Category / Funding opportunities

Thank FIF it’s open! – Round two now open to applications

 

 

 

The Pro-Vice Chancellor would like to invite you to apply for the current round of Fusion Investment Fund.

 Three funding strands are available for staff at BU:                                                       

Co-Creation and Co-Production strand (CCCP)

 Study Leave strand (SL)

There are three sub-strands under this strand: Academic Study Leave, Internal Secondments and Industrial Staff Placements.

 Staff Mobility and Networking strand (SMN)

This strand includes Santander and Erasmus.

 Awareness sessions will take place on the following, giving applicants the valuable opportunity to discuss their applications with the FIF Manager and committee members:

  • Wednesday 13 November 12-1pm, S203, Lansdowne
  • Monday 18 November 2-3pm, Casterbridge room, THS, Talbot
  •  In addition, Dr. Martin Pickard of Grantcraft will be running a two and a half hour session giving essential Fusion bid writing advice on Wednesday 20 November, at 9.30am in, CG04, Christchurch House, Talbot Campus. Martin is a specialist in writing and supporting research grant applications and tenders, as well as providing administrative and management support services for ongoing projects.

If you are interested in attending any of these sessions please contact Fusion Fund to confirm your place and your preferred session.For all the updated strand policy documents, application form and more information please visit the FIF intranet pages.

The Fusion Investment Fund is managed by Samantha Leahy-Harland and the Interim Administrator is Dianne Goodman. Please direct all initial enquiries to Fusion Fund.

Energy Management for existing buildings. Competition now open

The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and the Research Councils’ UK Energy Programme are to invest up to £4m in collaborative R&D to stimulate innovation in the field of energy management for existing buildings.

The aim of this competition is to advance significantly the capabilities of UK businesses so that they can capture a greater share of growing UK and global markets.

Consortia must be collaborative and led by a business. They should include at least one business that provides solutions for energy management, such as technology providers, building/facility/energy managers or engineers. The TSB are also encouraging consortia to include a potential customer for their energy management innovation and, where appropriate, researchers from relevant academic or research organisations.

This is a two-stage competition that opened for applicants on 14 October 2013. Applicants must register by noon on 20 November 2013. The deadline for expressions of interest is at noon on 27 November 2013.

A briefing event for potential applicants will be held in London on 23 October 2013. For more information and to register please click here.

AXA post-doc funding call

AXA Research Fund have funding available for two year post-doctoral posts for basic research, specifically in the fields of: *Biology & biochemistry *Biology and genetics *Economics and business *Environment/ecology *Geosciences *Immunology *Mathematics *Microbiology *Neuroscience and behaviour *Plant and animal science *Psychiatry/psychology *Social sciences, general

Applications are submitted according to a three-stage process.
Stage 1 involves BU naming the fields in which we plan to submit an application. AXA recommend that we make a strategic choice of those fields we feel we are particularly strong in.
They then inform us how many applications we can submit at stage 2. This stage involves an outline application being submitted by the candidates. Following review by AXA Research Fund, some of these will be invited to submit a full proposal at stage 3.

If you are interested in submitting an application for a 2-year post-doc in one of the above fields, or know someone who may be, please contact the Deputy Dean for Research and Enterprise in your School before the deadline of 30 October to ensure your field is included in the Stage 1 submission.

As we will only be allowed to submit a limited number of applications at Stage 2, we will be holding an internal RPRS competition. Please contact Jennifer Roddis for further information about this. The deadline for this will be 11 November 2013.

The 5 things you didn’t know about Innovation Vouchers….

1.      Small to Medium size businesses can apply for funded support to buy in consultancy expertise from university academics

2.     There are currently 2 different Innovation Voucher schemes which are run separately by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and Universities South West (USW)

3.      With the USW Innovation Voucher you can receive up to 40% funded support for projects ranging from £3,000 – £10,000. (**Only organisations located in the South West can apply, excluding Cornwall)

4.      TSB Innovation Voucher offers £5000 to businesses who are looking for support in the following sector areas:

Built Environment, Energy, Water & Waste and Agrifood

Also available to all industry sectors who specifically require expertise on ‘Open Data’ or ‘Cyber Security’

5.      Applying for a voucher is easy! Both schemes require on-line applications where you will need to answer a few short questions about your idea, the impact it could have on your business and why you specifically need help from university academics.

For further information on Innovation Vouchers  please visit the TSB and University South West websites:

Technology Strategy  Board

University South West 

 

If you have any questions or would like to apply for a voucher, please contact the University’s Knowledge Exchange Officer –  Lucy Rossiter on 01202 961215.

