Governance after Brexit – ESRC call for Outline proposals

The ESRC invites outline proposals for the second phase of its Governance after Brexit programme.

Brexit affects society, politics and the economy across the UK. The UK-EU exit negotiations have challenged the UK state, devolved political systems, local government, business organisations and trade unions, civil society organisations and the wider public. The primary aim of this call is to encourage proposals which adopt a long-term perspective and/or involve fundamental research into issues of governance, and the questions, problems and opportunities which lie behind and beyond the negotiations. Proposals to this call should address the priority areas outlined in the Call Specification either individually or in combination.

Proposals should address the call’s key research challenges and opportunities in an innovative and ambitious manner. This may include conceptual and theoretical innovation as well as the development of novel research methods and approaches. Potential innovation is an assessment criteria for this call and proposals which demonstrate a clear capacity for innovation are preferred over proposals which might seek to redeploy existing work in a Brexit context.

Awards made under this phase of the programme will be expected to work closely with ESRC’s UK in a Changing Europe initiative (UKICE) to maximise the opportunities to disseminate this distinctive long-term research perspective on Brexit. Outline proposals to this call should therefore articulate clear plans for engaging with UKICE as part of their impact strategy.

Assessment process and Anonymous Case for Support

Please note that shortlisting at the Outline Stage for this call will be based entirely on the Case for Support document attached to outline proposals. This will be conducted on a double-blind basis where the identity of each party (applicants and panel members) are concealed from the other party. As a result the Case for Support for outline proposals must be sufficiently anonymised in order to avoid directly or indirectly revealing the identity of the project team to assessors. Names of individual researchers or specific research organisations should therefore not be included. References to previous work should also be conveyed in terms which do not risk identifying the applicants to assessors. Where this attachment is deemed insufficiently anonymous proposals may be considered ineligible for processing.

Shortlisted applications will subsequently be invited to submit full proposals for further assessment.

Webinar

ESRC will host an online Q&A session with Professor Dan Wincott, Cardiff University (Director of Governance after Brexit). This webinar will provide prospective applicants with an opportunity to ask questions about the scope and priority areas of the call. The date/time of the webinar will be announced on this page in due course alongside information on how to join the meeting online.

How to apply

All proposals must be submitted through UKRI’s Joint Electronic Submission system (Je-S) (https://je-s.rcuk.ac.uk/JeS2WebLoginSite/Login.aspx). Detailed information about how to apply is provided in the Je-S guidance below.

Outline proposals should be between £300,000 and £750,000 at 100 per cent Full Economic Cost (fEC) and should start from 1 November 2020 for a maximum period of 36 months. The ESRC will meet 80 per cent of the full economic costs of proposals that are funded under this call. All outline proposals for this programme must be received by 16:00 on 16 January 2020.

Commissioning timetable

• Closing date for outline proposals – 16:00 on 16 January 2020
• Shortlisting Panel meeting – February 2020
• Full proposals invited – early March 2020
• Closing date for full proposals – mid April 2020
• Assessment period – May-June 2020
• Commissioning Panel meeting – July 2020
• Final decisions – August 2020
• Grants to start – 1 November 2020

Please contact your Research Development Manager if interested.

All info and Guidance is here: https://esrc.ukri.org/funding/funding-opportunities/governance-after-brexit-phase-2-outline-stage/

 

Want to be nominated for the AHRC Peer Review College? Reminder: your EOIs by 20th Sep

   Just a reminder that if anyone is interested in being nominated to join the AHRC’s Peer Review College, there is an internal deadline for your EOIs – this Friday, 20th September.

The AHRC have an open call for new members of their PRC College in all areas – Academic Reviewers, International Reviewers, Strategic Reviewers, KE Reviewers and Early Career.

PRC members provide expert quality reviews of applications within their areas of expertise, which inform the AHRC’s decision making processes. Members can also be called upon to sit on assessment or moderation panels. As well as making an important contribution to the AHRC’s peer review processes, the experience gained by membership of the College provides benefits to individuals, departments and higher education institutions.

Emails with instructions on submitting an EOI will have come Professor Berthold Schoene for Faculty of Arts & Humanities and the Faculty Research Office for Education.

AHRC – New Generation Thinkers 2020 call opens

  Since 2010, this pioneering public engagement scheme aims to develop a new generation of academics who can bring the best of university research and scholarly ideas to a broad audience through working with the media and public engagement. It’s a chance for early career researchers to cultivate the skills to communicate their research findings to those outside the academic community.

Each year, up to 60 successful applicants have a chance to develop their media skills, including programme-making ideas with experienced BBC producers at a series of dedicated workshops. Of these up to 10 will become New Generation Thinkers and benefit from a series of unique opportunities such as media and public engagement training with the AHRC and developing their own programmes for BBC Radio 3 including a chance to regularly appear on air. There will also be the possibility of working with BBC TV, putting on events for the Being Human Festival and the chance to become a regular blogger.

