Tagged / ESRC

Vice-Chancellor’s Award: Collaborative Research Project

Dr Richard Shipway (School of Tourism) won the Vice-Chancellor’s award for the best collaborative research project for his ESRC-funded project – The Sport Tourism Opportunities for Research Mobility and International Networking Group (STORMING) Initiative.

The grant award formed part of the ESRC’s ‘International Training and Networking Opportunities Programme’. The project supported seventeen early career researchers across eleven higher education institutions throughout the UK, through the provision of a series of international networking opportunities for emerging researchers with a commitment to supporting and further developing sport tourism research. All aspects of the delivery, organisation and external leveraging of the project were managed by Richard. The project has delivered a series of international research outputs and positioned the School of Tourism at the heart of emerging research in this area. Richard has also maximised opportunities from this project, including an invitation to serve on the ESRC Peer Review College, reviewing grant applications in the social sciences.

Richard received the award for having made a substantial impact in collaborative working within BU, and securing external funding to create an innovative research network involving internal colleagues and external institutions. The research undertaken by the network has led to high impact outputs.

Congratulations Richard! 😀

ESRC knowledge exchange opportunities

Funding opportunities

ESRC logoThe ESRC has announced that the next Knowledge Exchange call will go live on the 26 April 2011 will will be open until the 14 June 2011.

There will be two schemes – the Follow on Fund scheme and the new Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme which is an amalgamation of all of the previous KE scheme, i.e. placements and KE small grants. The new scheme allows applicants to apply for a number of activities in one proposal, up to £100k, and it is hoped this will encourage applicants to think creatively about KE/impact and the best mechanisms for achieving these. The scheme is intended as a complement to the Pathways to Impact.

The call is aimed at social science researchers at all stages of their career and at organisations in the business, public and civil society sectors, with the intention of encouraging dialogue and collaboration between these groups.

Knowledge Exchange Opportunities Scheme

This is a new flexible scheme that provides funding for knowledge exchange activities at all stages of the research life-cycle and is intended as a complement to Pathways to Impact.

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 scheme replaces the ESRC Placement Fellowships (all sectors) and Knowledge Exchange Small Grants schemes.

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 non-academic audiences. Some examples of knowledge exchange activities can be found below.

The Follow on Fund Scheme

The aim of this scheme is to provide funding for additional knowledge exchange and impact generating activities to follow on from a specific piece of substantial research that is drawing to an end or has recently finished.

This scheme provides the same flexibility as the Knowledge Exchange Opportunities scheme, and applications for either a single activity, or a combination of activities are welcomed. Follow on funding should be thought of as an extension and complement to the Pathways to Impact section of a research grant.  Applicants are encouraged to think creatively about the format of the knowledge exchange, and to involve research users from the earliest stages of developing the proposal.

Further information is available from the ESRC website: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/collaboration/knowledge-exchange/opportunities/index.aspx

If you are interested in applying to one of these schemes, please contact CRE Operations who will happy to support your application.

Notes from AHRC, ESRC & BA on challenges and opportunities for the arts and humanities and social sciences in the current economic climate

 

BU’s Kate Welham and Richard Shipway attended a meeting jointly hosted by the AHRC, British Academy and the ESRC aimed at discussing the challenges and opportunities for the arts and humanities and social sciences in the current economic climate. The focus of the event included presentations from the three Chief Executives of the respective research bodies who outlined their amended research agendas and current strategic funding priorities. Notes from the day can be found here: Arts Humanities & Social Sciences Meeting Event

links for 2011-04-06

Delicious links

Funding opportunities:

  • ESRC – DFID-ESRC Growth Programme The Department for International Development (DFID) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are partnering in a new programme on economic growth in developing countries. The DFID/ESRC Growth Programme will fund world class scientific research on issues relating to inclusive economic growth in Low Income Countries (LICs), with high potential for impact on policy and practice.
    (tags: research funding)
  • EPSRC logoEPSRC Fellowships in Manufacturing – EPSRC EPSRC is looking, in a Pilot call, to support a number EPSRC Fellowships in Manufacturing who have the potential to be future research leaders in their field in Manufacturing Research, supporting either academics who have recently (within the last three years) moved from industry, or people in industry, currently involved in innovation, looking to move into academia. (tags: research funding earlycareer epsrc)

If you are interested in applying to either of these calls, talk to your R&E officer in CRE Operations.

Support to participate in the ESRC Festival of Social Science

Funding opportunities

The ESRC Festival of Social Science (05.11.11) welcomes event applications targeting a non-academic audience including young people, third sector, the public, business or government. There are two types of applications available:  i) applying for support of up to £2000 – due 3 June  ii) applying for event to be listed: non-supported – due 17 June. If you have any questions contact one of the festival team .

ESRC Demand Management consultation

ESRC logoThe Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has today published plans for how it will manage the increasing demand for its research funding. Their aim is to have fewer, high-quality applications so the best social science is funded in the most effective way.

They will be introducing an initial programme of measures of improved self-regulation and a change to their existing peer review practices and submission policies.

These measures include:

  • the introduction of an invited-only resubmission policy as of June 2011
  • revised sifting mechanisms (greater use of outline applications and earlier sifting for standard grants)
  • issue more tightly specified calls on managed mode schemes which address the ESRC strategic priorities

After 12 months of these initial measures the ESRC will review their effectiveness, to establish whether further steps need to be taken to manage demand. In case further steps are required the ESRC welcome your views on the potential options, particularly in relation to the following questions:

  • Which main demand management options are worthy of further development and why?
  • How might those options be further developed and refined?
  • Which, if any of the main demand management options, would you not consider for further development and why?
  • Overall, which of the options offers the best opportunities to effectively manage demand whilst ensuring the flow of high-quality research applications? Are there any further options which are not included in this paper whcich should be considered by us as part of our demand management strategy?

The deadline for the submission of responses is 16 June 2011. These should be completed using the form on ‘SurveyMonkey’ at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/demand_management.

We would encourage all academic staff researching in the social sciences to respond to the consultation.

To ensure your research proposal stands the best chance of success use BU’s internal peer review scheme – the Research Proposal Review Service.