Category / Funding opportunities

Royal Society Industry Fellowships

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.

It aims to enhance knowledge transfer in science and technology between those in industry and those in academia in the UK.  The scheme provides a basic salary for the researcher and a contribution towards research costs.  The scheme is  funded by the Royal Society, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council, Rolls-Royce plc and BP plc.

Eligibility requirements

The scheme covers all areas of the life and physical sciences, including engineering, but excluding clinical medicine.  The applicant must:

  • have a PhD or be of equivalent standing in their profession
  • hold a permanent post in a university, not-for-profit research organisation or industry in the UK
  • be at a stage in their career when they would particularly benefit from establishing or strengthening personal or corporate links between academia and industry as a foundation for long-term collaboration and development

Applications involving spin-offs or small companies are encouraged. Applicants should clearly state how the fellowship will benefit the not-for-profit research organisation, especially in cases where the applicant has financial involvement within the company. Applicants should also state which complementary skills the employees at the company can offer. 

Applicants should ensure that they meet all the eligibility requirements, which are explained in the scheme notes (PDF).

Value and tenure

The scheme provides the applicant’s basic salary while on secondment. The employing organisation continue to pay national insurance and pension contributions.  Research expenses may be claimed up to the value of £2,000 per year. Awards can be for any period up to two years full-time or a maximum of four years pro rata, i.e. an award could be held at 50% part-time for four years enabling fellows to maintain links with their employing institution more easily.

Application process

Applications are initially assessed by Industry Fellowship panel members and a shortlist is drawn up.  Shortlisted applications are then sent for independent review and are finally considered at a panel meeting, together with their nominated and independent references.

It is expected that applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application 4 months after the closing date of 5th October 2012.

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

British Academy Calls

The British Academy have a number of funding opportunities available at present.  To find out more details, please follow the links below:

Mid-career Fellowship – Deadline 2/9/12

Skills Acquisitions Awards– Deadline 31/10/12

Small Research Grants – Deadline 7/11/12

If you are interested in any of the above then the RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

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:

25th September 2012: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/156092065

23rd October 2012: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/864991824

27th November 2012: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/326491841

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.

ESRC Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme

The scheme provides the opportunity to apply for funding for knowledge exchange activities at any stage of the research lifecycle, and is aimed at maximising the impact of social science research outside academia.

The flexibility built into the scheme is intended to encourage applicants to think creatively about knowledge exchange, and applications are welcomed for either a single activity or a combination of activities; be it setting up a network to help inform the development of a research proposal, arranging an academic placement with a voluntary or business organisation, or developing tools such as podcasts and videos aimed at communicating the results of research to the general public, or developing existing research to make it more applicable to policy or practice.

Important changes to the Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme

Following comments from the community on the difficulty of securing cash contributions from user stakeholders, we have changed the scheme’s co-funding requirement so that partner contributions can now consist of any combination of cash or in-kind resources. The scheme has also been broadened to allow applications for new applied research, provided this is user-led or in collaboration with a user partner. Further details regarding these changes are outlined in the guidance documents below.

The call opened on 20 August 2012 and closes at 16.00 on 2 October 2012.

Call documents, including the scheme guidance are provided below:

Fellowship opportunities

Within this round of the Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme there is also the opportunity to apply for two prespecified placement fellowship projects. The first placement is with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency, and the second placement is with the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The specification for each placement, including details of how to apply, can be found below:

ESRC aim to inform applicants of a decision on all applications within 26 weeks of the closing date for the call. Funding decisions will then be advertised on this website.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application. Please direct any enquiries to RKE Ops in the first instance. Alternatively, contact ESRC at knowledgeexchange@esrc.ac.uk.

Future calls

  • 3 December 2012 – 7 February 2013
  • 3 April 2013 – 6 June 2013
  • 5 August 2013 – 3 October 2013

Assisted Living Innovation Platform (ALIP)

Promoting physical activity in older age

Invitation for proposals: The cross-Research Council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) programme wishes to support research into the physiological effects and behaviours associated with physical activity and sedentary behaviour in the older population.

This nine funding partner call is issued under the auspices of the cross-Research Council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) programme and is led by the Medical Research Council on behalf of the BBSRC, the ESRC, the EPSRC and the UK health departments: Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorates, NIHR, Health and Social Care Research and Development Office, Northern Ireland and the National Institute for Social Care and Health Research, Wales.

