Tagged / wellcome trust

Wellcome Trust – on schemes, remits, developing competitive applications & the application review process

BU research, humanities

RKEO was invited to a Humanities and Social Science (HSS hereafter) Research Offices Afternoon, organised by the Wellcome Trust, with a view of establishing relationships and improving the strength and diversity of research they receive and fund.

We were briefed on the HSS funding remit and available funding schemes; on developing competitive applications; the application review process, etc.

Some of the highlights include the following:

ᴥ Wellcome trust funds health, social, cultural and economic research.

ᴥ Theme-based seed awards help researchers to develop compelling and innovative ideas that will go on to form part of larger applications.

ᴥ When applying for funding, it’s important to state:

  1. Your experience & contribution
  2. What you want to achieve
  3. How your planned activities link to achieve the overall aims
  4. Who – partners, stakeholders, etc
  5. Your budget

ᴥ When developing your funding proposal, it’s important to work Wellcome Trust key messages and strategies into it.

ᴥ Funding decisions and recommendations are decided by multi-disciplinary committees. It is therefore important to ensure that your proposal can be understood outside of your field/ discipline.

ᴥ It is highly recommended for proposals to have pre-submission input from colleagues within and beyond your own field.

ᴥ Small grants, seed awards and studentships go through a one-stage application process.

ᴥ Research fellowships and research awards for health professionals go through a three-stage application process:

Expression of interest → Triage → Full application

ᴥ There is currently no requirement for the pathways to impact statement/ document on grant applications.

ᴥ Non-academic impact is viewed positively on applications.

ᴥ Wellcome funds ambitious, innovative and high quality research. Innovative and ambitious means:

  1. The use of interdisciplinary methods
  2. Genuine interdisciplinary research

ᴥ At the preliminary stage, it’s important that applications/proposals be treated as a summary of the full application, with careful considerations for research ethics and data management (avoid depending on generic text)

ᴥ The use of generic text is strongly advised against – the letter of support from the Uni should be personalised to better fit the context of the proposed research

ᴥ What makes a successful application from a reviewer’s point of view?

  1. Innovative
  2. Unusual project
  3. Methodologically rigorous
  4. Sound
  5. The right person doing the right project at the right place
  6. A project fails when jargons and key terms are not explained successfully
  7. Must detail = why this is an important project; why they are the right people to do it; why the location
  8. Research ethics carefully considered; timetable is realistic; costing not outlandish

Wellcome Trust changes to fellowship schemes

BU research, Funding opportunities, Guidance

wellcometrust_logoTime restrictions based on the number of years since a researcher was awarded their PhD have been removed from Wellcome fellowship schemes.

They’re making this change to increase flexibility for researchers and so widen the pool of people who can apply for Wellcome support as they build a career in independent research.

They want to support the best researchers through their fellowships and believe the emphasis should be on the independence, achievement and vision of those who apply.

The reality of research is that it doesn’t always follow an anticipated timescale, and the application of time constraints can close doors for those who may have moved disciplines, for example from maths or physics to biological science.

The change will not disadvantage researchers who are in the early years of their career – applicants will be judged on achievements according to their experience.

Find our more about Wellcome funding

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities, Uncategorized

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

Economic and Social Research Council

The Economic and Social Research Council, under the Research Councils UK and Fonds National de la Recherche, Luxembourg, bilateral agreement, invites proposals for its Research Grants Scheme. The scheme supports collaborative research in any area of social sciences within the remit of both ESRC and FNR. The UK part of the project must be a minimum of £350,000 and no more than £1 million (at 100% fEC).

Maximum award: £1 million. Closng date: 31/12/16.

Natural Environment Research Council

The Natural Environment Research Council, in collaboration with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Indian Department of Science and Technology, invites applications for their Water Quality in India Scoping Workshop. The workshop will take place in Delhi on 17th and 18th November 2016 and the aims of the workshop will be: to define the scope of a potential new UK/India interdisciplinary programme focussed on research contributing to improved water quality, and through this support the economic development and welfare of India; to facilitate links between the UK and Indian research communities in the area of water quality research.