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

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

  • The AHRC has a call for Expressions of Interest to present virtual exhibitions of images on their website. Maximum funding: £4,000. Closing date: 29/11/13
  • The AHRC Creative Economy Showcase 2014 requires Expressions of Interest. Award maximum not specificed> Closing date 27/11/13
  • AHRC has announced the Cultural Value Project Targeted Call for Critical Reviews and Research Development Awards and Expressions of Interest to deliver Expert workshops. Maximum grant £100,000 and £10,000 respectively. Closing date 7/11/13
  • Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) / Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowships aim to increase exploitation of ideas with commercial potential from BBSRC supported research. Maximum award not specified. Closing date: 28/11/13
  • The BBSRC is offering FAPESP Pump-Priming Awards (FAPPA). Maximum grant £35,000. No closing date but applications must be made at least 12 weeks before the proposed start of the project
  • Supporting international collaboration, BBSRC-Brazil (FAPESP) are joint funding research. Maximum grant not specified. Closing date: 8/01/14
  • Similarly the BBSRC’s Other Countries Partnering Awards supports long-term collaborations. Maximum grant not specified. Closing date: 27/11/13
  • The BBSRC call for Resolving Technological and Methodological Gaps in Metagenomics is open. Maximum award not specified. Closing date: 8/01/14
  • British Academy is offering postdoctoral fellowships to foreign researchers. Maximum award not specified. Closing date: 5/12/13
  • The EPSRC is inviting applications for access to ARCHER through its resource allocation panel. Top-up applications are also accepted. Maximum award not specified. Closing date: 18/12/13
  • EPSRC, as part of the RCUK Energy Programme, invites proposals for collaborative research projects to undertake fundamental research to tackle challenges in carbon capture for carbon capture and storage (CCS). Maximum award not specified. Closing date: 29/11/13
  • Healthcare Technology Cooperatives partnership awards are beign supported by the EPSRC/NIHR. Maximum award £150,000. Closing date: 7/01/14
  • ESRC is launching the second round of the ESRC Transformative Research Call. Maximum grant £200,000. Closing date: 15/01/14
  • The ESRC Europe – China call for collaborative research on The Green Economy and Understanding Population Change has opened. Maximum grant not specified. Closing date: 3/12/13
  • The ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize is an annual opportunity to recognise and reward the successes of ESRC-funded researchers. Maximum ward £20,000. Closing date: 22/11/13
  • ERA-NET Plus on Climate Smart Agriculture – under the ERA-NET Plus action “Climate Smart Agriculture: Adaptation of agricultural systems in Europe” co-funded by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Commission, there is a call for pre-proposals relating to the adaptation of European agriculture to climate change in its broad sense. Maximum grant not specified. Closing date: 2/12/13
  • The Leverhulme Trust is supporting Major Research Fellowships in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Maximum award not specified. Closing date: 8/05/14
  • The Leverhulme-Royal Society Africa Award for scientists who want to develop a collaborative research project between the UK and research institutions in either Ghana or Tanzania has been announced. Maximum award £210,000. Closing date: 15/01/14
  • The MRC has opened the Health systems research initiative call 1: Providing evidence to strengthen health systems and improve health outcomes. Grant maximum not specified. Closing date:  14/01/14
  • NERC have announced their ESPA Fellowships. Maximum award £200,000. Closing date: 20/11/13 
  • The Royal Academy of Engineering has announced The Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowships Scheme. Maximum award not specificed. Closing date: 18/11/13
  • Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award provides universities with additional support to enable them to recruit or retain respected scientists of outstanding achievement and potential to the UK. Maximum grant not specified. Closing date: 12/11/13
  • Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship reimburses the employing institution with the full salary cost of a teaching replacement. The scheme covers all areas of the life and physical sciences, including engineering, but excluding clinical medicine. Award not specified. Closing date 8/01/14
  • The Agri-Tech Catalyst, run by the Technology Strategy Board and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, offers funding to innovative businesses and researchers to develop solutions to global agricultural challenges. see detials on the Early Stage and Late Stage awards. Grant not specified. Registration by 4/12/13 and submit by 11/12/13
  • Also via the TSB’s Agri-Tech Catalyst, there are Industrial research awards. Maximum grant £3,000,000. Registration by 4/12/13. Submission by 11/12/13
  • The TSB has announced their Innovative Research Call – IRC 2013 – Detection of explosives and weapons. Maximum grant £950,000. Registration by  27/11/13. Submission  by 4/12/13
  • The TSB and Medical Research Council programme is offering funding to innovative small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) and researchers to develop solutions to healthcare challenges via their Biomedical Catalyst – Feasibility studies call. Maximum funding £200,000. Registration by 5/02/14. Submission by 12/02/14
  • Also through the TSB’s Biomedical Catalyst, funding is available via the Early and late stage awards. Maximum award not specified. Register by 5/2/14 and submit by 12/2/14
  • The TSB is making an investment of up to £2.5m in collaborative R&D projects that lead to the creation of  ‘frictionless’ digital transactional environments. Register by 13/11/13 and submit by 20/11/13 
  • The Toshiba Fellowship Programme is a unique opportunity for recently qualified PhD level scientists, mainly from science, computing and mathematics disciplines. Maximum award not specified. Closing date: 6/12/13
  • The Wellcome Trust is offering Senior Investigator Awards in Medical HumanitiesNew Investigator Awards in Medical HumanitiesSenior Investigator Awards in Society and Ethics, New Investigator Awards in Society and Ethics.  Maximum award £1,000,000. Closing date: 21/03/14
  • Pathfinder Awards are being offered by The Wellcome Trust. These provide pilot funding for Academic-Industry partnerships to develop early-stage applied research and development projects in orphan and neglected disease areas. Maximum grant £100,000. Closing date: 9/01/14
  •  The Wellcome Trust’s Translational Medicine and Therapeutics Programmes – this flagship scheme has established four high-quality integrated research training programmes for clinicians in translational medicine and therapeutics. Maximum award not specified. No closing date.
  • Arts Awards, from The Wellcome Trust, support imaginative and experimental arts projects that explore biomedical science. Awards are available for large and small projects, above and below £30,000. Closing date 24/01/14