Applications need to be able to propose an engaging and stimulating programme idea as well as show an ability to talk and write about other areas within the arts and humanities in an accessible and interesting manner, with an awareness of a wider listening audience.    Closing Date: 08/10/2019

Full details of the opportunity and details of how to apply are here: https://ahrc.ukri.org/funding/apply-for-funding/current-opportunities/new-generation-thinkers-2020/

Pre-call announcement from Joint Programming Initiative in Cultural Heritage and Global Change (JPICH): Conservation & Protection

The Joint Programming Initiative in Cultural Heritage and Global Change (JPICH) is pleased to announce a new funding opportunity for transnational proposals. The Conservation and Protection call will support research into strategies, methodologies and tools to safeguard and use the physical components of our cultural heritage. It invites research projects that take a global approach to preserving Europe’s heritage and which result in a better understanding of our history, traditions and culture, of our individual and collective identities, and ultimately of our well-being. The total budget for the call for transnational projects is approximately 6.96 million Euros. The participating countries in this call are: Belarus, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom.

The main eligibility criteria are:

• Duration of projects: up to 36 months;

• Each project proposal must comprise of at least three research teams, each based in an eligible institution in a different country participating in the Conservation and Protection Call. The maximum number of research teams in a project proposal is five.

• Applications must be in accordance with the eligibility requirements relevant for the national research teams in the transnational research consortia and not exceed the maximum budgets to be requested therein.  For the UK that means we follow the AHRC rules.

The Call for Proposals will open on Wednesday 1st May 2019 and the deadline for submission of proposals will be  Sunday 30 June 2019, 14:00 CEST.

A JISC Mail list has been set up to help researchers or interested partners to find partners in other countries and organisations for the JPICH Conservation and Protection Call. To use this service, you need to subscribe at the following link: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/JPICH-CONSERVATIONCALL

For further info please see the PDF available here: https://ahrc.ukri.org/funding/apply-for-funding/current-opportunities/jpich-conservation-and-protection-pre-call-announcement/

 

BBSRC Future Priority Areas for Funding

 

On 27th September the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) released a report, Forward Look for UK Bioscience, which is the first strategy update since the creation of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Forward Look identifies the backbone of BBSRC’s strategy and maps out key areas of direction for future funding, identifying three challenge-led priorities in which it believes UK research can deliver strong and sustainable impact:

• Sustainable agriculture and food security.
• Renewable resources and clean growth.
• Integrates understanding of health.

It seems the theme of future funding will be focused on advancing the frontiers of bioscience discovery, tackling strategic challenges and building strong foundations.

“There is a real opportunity for BBSRC to ensure the strength of the UK biotechnology and biological research and skills base continues to be selected as partner of choice globally and to harness the power of biology to drive a more healthy, prosperous and sustainable future” – Melanie Welham, Executive Chairwoman UKRI – BBSRC

You can read more about the BBSRC Forward Look report here and take a look at the full report here.

RISE: Secure Hardware & Embedded Systems Call for Research Projects

The Research Institute for Secure Hardware and Embedded Systems (RISE) is a joint venture of the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and the NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre). The institute aims to identify and address the key issues that underpin our understanding of hardware security, they currently have two schemes available:

 Call for Research Projects

Award Amount: £300,000 in total

Duration: 3 years

Deadline for Application: 31st July 2018

Applications will be accepted with the following areas of interest:

• Micro-architectural and Analogue Security Evaluation
• Automated Security Verification in EDA Tools and Software Tool Chains
• Supply Chain Security
• Hardware-based Security Services

For a detailed description of each area and for more information please visit the website.

Small Equipment Bids

Award Amount: up to £140,000, although expecting bids in the range of £20k – £50k

Duration: Equipment must be purchased by 15th February 2019

Deadline for Application: 31st July 2018

Funding through this scheme is entirely to cover the purchase cost of equipment (incl. VAT) The equipment must be used for a project which addresses one or more of the RISE research challenges or specific themes (detailed above).

For further information about this call please visit the website.

If you wish to apply for either of these calls or would like to discuss them further then please get in touch with the Research Development team via our email.

 

ESRC Secondary Data Analysis – changes to eligibility including increase in £ and project duration

As of 17 May 2018, eligibility criteria for the ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative (SDAI) will be changing.

Since December 2015, SDAI has operated alongside ESRC’s Research Grants open call. Following ESRC’s internal review of the Initiative, including an analysis of the volume and review outcomes of applications received so far, along with feedback from external stakeholders, it was concluded that changes to the Initiative were needed to improve the quantity and quality of proposals submitted.

As a result, the following changes to the SDAI have been introduced and will apply as of 17 May 2018:

• The maximum funding threshold for applications will increase from £200,000 (100% fEC) to £300,000 (100% fEC)
• The maximum duration of proposals will increase from 18 months to 24 months.
• Previous eligibility criteria to (a) use only one of ESRC-funded data resources and (b) to include at least one named early career researcher as principal investigator or co-investigator have been relaxed.
• Instead, as of 17 May, the ESRC will welcome proposals that aim to exploit secondary data from a range of UK and international data resources funded by ESRC and by other agencies, given sufficient justification and confirmation.
• ESRC will continue to encourage applications that include a named early career researcher as principal investigator or co-investigator and/or applications that seek to use one or more ESRC-funded data resources.

These changes to the eligibility criteria will allow applicants greater flexibility when utilising existing UK and international data resources to deliver high-quality and high-impact research. This also provides a huge opportunity for comparative analysis into some of the most pressing challenges facing society in the UK and internationally.

Please see

https://esrc.ukri.org/funding/funding-opportunities/secondary-data-analysis-initiative-sdai-open-call/