Despite wide spread recognition of the physical and mental health benefits of physical activity at all ages, activity levels commonly decline in older age, whilst the prevalence of sedentary behaviour increases. The cross-Research Council Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) programme wishes to support research into the  physiological effects and behaviours associated with physical activity and sedentary behaviour in the older population, which will inform the future development of effective interventions to motivate and sustain activity in this target population.  Approximately £5M is available to support research arising from this call. Applicants may apply for up to £1 million (80% fEC) for a maximum period of three years.

Key dates

   
Call open for applications in Je-S Monday 17th September 2012
Deadline for full proposals 4pm, Thursday18th October 2012
Potential triage of proposals November 2012
Commissioning Panel meeting March 2013
Decisions to applicants By end March 2013

Contact

In addition to this document, applicants should read the MRC Applicant Guidance and Frequently Asked Questions for this call.

Dr Katie Finch

MRC programme Manager for Lifelong Health and Wellbeing, E-mail: llhw@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk, Tel: 01793 416350

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

Fusion Investment Funding/Fund

Within the new Fusion Funding prospect here at Bournemouth University, I have just had success for a project examining  teaching practice and the use of media in the classroom.  The specific focus relates bullying, and name calling in school, and how media may be used to educate young learners.  I am very excited about this project, as it extends my foundational research in media representation and sexual diversity, allowing me to consider how teachers might relate issues of minority social identity.  Its very early days, as the project does not officially start until the 1st of October, and to be honest I have never done a blog before, and I (deliberately) have no presence on Facebook, Twitter etc, so the purpose of the blog is to reflect back on my progress for myself, as much as anything else, and if anyone reading this finds some interest, that’s great!

With this in mind, I thought I might share the background for the project.  A few years back in the late 198os, a secondary school teacher friend of mine often told me of instances when he used to play educational dramas about gay and lesbian youth identity issues.  I remember one time, he told me that he had played the television drama ‘The Two of  Us’ (Roger Tongue, 1988), which features a ‘kind of’ teen romance. This was quite daring, as at the time there was the backdrop of Clause 28, and the prohibition of educating school audiences about gay and lesbian identity.  Wind forward, many years later, and referencing an entirely different country, the work of Debra Chasnoff and her production company Groundspark, offered great insight.  Educational documentaries such as ‘Thats a Family’ (2000), and ‘Straighlaced’ (2009) produced by Groundspark offered insight into the diversity of families (adopted, single parent, same sex parents, diverse ethnicity etc) and the problem of stereotyping gender norms for teens.  Also Groundspark produced ‘Lets Get Real’ talking about issues of name calling in school.  At Bournemouth I had discussed the merits of these documentaries to students in the year 2 Media and Diversity option that I held.  I was inspired how students engaged with the subject area, and how they related these issues to their own productions.

More recently, specifically September 2010, I was invited to speak at the Westminster Media Forum.  The conference subject area was LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) representation in mainstream media.  I was thrilled to present a very brief paper to quite a diverse audience, including media professionals, broadcasters, and government representatives. My paper had been related to a need for more diverse representations.   The day after the conference, I read in the Guardian about the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a first year student at Rutgers university in the US.  He had killed himself, as his roommate had secretly filmed Tytler with a same sex partner.  The alleged shame appeared too much to bear for Tyler.  This high profile case made me investigate this further online.  I then discovered the ‘It Gets better Project’, a web site that was produced to offer support for youth contemplating suicide, due to oppression for sexual diversity.  What I did not know was that in the month of September 2010, a number of other gay male youth committed suicide also, stimulating video contribution to the ‘It Gets better Project’. I have done some papers on this area, considering the use of the site, but increasingly I am interested in how name calling is a real issue for young learners, and how words such as ‘gay’, ‘dyke’, ‘queer’ and ‘faggot’, are often unchallenged within diverse social environments.

So this is the very basic background to my research project.  Some great research has already taken place looking at LGBT identity issues in school, such as the No Outsiders Project (funded by the ESRC) a few years back relative to primary schools, but I am looking to extend these ideas, looking at how media is used in the secondary school classroom.

As a precursor to this project, I recently presented a paper at the Screen Conference in Glasgow, considering how children may read representations.  I was particularly interested in how young learners may read irony, which enables youth to make complex judgments about ‘earnest’ or ‘hyper-real’ representations.