Please note that some funders specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKE Support Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on ResearchProfessional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s RKE Officer in RKE Operations or see the recent post on this topic

Opportunities for BU Researchers in Ecuador

The Ecuadorian government has recently launched the Prometeo Project, an initiative designed to bring top scholars to the country to develop research and teaching for periods of 2-12 months.  Proposals in all areas of research and teaching are currently being accepted on a rolling basis and generally take a couple of months to process in total.  Once the application is submitted, assistance in adjusting the initial research proposal is available from the Prometeo office.

Prometeo fellows are assigned to public institutions. These generally include universities, government offices and research institutes. Although Spanish knowledge is recommended, it is not a pre-requisite for doing research in Ecuador.  Research grants range from $4000-6000 USD/month and teaching grants range from $2000-$4000/ month.  Return airfare and orientation sessions are also included as part of the Prometeo package.

 Applications are assessed according to the following criteria:

  • Publications (indexed papers, not indexed, books, articles)
  • Hirsch Index
  • Research projects (led or coordinated / assistant)
  • Academic experience / teaching
  • Conferences, seminars, workshops, discussion panels (speaker, moderator)
  • Consultancies
  • Scholarships, awards and recognitions
  • Letters of recommendation -optional (two letters in digital format)

For further information, visit the Prometeo website or email: prometeo@senescyt.gob.ec.

Research Professional – all you need to know

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.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. 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 ResearchProfessional.

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 ResearchProfessional.  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 ResearchProfessional.  They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional.  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 fourth Tuesday of each month.  You can register here for your preferred date:

22nd October 2013

26th November 2013

28th January 2014

25th February 2014

25th March 2014

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.

CEMP Research & Innovation

      At the open forum last week, we agreed the following actions for the coming year:

Research & Innovation Bulletin – to continue for information only, once a fortnight, via the research blog, from October 10th;
CEMP meetings – for CEMP staff only, once a month, to include bidding and income monitoring;
CEMP Coffee Mornings – once a month, ‘drop in’ for anyone in the MS who wants to talk to us about funding applications or other research / innovation opportunities. The first of these will be Thursday October 17th;
CEMP workshops – a series of supportive events to help people get started with research, bid writing, publishing, networking;
CEMP Associates – a proposal will be submitted to facilitate more experienced colleagues working with CEMP in a more structured fashion – to collaborate on bid writing, projects and making connections across academic groups.

CEMP Research and Innovation meetings: an invitation

     This academic year CEMP will continue to publish a fortnightly research & innovation funding bulletin via this blog.

The Research & Innovation meetings will also continue, but we want to invite colleagues from the rest of the Media School and across BU to tell us how we can increase engagement and collaboration in all aspects of pedagogic / educational research and innovation related to media / technology.

Previously, the model has been like this –

The bulletin is posted on a Thursday – this contains information about funding calls and also monitors live projects and reports on the outcomes of all bids.

The next Thursday, we meet to discuss the calls in the bulletin and report on bids in progress.

The next Thursday, the updated bulletin is posted

….and so on.

So far, we’ve been successful in one of our two key objectives – increasing CEMP bidding activity, but less successful in the other – developing collaboration with other people in BU, either in response to the funding calls in the bulletin or to try to match peoples’ ideas for projects / innovation to funding opportunities. This second objective is a service / function CEMP can offer to the University, and we’d like more colleagues to access this.

So – we’d like to review how we do this, in order to get better at the second objective, and to this end the first R&I meeting of this year is an open forum and everyone is invited to either come along and contribute to the discussion or to add a comment to this post if you have ideas but can’t make the meeting.