Applications from researchers working in the fields of water quality, water engineering and related disciplines are welcome. NERC and EPSRC will cover all reasonable travel and subsistence expenses for UK participants attending the workshop.

Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 16/09/16.

The Natural Environment Research Council, under its Discovery Science programme, invites applications for its Standard Research Grants.  Discovery Science is a key component of delivering the strategy of NERC and is intended to facilitate the identification of the next generation of strategic priorities. The minimum that can be requested per complete proposal and per component is £65,000 and the maximum for complete proposal is £800,000 at 100 per cent full economic cost.

You must speak to your DDRPP and your Funding Development Officer before applying to this call. Bournemouth University can submit one application per round and operates a demand management process.

Maximum award: £640,000 (at 80% fEC). Closing date: 17/01/17.

Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust invites submissions for its Wellcome Book Prize.  The award is open to new works of fiction or non-fiction published by a UK based publisher or in-print between 1st January 2016 and 31 December 2016 (for the 2017 prize).

A book should have a central theme that engages with some aspect of medicine, health or illness. This can cover many genres of writing – including crime, romance, popular science, sci fi and history. The subjects these books might include birth and beginnings, illness and loss, pain, memory, and identity. The Wellcome Book Prize aims to excite public interest and encourage debate around these topics. Academic textbooks, scholarly monographs, diet books and picture-led books are not eligible, even if they are relevant to medicine or medical science.

Maximum award: £30,000. Closing date: 09/09/16 (recurring).

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact RKEO with adequate notice before the deadline. Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Funding Development Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in RKEO or view the recent blog post here. If you are thinking of applying, why not add an expression of interest on Research Professional so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

 

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

Economic and Social Research Council

ESRC invites applications for an Understanding the Macroeconomy Network Plus. The aim of the network is to develp the capacity needed to sustain a substantive policy-oriented research programme, which is focussed on the macroeconomy. The Network will include representatives from the policy community and the private sector as well as academics from the economics profession and other disciplines which have the potential to add value in this area. It will be charged with providing leadership in connecting interdisciplinary research groups and networks, ensuring the new initiative can best add value in the context of existing capacity and current research agendas (whether or not ESRC-funded).

Maximum budget: £3.7 million. Closing date for outline proposals: 4pm, 20/09/16.

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

EPSRC is inviting tenders for a contract to run a mid-range facility providing a high-specification electron microscopy  service to the UK academic community and other users. Full details of how to apply will be in the relevant published OJEU and Contracts Finder notices. The contract will run initially for three years with an option to extend it to five years subject to a review. Bidders will need to provide information on the specification of the equipment they intend to operate, the facilities and the service they intend to provide, the staffing of the facility and the cost of the service.

Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 07/09/16.

Global Food Security

Global Food Security, in collaboration with  BBSRC, ESRC, NERC and the Scottish Government, invites applications for its second call on Resilience of the UK food system in a global context. There are three overlapping thematic priorities in the programme. Proposals should address one or more thematic priorities and are encouraged to take a food systems approach

  • Optimising the resilience of agricultural systems and landscape whilst enhancing productivity and sustainability
    At the core of this theme is understanding the relationship between resilience, sustainability and production and how to optimise the trade-offs associated with these tensions. This will help ensure agricultural systems and landscapes that are both resilient and sustainable and balance the provision of food with other ecosystem services in the face of evolving world-wide changes and threats
  • Optimising resilience of food supply chains locally and globally
    This theme is focused on understanding the economic, environmental, biological and social factors affecting the food supply chain, and the interplay between these, to ensure resilience of the food system at a local-to-global level
  • Influencing food choice for health, resilience and sustainability at the individual and household level
    Central to this theme is understanding the drivers behind food choices and how these impact on the wider food system and production, in order to identify interventions that result in provision of nutritious and sustainable food in more resilient and equitable ways

Maximum award: £2.8million. Closing date: 10/11/16.