So this is my starting point. I’ll add to this blog, as it all progresses.  Thanks again, supporters of this bid.

Research Professional – Training

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:

25th September 2012: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/156092065

23rd October 2012: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/864991824

27th November 2012: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/326491841

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.

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 ResearchProfessionalTo access the videos, please use the following link: http://www.youtube.com/researchprofessional 

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.

School of Tourism’s Lorraine Brown on her upcoming Study Leave

I am very pleased to be able to to share the first blog post for Fusion Investment Fund Projects.

Our research has shown that posts by our academics sharing their projects are our most widely read posts.  So the coming weeks are set to be packed with stories our successful applicants will share in the lead up to and during their funded projects.  I hope this post will spark your interest in applying for Study Leave and in Dr Brown’s two trips abroad starting in November.    

Dr Lorraine Brown from the School of Tourism has won funding from the Fusion Investment Fund Study leave strand to do research on literary tourism in both Paris and Berlin, She has been invited to visit the prestigious Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University as a visiting researcher in France’s leading tourism research centre (IREST), where she will based to do her primary research and where she will also network with colleagues in IREST’s interdisciplinary research centre.

In Berlin, she will be based in the Geography Department of the world-leading Humboldt University. A qualitative approach will be undertaken, involving observation and interviews over a six-week period at key literary tourist sites in Berlin, one of the top three literary tourism destinations in the world. In line with the Fusion agenda, findings will be published in top tourism journals; they will be disseminated to practitioners; and will inform the syllabus of one of the MSc units that the proposer leads.

At both Universities, Lorraine will explore opportunities for ongoing research collaboration.

If you would like further information on the fund please do get in touch by email with me.

Best wishes,

Sam

Fusion Investment Fund allocates £362k in first round!

We were delighted to receive so many applications for each of the strands under the Fusion Investment Fund and want to give a quick update on how many applications were successful in the first round.

All BU staff will know that Fusion is the key concept that underlies Vision & Values 2018; it is our key academic strategy and central to the culture of BU.  The Fusion Investment Fund is comprised of three funding strands which staff can apply to in order to support activities which will drive Fusion within BU. The three strands are:

The first competition under the Fusion Investment Fund was launched in April, with a closing date in July. Each application was reviewed by a panel dedicated to each of the strands (the hyperlinks above detail the panel membership). The three panels approved 13 applications under the Staff Networking & Mobility strand, 4 under Study Leave and 9 under Co-Creation and Co-Production were supported, totalling more than £362, 000.

Staff representing all Schools were successful in this first round of the Fusion Investment Fund and we will shortly be publicising the supported activities around both campuses.

The next round of funding will be available in December, and applications will be taken from October. We are currently revising some of the policy documents, but if you are thinking about applying why not take a look at the existing documentation using the hyperlinks above to get a flavour of what funding you can apply for under Fusion Investment.

 Sam Furr in the Research Development Unit is the administrator for the fund and available for any questions you may have in the meantime.

Defra Funding Opportunity – Development of coordinated in situ and ex situ UK farm animal genetic resources conservation strategy and implementation guidance

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs invites applications for its development of coordinated in situ and ex situ UK farm animal genetic resources conservation strategy and implementation guidance call.

This call aims to fund a project that will provide an up to date record, analysis and evaluation of effectiveness of current breeding programmes and conservation strategies for farm animal genetic resources and FAnGR at risk in the UK and provide evidence-based best practice for conservation strategies and breeding programmes that can be used directly by livestock breeders, policy makers and advisors aiming to conserve sustainably FAnGR in the UK. The project is expected to start by 1 October 2012 and take no more than six months to complete ending by 31 March 2013.

View the full details of this call here.

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

Defra Funding Opportunity – Biodiversity segmentation scoping study

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs invites applications for its biodiversity segmentation scoping study.

The aim of this project is to undertake a biodiversity segmentation scoping study, to help understand the attitudes, values, motivations and behaviours of key groups and how to engage them more effectively. The objectives of the project are: to undertake a review of existing segmentations, data sources and relevant literature, to inform understanding of target audiences and behaviours and possible approaches to increase engagement with biodiversity issues; to undertake in-depth qualitative research with key groups, including key stakeholders and public groups; to assess options and make recommendations for development of a full-scale biodiversity segmentation, including consideration of target audiences and behaviours; to make other recommendations in addition to or apart from segmentation to help identify and understand target audiences and behaviours and develop effective interventions and approaches; to be flexible in response to evidence needs identified by the people engagement group and inform its work, as well as future biodiversity people engagement policy; to work closely with the two PEG task and finish groups on priority audiences and priority behaviours; to provide high quality outputs in a range of formats. It is expected that the cost of the project will be within the range of £70,000 to £100,000.

