BU Research Blog

1 June 2022

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022

The 2022 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships (PF) Call is now open on the Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal, with a deadline of 14 September 2022. Since last year, overall indicative budget for the call has increased form EUR 242 million to 275 million.

The Guide for Applicants and other related guidance documentation can be found in the ‘Conditions and documents’ section of the call page as well as on the ‘MSCA How to Apply‘ webpage. You can also check the whole timeline including estimated project start date if your proposal is successful.

As announced earlier, BU internal deadline for submission of eItB forms for this year’s call is 15 July 2022. However, if there are any new proposals RDS are not aware of, we would appreciate if potential BU supervisors inform their Funding Development Officers about it as soon as possible.

We will have very busy period in August-September as there are many resubmissions planned this year and we need to plan resources to provide appropriate support.

UK Research Office (UKRO), in its capacity as UK National Contact Point for the MSCA, held dedicated series of webinars earlier in April this year to provide potential applicants with the information necessary to understand the nature of the MSCA PF call, and to submit a successful application. If you have missed those, video recordings and presentation slides of these sessions are still available on the following UKRO MSCA event webpages:

Session 1: Overview and Eligibility Rules
Session 2: Practical Matters
Session 3: Process for Submission and Evaluation

To access recordings, UKRO portal login details will be required. If you still have not registered, there are more details how BU academics can register.

With queries related to MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022 Call please contact Research Facilitator International Ainar Blaudums.

26 May 2022

NIHR Grant Applications Seminar ONLINE – 7th July 2022

BRIAN, Funding opportunities, NHS Louise Ward

Dear colleagues

– Do you have a great idea for research in health, social care or public health?
– Are you planning to submit a grant application to NIHR?

Our popular seminar continues online and will take place on Thursday 7th July 2022 from 10.00am – 12.30pm.

The seminar provides an overview of NIHR funding opportunities and research programme remits, requirements and application processes. We will give you top tips for your application and answer specific questions with experienced RDS South West advisers.

We also have a limited number of 20-minute 1-to-1 appointments available after the seminar should you wish to discuss your proposed study with an RDS adviser.

Find out more and book a place.

Your local branch of the NIHR RDS (Research Design Service) is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU)

We can help with your application. We advise on all aspects of developing an application and can review application drafts as well as put them to a mock funding panel (run by RDS South West) known as Project Review Committee, which is a fantastic opportunity for researchers to obtain a critical review of a proposed grant application before this is sent to a funding body.

Contact us as early as possible to benefit fully from the advice

Feel free to call us on 01202 961939 or send us an email.

24 May 2022

New Impact Accelerator Programme for ESS

Funding opportunities, innovation esteiner

Impact Acceleration Programme: InterAct

This programme will help researchers to enhance their ability to generate impact and provide funding to help them turn their research into more accessible outputs.

InterAct are looking for researchers from the Economic and Social Science (ESS) community or other disciplines that can capture human insights into the adoption of digital technologies and accelerate the digitisation of manufacturing to apply for up to £18,000 to turn results into outputs which are more accessible to policy makers, manufacturers, and Industrial Digital Technology providers.

The funding is available for academics whose research is ready for translation activity, not for further research, and results should already have been achieved but can be at an early stage and pre-publication.

Find out more about InterAct and this funding opportunity here, and if you intend to apply please complete the online ItB here.

If you have any questions about applying for funding please contact your Funding Development Officer, and for advice on impact acceleration plans or how to gather and evaluate evidence of impact please email impact@bournemouth.ac.uk

23 May 2022

UKRO Subscription Services for BU Academics and Staff

Funding opportunities, international Ainars

Many BU academics may have recognised that RDS hosts annual UK Research Office (UKRO) visits to BU. These sessions are led by RDS and delivered in collaboration with BU European Advisor at the UKRO. Although, not all may be aware that BU is one of UKRO’s subscriber organisations.