Natural Environment Research Council

NERC invites applications for access to its High Performance Computing Facilities. Users will be allocated to one of three HPC consortia- oceanography and shelf seas; atmospheric and polar sciences; mineral and geophysics.

Maximum award: Not specified. Closing date: 12/09/16.

Medical Research Council

MRC invites outline proposals for its Stratified Medicine Initiative call – disease-focused partnerships to stratify for patient benefit. This call aims to support consortia to address disease areas where there is a strong case for scientific advancement and major unmet clinical need. Proposals should clearly describe and justify why a particular disease area is likely to contribute important understanding of disease, whether employing stratification by response to treatment or by risk, diagnosis and/or prognosis. The consortia must: build upon existing scientific and clinical expertise; utilise clinical research infrastructure, such as that provided by the National Institute of Health Research, Scottish Government Health Directorates, National Institute for Social Care and Health Research, Welsh Government and Health, Social Services and Public Safety, Northern Ireland; forge significant links with industrial partners.

Total budget: £15million. Closing date: Outline applications due 4pm 01/12/16.

Wellcome Trust

Wellcome Trust invites applications for its Investigator Awards in Science, which fund researchers at all career stages working on important questions of relevance to their scientific remit.

Maximum award: £3million. Closing date: 21/11/16.

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact RKEO with adequate notice before the deadline.

Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Funding Development Officer

You can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

Latest Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

The following funding opportunities have been announced. Please follow the links for more information.money and cogs

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

The BBSRC has made funds of £5k for BBSRC grant holders as part of the International Scientific Interchange Scheme to establish new contacts with international counterparts.  Closing Date Open

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Applications are welcomed for access to super-computing time  (>100,000 kAU or 6666667 core-hours on ARCHER) up to 24 months as part of the ARCHER Leadership Project or as part of the Resource Allocation Panel (>1,000kAUs or >66,667 ARCHER core hours) for 12 months for research that falls within the remit of the EPSRC or NERC.  Closing Date 13/6/16  

Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance

The Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance is accepting applications for a maximum of €50k, for projects lasting 6-12 months for the creation of Transnational Networks/Working Groups in the following areas:

  1. Guidelines on use (Human & Veterinary) – Affordable stewardship
  2. Surveillance in primary care
  3. New anti-infective/ New adjuvant therapies / Alternative approaches
  4. Evaluation of risk for generation of resistance in human setting
  5. Rapid diagnostic tests
  6. Role of environmental factors
  7. Infrastructures/Biobanks available relevant to infection and AMR

Each working group must include at least three partners from the following countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the UK and Canada.  Closing Date 6/6/16

Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust have made available the Small Arts Awards (small- to medium-sized projects – up to and including £40k) to support new project ideas or ways of working, investigate and experiment with new methods of engagement through the arts or the final production costs of new work. Closing Date 1/6/16

As part of the Development Awards, up to £10k is available for ideas for TV, radio, games or film projects in collaboration with scientists and researchers. Closing Date 27/7/16

If you are interested in submitting to any of the above calls you must contact RKEO with adequate notice before the deadline.

Please note that some funding bodies specify a time for submission as well as a date. Please confirm this with your RKEO Funding Development Officer.

You can set up your own personalised alerts on Research Professional. If you need help setting these up, just ask your School’s/Faculty’s Funding Development Officer in RKEO or view the recent blog post here.

If thinking of applying, why not add notification of your interest on Research Professional’s record of the bid so that BU colleagues can see your intention to bid and contact you to collaborate.

A series of co-incidents

BU research, international, Publishing, Uncategorized

Over 25 years ago during my PhD research comparing the organisation of midwifery and maternity care in the Netherlands and the Northeast of Scotland I wrote a chapter comparing the history of maternity care in the two countries.  I needed to write this not, as I thought at the time, to improve my thesis, but for myself to help me as a sociologist to help understand these historical developments.