View the full details of this call here.

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

EPSRC – Research Challenges in Geological Storage for Carbon Capture and Storage

Closing date: 16:00 on 13 November 2012

Issue date: 25 July 2012

Category: Invitation for proposals 

Related theme: Energy

EPSRC, as part of the RCUK Energy Programme invites proposals for collaborative research projects to undertake fundamental engineering and physical sciences research to tackle challenges around geological storage that will help advance carbon capture and storage (CCS) towards deployment.

The Energy Programme supports a substantial portfolio in carbon capture and storage research, but the majority of it supported through EPSRC focuses on carbon capture and transport. It is clear that geological storage aspects of CCS offer substantial research challenges so this call focuses on the contribution that engineering and physical sciences research can make to the challenges of geological storage for CCS.

The scope of the call was developed at a scoping workshop held on 10 July 2012. A report of the outputs from this workshop can be downloaded from this page.

Contact: Jacqui Williams

The RKE Operations team can help you with your application. 

ESRC Future Research Leaders scheme 2012/2013 – how to apply

The ESRC’s Future Research Leaders call is currently open with a closing date of 4th October 2012.

Universities are expected to consider applications very carefully prior to submitting them to the ESRC through this call, and all applications need to be supported with a letter from the PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation).

With this in mind BU has established a process for submissions to this call. All proposals must be submitted to a special version of our internal peer review scheme (the RPRS) first and must be signed off by Matthew Bennett as PVC (Research, Enterprise and Internationalisation) prior to submission.

For applicants interested in the scheme, the key internal dates are as follows:

28th Aug Proposals to be submitted to the RPRS and sent for review.
10th Sept Proposal feedback to be returned to applicants.
10th Sept – 21st Sept Applicants to finalise proposals based on reviewer feedback.
21st Sept Final proposals to be sent to Matthew Bennett (via RKE Ops).
  Matthew Bennett to review and approve final proposals (and write the PVC letter of support). Once reviewed, CRE Operations will let applicants know when to submit via Je-S.
26th Sept Final decision from Matthew Bennett re: proposals to submit
26th – 1st Oct Selected applicants finalise proposals
1st Oct Final proposals submitted via Je-S
4th October ESRC deadline
   

If you are considering applying to the scheme but have not yet confirmed this with the RKE Ops team please could you do so as soon as possible.

Please take the time to read through the call documentation available on the ESRC website – it contains a lot of important information about assessment criteria and what the ESRC are looking for in a proposal.

If you have any questions about this call or the Resarch Proposal Review Service please contact Caroline O’Kane

MRC – PET neuroscience specialist postdoctoral training programme 2012

Background

PET is a technology of key importance for understanding physiology and pharmacological mechanisms and for translation of discoveries through to the clinic. PET imaging techniques have good potential to provide high impact in both diagnosis and therapy across a range of diseases.

This call is for proposals of up to four years in duration for neurosciences research that depends on the use of PET imaging. The goal is to address continuing shortfalls in specialist post-doctoral training to enable skills development for PET imaging. The call for proposals follows up on a previously successful pilot scheme which made three awards in 2009, which sought to address two principal challenges for PET imaging in neuroscience research.

These were that:

  • Major academic centres are establishing new PET centres in the UK even though difficulties already exist in recruiting scientists with the necessary radiochemical, analysis or applications expertise;
  • It is difficult to develop or gain access to novel molecular probes for innovative applications of PET imaging.

These issues remain pertinent for the field, and this new call will seek to build further capacity in the field. Those Institutions successful under the pilot scheme will be welcome to bid under this open competitive call, where they will be assessed on an equal basis with other applicants. There is no assumption that the awards previously made will automatically continued.

Through the MRC the community is working with the MHRA to find ways to address the regulatory issues experienced by the community; this experts group includes representation from many UK Institutions engaged in PET research.