UKRO supports the UK research and innovation community from Brussels and works with partners across government and stakeholders to maximise UK engagement in Horizon Europe programme. UKRO delivers subscription-based advisory service for research organisations; they even have non-UK associated members from Belgium, Norway, Finland and other countries.

UKRO also delivers free UK National Contact Point services for those interested in Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and European Research Council programmes, however some sections of UKRO website are only available to staff at subscribing organisations.

Any BU employee can access UKRO services by creating their own profile. We encourage all BU academic staff to register – this is a quick and simple process which only requires institutional email address.

For all users in subscriber organisations UKRO provides the following services:

Access to the UKRO Portal, to keep you informed
Registered users receive tailored news articles on the latest EU funding and policy developments, as well as factsheets on different strands and aspects of EU research, innovation and higher education activities
Regular Horizon Europe training and information events
A place to meet and work in Brussels*

You can read more about EU-UK Relationship and UK Participation in EU-funded Programmes on UKRO portal and on a dedicated European Commission website.

If you are not sure or still have questions, contact Research Facilitator International Ainar Blaudums.

* It is possible to use UKRO’s dedicated workspaces for European project meetings. UKRO office is located within easy walking distance of most European Commission buildings, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

17 May 2022

EU Funding News, May 2022

Funding opportunities Ainars

Horizon Europe Work Programme

According to the UK Research Office (UKRO), the European Commission has published an updated version of the recent 2021-22 Horizon Europe Work Programme, which includes new funding opportunities under some parts of the programme. In total, an additional €562 million is available through the Work Programme update.

Update also includes an a new MSCA4Ukraine scheme, which aims to support displaced scientists from Ukraine. This Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) scheme has a a total budget of €25 million and forms part of the European Union’s collective response to the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The European Commission will provide further information on the implementation of the scheme for institutions wishing to host researchers after the summer.

The updated individual Work Programme parts are available in the Reference Documents section for the Horizon Europe Programme on the Funding & Tenders Portal.

The next main Work Programme for Horizon Europe (2023-24) is currently being drafted. The Commission expects to publish it officially and launch the first calls in December 2022; pre-publication of the draft documents is possible after September.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship Call 2022

As advertised earlier, UKRO has held a series of information webinars. These events included speakers from the MSCA unit within the European Commission and a current MSCA fellow.

Recordings and slides are available on the UKRO Event webpages (login details will be required; every BU academic should have an access to these resources because we are UKRO subscriber organisation, please register if you have not done this before):

Session 1: Overview and Eligibility Rules
Session 2: Practical Matters
Session 3: Process for Submission and Evaluation

ERC Consolidator and Advanced Grants 2023

The European Research Council (ERC) has published tentative dates of ERC 2023 Calls. ERC intends to return to a normal calendar of calls under the Work Programme 2023. Consolidator Grants (CoG) call is expected to close on 02/02/2023 and Advanced Grants (AdG) call on 23/05/2023.

We recommend that all academics considering applying for these calls get in touch with RDS as soon as possible. The e-ItB submission deadlines are 30 August 2022 (CoG) and 21 February 2023 (AdG). RDS expect that PIs would have ensured full support from their Departments and Faculties before they submit an ItB.

For more information please refer to your Funding Development Officer.

Funding briefings

RDS Funding Development Briefings for BU academics will continue until July 27, 2022 with an overview of Horizon Europe Draft Work Programmes 2022-23 scheduled for the last session of this academic year.

All academics have access to the latest funding opportunities on the I Drive: I:\RDS\Public\Funding Pipeline

The next spotlight session this week (18 May at noon) will be about British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships.

9 May 2022

RDS Funding Development Briefing – Wed. 11/05/22

Funding opportunities Ainars

The next RDS Funding Development Briefing will be on Wednesday (11/05/22) at 12 noon.

There will be a spotlight presentation on the Royal Society Industry Fellowships call.

In case you are not sure where/how to join, please contact my colleague Alexandra Pekalski for further details.

Thank you to all of you who have engaged in the sessions to date, we are looking forward to meeting you again.