In the process of researching the history of midwifery in the Netherlands I found a commemorative book by Drenth (1998) celebrating the centenary of the Dutch midwifery organisation. In this book is a footnote stating that the first chair of the KNOV (Royal Dutch Organisation of Midwives), Ms Francijntje de Kadt, lived and worked in the town of Vlaardingen in the late 19th to early 20th century (Drenth 1998). This note caught my eyes as I am born and bred in Vlaardingen.

Francijntje de Kadtlaan in Vlaardingen, the Netherlands

Francijntje de Kadtlaan in Vlaardingen, the Netherlands

After a bit more searching and a visit to the archives of the town of Vlaardingen I managed to dig up a little more about Francijntje de Kadt, but not an awful lot. During a family visit to the Netherlands I visited the archives of Vlaardingen to see what information they had about her. The archivist immediately recognised the name of Francijntje de Kadt, since genealogists keep finding her name as the midwife listed on their ancestors’ birth certificates. However, the archivist did not know that Francijntje de Kadt had been the first chair of the Dutch Mmidwifery organisation from its establishment in 1898 till 1926. At that point I decided to apply for a small travel grant in the History of Medicine from the Wellcome Trust. That application was successful, awarding a travel grant of £ 1,050 in 2001. My research in various archives in the Netherlands resulted in two papers (in Dutch) about Francijntje de Kadt, one in a local history journal (van Teijlingen 2003a) and one in the Dutch midwifery journal (2003b) and one about the collapse in 1921 of the midwives’ first pension fund (van Teijlingen 2002). This was for a while the end of my career as an amateur historian due to my busy day job as a health researcher and MSc coordinator at the University of Aberdeen.

Many years later (2010) I ended up talking to the burgomaster of Vlaardingen at the reception organised by the town to celebrate the fact that my father had been awarded the Dutch equivalent of an OBE. Over a drink I asked the burgomaster what the process was for suggesting a new street name in Vlaardingen. He suggested I write to the Street Name Committee with a justification why Francijntje de Kadt deserved a street name. With my recommendation I sent this committee my two Dutch publications. A few months later the secretary to the Street Name Committee wrote to say that my proposal had been accepted and that her name would be given to a street in a new development of the former local hospital grounds.

Then in mid-2015 a Dutch historian Eva Moraal came to Vlaardingen with her partner on a day trip and they ended up walking through the Francijntje de Kadtlaan. She read the subscript on the street sign (see photo) and thought ‘This woman need to have an encyclopaedia entry!’ A few days later she emailed me at Bournemouth University for further information on the live, work and achievements of Francijntje de Kadt to help her write a piece for the encyclopaedia. Two months ago Eva Moraal (2015) published her very nice contribution on Francijntje de Kadt.

So what started as a small historical study as an introduction chapter of a PhD thesis in Medical Sociology ended up with a ‘forgotten’ national midwifery leader having a street named after her in the town she spent most of her working live and her own entry in the encyclopaedia, Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland (in Dutch: Online Women’s Lexicon of the Netherlands). What is even more interesting that this otherwise chronologically logical story is based on three major co-incidents: first, spotting a footnote in commemorative book about Vlaardingen. If Francijntje de Kadt had lived and worked anywhere else in the Netherlands other than my birthplace I would not have paid much attention. Secondly, speaking to the burgomaster of Vlaardingen and having a conversation in which street names cropped up, and thirdly, Eva Moraal who just happened to walk through the Francijntje de Kadtlaan, reading the street sign, and thinking this is an historical figure who needs better recognition.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

 

References:

Drenth, P. (1998) 1898-1998. Honderd jaar vroedvrouwen verenigd, Bilthoven: KNOV.

Moraal, E. (2015) Kadt, Francijntje de, in: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. URL: http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Kadt

van Teijlingen, E. (2002) Ondergang eerste pensioenfonds voor vroedvrouwen (in Dutch: Decline of the first pension fund for midwives), Tijdschrift voor Verloskundigen (in Dutch: Journal for Midwives), 27(12): 684.

van Teijlingen, E.R. (2003a) Berichten – Francijntje de Kadt (1858-1929), Tijdschrift voor Verloskundigen (in Dutch: Journal for Midwives), 28(12): 630-633.

van Teijlingen, E.R. (2003b) Francijntje de Kadt (1858-1929). Vroedvrouw te Vlaardingen en eerste voorzitter van de Nederlandsche vroedvrouwenvereeniging, Tijd-schrift (in Dutch: Time-Magazine) 88: 14-23.