 

Meeting details:

Thursday 26th September 10-12

CEMP’s new office (CAGO2)

Tea, coffee and pastries to be served!

Key issues for discussion:

  • How can CEMP support people in developing research / innovation projects?
  • What are the structural obstacles and how can we overcome them?

When we’ve got everyone’s ideas / requests for how to proceed, we’ll decide how to go ahead.

I hope we’ll see you there or read your ideas on the blog.

Julian

 

Research Professional

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.

Research Professional have created several guides to help introduce users to ResearchProfessional. 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 ResearchProfessional.

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 ResearchProfessional.  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 ResearchProfessional.  They are holding monthly sessions, covering everything you need to get started with ResearchProfessional.  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 fourth Tuesday of each month.  You can register here for your preferred date:

24th September 2013: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/882372120 

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.

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

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

Please note that some funders specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKE Support Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on ResearchProfessional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s RKE Officer in RKE Operations or see the recent post on this topic

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

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

  • BBSRC have announced their Japan Partnering Awards. Maximum funding up to £50,000. Closing date: 27/11/13
  • BBSRC have also announced their Brazil Partnering Awards. Maximum award £100,000. Closing date: 27/11/13
  • BBSRC are supporting India Partnering Awards up to £25,000. Closing date: 27/11/13
  • US Partnering Awards are also available from BBSRC. Maximum grant up to £50,000. Closing date: 27/11/13
  • To stimulate joint working in topics important to BBSRC’s strategy, applications are invited for its international workshops scheme. Maximum award £10,000. Closing date: 27/11/13
  • The British Academy intends, through their scheme of Mid-Career Fellowships, both to support outstanding individual researchers with excellent research proposals, and to promote public understanding and engagement with humanities and social sciences. Awards up to £160,000. Closing date: 18/09/13
  • The MRC and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine invite applications from West Africans and European Union nationals only for three prestigious global health research fellowships. Closing date: 09/10/13
  • NERC is inviting research proposals to its International Opportunities Fund (IOF). Up to £50,000 is available. Closing date: 17/10/13
  • NERC is providing funding for small pilot/development in the use of the very latest, class-leading technologies via their 2013-14 Pilot Project Grants Competition. Maximum grant £6,000. Closing date: 27/09/13
  • NERC invites expressions of interest for its Technology Proof of Concept programme with grants of up to £150,000 available. Closing date for EoIs: 16/09/13 and full proposal closing date: 03/10/13

Please note that some funders specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKE Support Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on ResearchProfessional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s RKE Officer in RKE Operations or see the recent post on this topic.

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

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

  • As part of the RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) wish to commission new, multi-disciplinary and innovative research projects to develop greater understanding of how questions of ethics and rights play out in a security environment, with a focus on governance. The total investment for this Call is £2 million – £2.5 million. A Town Hall meeting is scheduled for 23/09/13. Closing date: 21/10/13
  • The ESRC are offering c. 50 Training Bursaries to improve the standards of research methods and to stimulate the uptake of high quality training courses in research methods across the UK social science community. Bursaries are up to £1,000.
  • A three month secondment opportunity to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) is open to EPSRC funded PhD students. Closing date: 04/10/13
  • The US National Institutes of Health have opened their R01 (Research Project Grant) scheme. Closing date: 05/10/13
  • NERC have opened their Standard Research Grant call. There are special grants available for new investigators. Grants from £65,000 to £1.2m. Closing date: 21/01/14 with another date in July 2014.
  • Industry Fellowships are available from The Royal Society (with support from BBSRC, EPSRC, NERC and BP Ltd). Closing date 04/10/13
  • The Medical Research Council is inviting applications to their Integrative Toxicology Training Partnership (ITTP) PhD studentship scheme. Closing date: 20/11/13
  • The Royal Society is also offering University Research Fellowships. There are c.35 fellowships are available with a length of tenure of five years in the first instance, which may be extended for a further three years. Closing date: 17/09/13
  • The Technology Strategy Board is offering funding to support Unlocking the Hydrocarbon Energy Market. The aim of this competition is to support business-led innovation that leads to supply chain opportunities for hydrogen energy technologies and that addresses key market barriers to the use of hydrogen as an energy vector. The total cost of projects is expected to range in size from £250k to £1m. A briefing event for potential applicants will be held on 23/09/13. Applicants must register by noon on 23/10/13 and the deadline for expressions of interest is at noon on 30/10/13. 
  • The Wellcome Trust is inviting applications to their Postdoctoral Research Training Fellowships for Clinicians. The total cost of a Fellowship would not normally exceed £350 000. Closing date: 15/11/13

Please note that some funders specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKE Support Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on ResearchProfessional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s RKE Officer in RKE Operations or see the recent post on this topic.