3 May 2022

Research Professional – all you need to know

Funding opportunities Jo Garrad

Every BU academic has a Research Professional account which delivers weekly emails detailing funding opportunities in their broad subject area. To really make the most of your Research Professional account, you should tailor it further by establishing additional alerts based on your specific area of expertise. The Funding Development Team Officers can assist you with this, if required.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to Research Professional. These can be downloaded here.

Quick Start Guide: Explains to users their first steps with the website, from creating an account to searching for content and setting up email alerts, all in the space of a single page.

User Guide: More detailed information covering all the key aspects of using Research Professional.

Administrator Guide: A detailed description of the administrator functionality.

In addition to the above, there are a set of 2-3 minute videos online, designed to take a user through all the key features of Research Professional. To access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional

Research Professional are running a series of online training broadcasts aimed at introducing users to the basics of creating and configuring their accounts on Research Professional. They are holding two monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with Research Professional. The broadcast sessions will run for no more than 60 minutes, with the opportunity to ask questions via text chat. Each session will cover:

Self registration and logging in
Building searches
Setting personalised alerts
Saving and bookmarking items
Subscribing to news alerts
Configuring your personal profile

Each session will run between 10.00am and 11.00am (UK) on the second Tuesday of every other month. You can register here for your preferred date:

10th May 2022

12th July 2022

13th September 2022

8th November 2022

These are free and comprehensive training sessions and so this is a good opportunity to get to grips with how Research Professional can work for you. Previous recordings can be found here if you can’t attend a session.

Have you noticed the pink box on the BU Research Blog homepage?

By clicking on this box, on the left of the Research Blog home page just under the text ‘Funding Opportunities‘, you access a Research Professional real-time search of the calls announced by the Major UK Funders. Use this feature to stay up to date with funding calls. Please note that you will have to be on campus or connecting to your desktop via our VPN to fully access this service.

26 April 2022

RDS Funding Development Briefing on Wednesday 27/04/22

Funding opportunities Ainars

RDS Funding Development Briefing will be on Wednesday (26/04/22) at 12 noon. There will be no spotlight presentation this week.

Please not that there will be no briefing next week (04/05/2022).

Hopefully, you will be joining NIHR Information Session organised by our BU colleagues on Wednesday 27th April at 10am. More information you may find on Research Blog.

Looking forward to meeting you soon.

25 April 2022

Open Call Reminder: ESRC Festival 2022 – Deadline for applications Friday 29 April

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

Funding of up to £1,000 available to deliver your event or activity.

ESRC Festival of Social Science is an annual, UK-wide, free celebration of the social sciences, planned to take place from 22 October – 13 November 2022. BU have been involved in the festival for over a decade, running our own internal selection process and delivering up to ten activities per year.

ESRC Festival 2022 Theme

The theme set by the ESRC for this year’s festival is ‘my local area’’ and the ESRC wants to see at least a quarter of festival events based on this. This could be an exploration of Dorset’s social and economic history, the future of Bournemouth High Street, issues around deprivation in coastal towns or rural isolation. The theme is linked to the place-based agenda, which is a priority area for ESRC and UKRI. We encourage you to think broadly around this and we are happy for you to decide how far away you consider ‘local’ to be.

Who can apply?

The festival aims to encourage, support and create opportunities for social science researchers to engage with non-academic audiences. It is a prestigious initiative by a major research funder, and BU’s continued involvement is justified by the quality of events and activities. Being part of this festival is an achievement worth citing and celebrating.

It is an excellent opportunity to engage people outside of academia with your research and with the benefit of co-ordinated support and promotion from RDS and the ESRC.

Events must “feature social science (ideally with a social scientist involved in the event)”. If this doesn’t clearly apply to you, consider these options;

Does your research have clear implications for society that could be explored from a social science perspective?
Could you collaborate with a social scientist, combining your resources and creativity to explore the impact of your research? If you’re looking for a collaborator, the Research Blog or BU website are great places to start or contact us for help.

What support is available?