Wellcome Trust visiting BU

BU research, Funding opportunities, Research communication

Interdisciplinary Research Week funder visit:wellcometrust_logo

Who: Harriet Martin and Chris Hassan, The Wellcome Trust

Where and when: Executive Business Centre, Monday, 25th January – 12-14:30

What: Harriet and Chris will be joining us to talk about The Wellcome Trust’s most recent collaborative project ‘Hubbub’ and why working across various disciplines, sectors and organisations is important to them as funders. The Wellcome Trust’s philosophy is ‘good health makes life better’. We want to improve health for everyone by helping great ideas to thrive.

Book your placeInterdisResWeek2

Wellcome Trust visiting BU as part of IRW

Research communication

wellcometrust_logoThe Wellcome Trust are visiting BU on Monday, 25th January 2016 as part of the Interdisciplinary Research Week.

Harriet Martin and Chris Hassan will be joining us to talk about The Wellcome Trust’s most recent collaborative project ‘Hubbub’ and why working across various disciplines, sectors and organisations is important to them as funders. The Wellcome Trust’s philosophy is ‘good health makes life better’. They want to improve health for everyone by helping great ideas to thrive.

The event is taking place between 12.00 and 14.30 and is open to all, including external to BU staff.  To book your place, please visit the EventBrite pages.InterdisResWeek2

Interdisciplinary Research Week 2016 Programme of Events

BU research, Research communication

InterdisResWeek2The second Interdisciplinary Research Week (IRW) is being held from 25th to 29th January 2016. Join us at one or more of these free events to celebrate the breadth and excellence of Bournemouth University’s research, across it’s many disciplines.

This five day event includes a programme of lectures, art based events, film, discussions and healthy debate all designed to stimulate new ideas and examine important societal issues from across the globe.

Events also include funder visits from the Wellcome Trust who will be talking about their most recent collaborative project ‘Hubbub’ and why working across various disciplines, sectors and organisations is important to them as funders; and the British Academy who will share emerging findings from a project they are carrying out on interdisciplinary research. They are looking at how the whole higher education and research systems supports such research in terms of publishing, research funding, academic careers, teaching and beyond.  Both events promise to be popular both within BU and externally and so do book your places now through the links above.

The IRW events are open to everyone (only one event is for BU academics and researchers only) and bookable through EventBrite. Do check out the whole programme of events to see what might interest you and publicise the week to your friends and family.

Wellcome Trust aims to increase spend to £5 billion over next 5 years

Funding opportunities, Research news

strategy - SMThe Wellcome Trust aims to invest £5 billion over the next five years to improve health, as it launches a new strategic framework focussed on advancing the best ideas in science and research, seizing opportunities as they arise and taking advantage of our independence to drive reform.

This marks another step forward for Wellcome, the world’s second highest spending charitable foundation, which has invested £6 billion over the last ten years and £11 billion since it began in 1936.

Wellcome’s new framework consists of three complementary approaches across science, research and engagement with society:

  • Advancing Ideas. Wellcome will continue to respond to great ideas and inspired thinking that address the fundamental health challenges of our time. Last year we unveiled our new funding framework to enhance our ability to support excellent research in the UK and worldwide.
  • Seizing opportunities. Wellcome brings ideas together to make a big difference, providing intensive support that creates real change. We identify times when our concerted intervention can accelerate progress towards better health.
  • Driving reform. Wellcome changes ways of working so more ideas can flourish, leading by example and campaigning for wider reform. Our record in areas like open access to research results, public engagement, and research careers has earned us the credibility to challenge ways of working, and to propose better alternatives.