Objectives and remit

The scheme is being run through the MRC Neurosciences and Mental Health Board (NMHB) and is intended to allow suitably qualified post-doctoral researchers to both train in specialist PET-related disciplines and then potentially contribute towards the development of novel PET molecular imaging methodologies (for example, new molecular probes) that will benefit the neurosciences. It is hoped that at least four awards each employing at least one post-doctoral research assistant will be made.

To be employed on these grants, the trainee PET researchers recruited by the Institution are expected to have a clinical or non-clinical PhD in one or more of the following scientific disciplines:

  • chemistry
  • neuropharmacology
  • mathematics
  • biological sciences with experience of working in clinical imaging or with animal or cellular models

Key elements will be:

  • The provision by the host institution of a good training environment; and
  • Evidence that following an appropriate period of skills training, the trainee will have opportunities for independent research using PET imaging in an academic or industrial scientific environment.

Each award will be made for up to four years, with at least two years specifically designated for appropriate skills training relevant to PET. After training, the following years would be designated for application of these acquired skills to a neuroscience imaging problem. These time periods are suggested as a guideline only; the NMHB will be flexible if a good case is made for a different approach to suit a particular project, candidate or environment.

Further details are provided, under general features, training requirements and scientific details.

Funding available

£2m is available from the MRC’s Neuroscience and Mental Health Board. Applications will be considered by NMHB at its meeting to be held on 6th and 7th March 2013. Applications must be submitted via the JeS system by 4pm on the 25th September 2012. Applications should be submitted as a Standard Proposal, a Research Grant, to the NMHB September call and should include prefix to the title – PET Call.

Interaction with industry partners will be desirable, and preference will be given to applications that can offer evidence of meaningful collaboration with partners who are able to complement the bid and strengthen the training component of the award or otherwise enhance potential for success.

Awards may be made either to the same or to different academic centres – this has not been pre-specified and will depend upon the quality of the proposals.

For more information on General Features, Training Requirements, Scientific Details, Networking, and Advice to Applicants, please click here

Assessment process

Applications must be submitted via the JeS system by 4pm on the 25th September 2012. Applications should be submitted as a Standard Proposal, a Research Grant, to the NMHB September call and should include prefix to the title – PET Call.

Applications will be assessed by reviewers in November and December 2012. A specially convened review panel will meet to make triage decisions on the applications. Following the triage meeting, applicants will be contacted with the outcome. Applications will either be declined or go forward for consideration at the Neurosciences and Mental Health Board (NMHB) in March 2013. The Panel’s triage decision is final and not open to appeal. For those proposals going forward to the Board, applicants will be invited to respond to the referee comments. The timeline for this will be relatively tight.

NMHB members will receive the applications, external reviewers’ comments and the applicant’s response. Awards by the Board at the March meeting will be made in competition with other proposals at the Board and only research proposals of high quality will be funded.

Final decisions will be made by the Board and applicants will be informed of the decision and provided with Board feedback in March 2013. The Board’s decision is final and not open to appeal.

In addition to using the standard assessment criteria, where appropriate, key considerations for the Panel will be:

  • Eligibility for the call;
  • Quality and suitability of the research environment and of the facilities for the proposed work;
  • Quality and suitability of the general training environment(s)
  • Arrangements for mentoring of the post-holder once the grant-funded post is offered and accepted
  • Evidence that following the award, the trainee(s) will have opportunities for independent research using PET imaging in an academic or industrial scientific environment
  • Suitability of the specific training proposal and project(s) for developing the trainee’s skills and career;
  • Potential importance of the specific research being conducted as part of the training;
  • Strength and clarity of any collaboration and the potential for collaborations to strengthen the PET community in the neurosciences
  • Value for money.

If you have a query about this call please email: Joanna Jenkinson

E-mail: joanna.jenkinson@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.

Dept. of Health, NIHR, MRC – Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation Programme

Researcher-led Calls

The EME programme’s researcher-led workstream is an ongoing research funding opportunity funded by the MRC. You are welcome to submit an outline application at any time, however there will be three cut-off dates each year. If you would like them to alert you by email about future funding opportunities please click here.

Call reference Deadline Research brief Guidance notes Apply
12/127 13 November 2012 by 1pm Access the research brief Access the guidance notes Apply now

*Please note that once you have logged in, you will need to click on the ‘Apply for Funding’ button and select the call that you wish to apply to from the list*

Resources for applicants

 The RKE Operations team can help you with your application.