Before applying, you will have access to:

Bookable one-on-one advice slots with BU’s Engagement Officer
Detailed applicant guidance to help you apply

When your application is successful, you will receive:

A half-day training session from an expert external public engagement trainer
Continuing advice and support from BU’s public engagement team on all areas of planning, promoting delivering, evaluating your activity
The promotional boost from being part of a huge national festival.

How to apply

Read the application guidance to support you in completing an effective application.
Submit your application using the online form. You can save your progress and return later, though it’s advisable to keep a backup elsewhere. There is a pdf version of the whole form for drafting purposes only.

Find out more about the resources available to help plan and support your application

If you have any questions, please email the public engagement team.

25 April 2022

Last chance to book! Spotlight on NIHR – Information Session – 27 April 2022

Funding opportunities, Fusion, Knowledge Exchange, NHS, Public engagement Louise Ward

Last chance to book for the session this Wednesday.

Bournemouth University and the NIHR Research Design Service South West are jointly hosting an online NIHR Information Session, on Wednesday 27th April at 10am.

This NIHR Information Session will provide an overview of the NIHR as a funder, the NIHR funding programmes with specific focus on Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB), Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR), Invention for Innovation (i4i), and NIHR Fellowship opportunities.

The agenda is below.

10.00-10.15 Lisa Andrews, Research Facilitator, (Bournemouth University Research Development and Support) Introduction to the session

10.15-11.00 Professor Gordon Taylor, Director of the NIHR Research Design Service South West (RDS-SW)

Dr Sarah Thomas, Deputy Director of the Bournemouth University Clinical Research Unit and NIHR RDS-SW Adviser Spotlight on the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and overview of funding streams

11.00-11.30 Professor Gordon Taylor About the NIHR Fellowship Programmes

11.30-11.45 BREAK

11.45-12.10 Dr Jo Welsman, Patient and Public Involvement Lead, NIHR RDS-SW Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in research

12.10-12.30 Dr Lisa Austin, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Lead, NIHR RDS-SW Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and the new EDI toolkit

12.30-1.00 PANEL Questions

This session will be online, via Zoom. A link to join the meeting will be sent to you after registration.

This session will online, via Zoom. Please register via Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/300827682697

A link to join the meeting will be sent to you after registration.

This session is part of the Bournemouth University Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework.

Your local branch of the NIHR RDS (Research Design Service) is based within the BU Clinical Research Unit (BUCRU)

We can help with your grant applications. We advise on all aspects of developing an application and can review application drafts as well as put them to a mock funding panel (run by RDS South West) known as Project Review Committee, which is a fantastic opportunity for researchers to obtain a critical review of a proposed grant application before this is sent to a funding body.

Contact us as early as possible to benefit fully from the advice

Feel free to call us on 01202 961939 or send us an email.

22 April 2022

Public Engagement Funding Opportunity: Engaging the public with environmental science 2022

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) second round of Growing Roots (annual funding opportunity) has launched.

Apply for funding to develop new ways to engage the public with environmental science. This opportunity aims to support public engagement with environmental science research.

Projects must be delivered between 25 July 2022 and 28 February 2023.

The full economic cost of your project can be between £5,000 and £10,000.

The deadline for applications is Wednesday 18 May 2022, 4pm

A webinar and Q & A session for applicants will take place on Wednesday 27 April 2022 at 1:30pm If you are interested in attending the webinar, please register by emailing publicengagement@nerc.ukri.org

If you would like to discuss your application with the Public Engagement with Research team, please contact publicengagement@bournemouth.ac.uk.

22 April 2022

Take part in the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2022: Deadline for applications – Friday 29 April

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement ballen

ESRC Festival Open Call: Deadline for applications Friday 29 April. Funding of up to £1,000 is available to deliver your event or activity

ESRC Festival of Social Science is an annual, UK-wide, free celebration of the social sciences, planned to take place from 22 October – 13 November 2022. BU have been involved in the festival for over a decade, running our own internal selection process and delivering up to ten activities per year.