The success of Wellcome’s £18 billion investments portfolio, which funds all of their work and is managed by an in-house team, has already given them the independence and resources to support such transformative work as the sequencing and understanding of the human genome, research that established front-line drugs for malaria, and Wellcome Collection, their free venue that explores medicine, life and the arts.

“The Wellcome Trust has a long-standing record in science and research of which we are very proud,” says Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust. “We are able to build on that legacy with an increased commitment to supporting people and teams with great ideas in basic science and applied research, social science and the humanities, which will remain at the core of our work. But we can now also bring additional focus to some of the biggest health challenges of our time. We responded swiftly to Ebola but there are other serious issues where we believe that we can help bring about change for the better.”

Their priorities will evolve as new challenges arise, drawing on insights from a rich history of achievement and a network of experts from different disciplines around the world. Their initial priorities include:

  • Drug-resistant infection. Growing resistance to antibiotics and other drugs threatens many of the benefits of modern medicine. Wellcome will explore how best to use and protect the treatments we have, and to encourage the development of new ones.
  • Vaccination. Too many lives are still lost to diseases that could be prevented by vaccines, mostly in low and middle-income countries. Wellcome will investigate how best to stimulate research, technology development and policy to address this critical unmet need.
  • Our Planet, Our Health. Human health is intimately linked to the environment in which we live. Wellcome will build understanding of how global food systems and urbanisation connect to health, improving the evidence base for public policy.
  • Science education. An appreciation of science, for the future scientist or the informed citizen, begins with learning in school and beyond. Wellcome will help give young people an engaging, relevant and inspiring science education.

Wellcome’s new Chair, Eliza Manningham-Buller, says: “It is an exciting time to be assuming the chair of the Trust. The organisation has a great record of achievement, working with others to improve human health. We now have the means to develop even higher ambitions. The long-term funding of discovery science will remain at the core of what we do but we are also determined to act quickly when we see other opportunities to make a real difference to health.”

View the full details of the Wellcome Trust’s Strategic Framework.wellcometrust_logo

Wellcome Trust Grant Success for Dr. Anna Feigenbaum

BU research

CMC Media School Lecturer and CEMP Fellow, Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, was awarded a Wellcome Trust Small Grant in Medical Humanities for her project ‘Communicating Medical Knowledge in the History of Tear Gas’. Aiming to inform new medical knowledge about tear gas, as well as provide resources for policy-makers and key stakeholders, this research project examines changing and contested notions around the health effects of tear gases for law enforcement purposes. Using a case study approach and archival methods, the project explores how medical experts have communicated medical knowledge around tear gas, shaping policies and legislation, from the Geneva Convention to the European Union ban on trade in instruments of torture. Outputs for this project include a contracted book with Verso and an open access website of tools and resources. Dr. Feigenbaum’s work on tear gas has been quoted in the Guardian, The Financial Times, New Internationalist and Vice magazine, as well as in international publications in Brazil, the Philippines, Turkey and Italy. Dr. Feigenbaum is always interested in building new interdisciplinary collaborations. If you are interested in this area of research, be in touch! afeigenbaum@bournemouth.ac.uk

