate the skills to communicate their research findings to those outside the academic community. The scheme wants to find the new generation of academics who can bring the best of the latest university research and scholarly ideas to a broad audience. Applications should demonstrate an engaging and stimulating programme but also demonstrate an ability to talk about other subjects areas within the arts and humanities in an accessible andrefreshing manner, with awareness of the wider listening audience. We would recommend that you listen to the 2014 winners’ programmes on BBC iPlayer Radio.