Latest Major Funding Opportunities

Funding opportunities

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

  • The AHRC are running an International placement scheme providing funded research fellowships at leading international research institutions.  The maximum award is unspecified, Closing date is 15 Jan 14.
  • The AHRC are offering Collaborative research grants in partnership with the São Paulo Research Foundation enabling transnational British and Brazilian teams to apply for funding for collaborative research projects. This is an open call with no set deadline.  The proposal total should not exceed £2 million.
  • The BBSRC are offering Modular training partnerships  designed to help develop master’s-level training in areas of significant need for industrial sectors. The award maximum is unspecified with a closing date of 28 Jan 14.
  • The BBSRC invite proposals for their Welfare of managed animals strategic priority area.  The maximum award is not specified, closing date: 09 Jan 14.
  • The BBSRC are offering funding for the Animal health research club.  The club’s research focuses on improving the resistance of farmed animals. A maximum of £5.5 million is available to support a variety of projects at 80% full economic cost.  Projects usually last 3 -4 years but funding of up to £2m for a maximum of 5 years will be considered. Closing date: 11 Dec 13.
  • The EPSRC ICT pioneers competition is now open,  providing recognition for UK PhD students who can communicate and demonstrate the excellence and exploitation potential of their research.  There are four prizes of £2000 each are available.  Closing date is 04 Dec 13.
  • The fourth call from CHIST-ERA is now open from ERA-Net CHIST-ERA.  Proposals for this call should be transformative and highly multidisciplinary research projects in ICST. The indicative budget is approximately €11.6 million, closing date 21 Jan 14.
  • EUREKA’s Eurostars programme  is supporting SME’s using research to gain competitive advantage.  Funding is provided on a country by country bases with an average project budget of €1.4 million.  The maximum award is unspecified with a closing date of 13 Mar 14.
  • The MRC are offering UK-Japan collaborative proposals, specifically looking at neuroscience disease challenges and the use of next generation opitical microscopy technologies.  The maximum MRC contribution will not be more that £120,000 over three years.  Closing date 05 Dec 13.
  • The MRC are offering a  Senior non-clinical fellowship  providing non-clinical researchers opportunities to become research leaders. The maximum award is not specified and the closing date is 30 Apr 14.
  • The MRC are awarding funds in Stratified medicine to support investigator-led methodological research into the challenges raised by stratifying patient groups. Over the next 4 years, £60 million will be committed to this area of research. Maximum award is not specified, closing date: 23 Jan 14.
  • The Royal Society of Edinburgh are offering Scottish Enterprise/RSE enterprise fellowships to encourage the development of a new Scottish businesses based around a technological idea.  Fellowships cover the fellow’s salary for one year.  There is no maximum award and it will close 28 Nov 13.
  • The Royal Society are offering funds to run small three-day South Africa-UK scientific seminars to bring together groups of early- to mid-career scientists from South Africa and the UK.  Grants are worth up to £12,000 to be used to cover costs of international airfares for up to 5 scientists, local travel costs, accommodation and organisational support.  Award maximum is £12,000, closing 18 Feb 14.
  • The TSB are offering Infrastructure for offshore renewables.  Funds will be given to collaborative, business led projects looking to reduce costs associated with offshore wind, wave and tidal stream energy generation through technology.  Registration closes 29 Jan 14 with a final submission date 05 Feb 2014 .
  •  Improving cell and tissue analysis for stratified medicine.  The TSB seek development of innovative technologies to enhance cell and tissue sample analysis.  Projects should be between £200,000 and £1.5 million and last up to three years.  Award maximum not specified, closing date: 04 Dec 13.
  • The Wellcome Trust are offering Doctoral studentships in medical humanities.  The award will cover stipend, conference travel, research expenses, overseas fieldwork, and university and college fees for up to 3 years.    Maximum award unspecified, closing date: 02 Apr 14.
  • The Wellcome Trust People Awards support projects to explore the impact of biomedical science on society, its historical roots, effects on different cultures, or the ethical questions that it raises. Up to £30,000 is available per project.  Closing date: 31 Jan 14.
  • Wellcome Trust are offering Capital funding for learned societies. This scheme provides funding, usually for up to £200,000, to projects that support the scholarly activities of learned societies. There is no specified deadline or maximum award.
  • Society and ethics doctoral studentships are available from the Wellcome Trust to enable scholars to undertake full-time research on a topic related to the ethics and society programme.  Maximum award is not specified, closing date: 02 Apr 14.
  • Research training fellowships are available from the Wellcome Trust to support medical, dental, veterinary or clinical psychology graduates who have limited research training, but who wish to develop a career in academic medicine. Award amount maximum not specified. Closing date is 07 Feb 14.
  • Society and ethics small grants are available from the Wellcome Trust to  support small-scale research projects, scoping exercises or meetings whose subject matter falls within the remit of the ethics and society programme. The maximum grant is £5,000. There is no closing deadline.