UKRI-NHMRC Built Environment and Prevention Research Scheme

The Medical Research Council and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council together with the Economic and Social Research Council are inviting proposals to the UKRI-NHMRC Built Environment Prevention Research Scheme.

Award Amount: £2m will be made available for the call to fund all projects that are awarded ($4m AUD will be made available to cover the Australian budgets).

Duration: 3 years

Deadline: 15th October 2019, 4pm

There is a need in both the UK and Austrailia to improve our understanding of the factors that work to shape and support healthy, liveable and resilient built environments, and to develop approaches for improving the built environment and prevents NCDs. Applications are encouraged across the breadth of the built environment research areas, the following are examples of what is expected:

• Urban planning and regeneration.
• City design, including increasing conditions that promote health such as ‘active travel’ and access to green space,
• Housing.
• Transportation systems.
• Air quality, both indoor and outdoor, and noise.
• The indoor environment.
• Neighbourhood diversity, including social regeneration and social, cohesion, and access to health services.
• The relationship between the built environment, extreme weather events, and their impact on health.

For Further information on this call please visit the call announcement. If you would like to apply for this scheme then please get in touch with your Research Development Team.

MRC Pre-call announcement: UK-Canada Diabetes Research Team Grants

The UK Medical Research Council (MRC), the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) are pleased to announce the up-coming launch of the UK-Canada Diabetes Research Team Grants.

Call Opens: 11th June 2019

Deadline: 28th August 2019 (4pm)

Funding: CAN: $450,000, UK: £333,333

Duration: Up to 3 years

The focus of the collaborative projects will be upon ‘mechanisms and translational solutions’. Projects should focus on one or more of the following key diabetes knowledge gaps:

• Genetic variability.
• Molecular mechanisms, including immune-mediated beta cell injury.
• Human implementation pilot studies to reverse type 2 diabetes through physical activity and nutrition. Welcoming applications that include researchers with expertise in social sciences, in addition to biomedical researchers. Social scientists can bring an understanding of, for example, individual behaviour, economic evaluations, inequalities, the wider political economy, and wider environmental influences.
• This is meant to focus on research applicable to UK and Canadian settings, not to global health.

For more information on this pre-call announcement please visit the MRC website.

If you would like to apply for this call then please get in touch with your Research Development Team!

GCRF: High level details of 2019 calls announced

UKRI have announced themes for a suite of calls to be launched in 2019 under the UKRI GCRF Collective Programme.

The Programme will reach across the six strategic GCRF Challenge portfolios (global health, education, sustainable cities, food systems, conflict and displacement and resilience), and calls will be launched throughout 2019.

Calls will be led via specific Research Councils on behalf of UKRI as a whole, and steered by challenge leaders.

Themes for calls will be:

Cities and Sustainable Infrastructure

• GCRF (Re)thinking the off-grid city
• GCRF Sustainable energy and international development: beyond technology

Education

• GCRF Education as a driver of sustainable development Network Plus
• GCRF Education in conflict and crisis research
• GCRF Education Interventions for Early Childhood Development

Food Systems

• GCRF Cultures and histories of agriculture, food, and nutrition
• GCRF A combined Food Systems approach to developing interventions to address the Double Burden of Malnutrition

Global Health

• GCRF Health and Communities

Resilience to Environmental Shocks and Change

• GCRF Equitable Resilience: ensuring resilience enhances the Sustainable Development Goals
• GCRF Multiple and systemic Risks

Security Protracted Conflict, Refugee Crises and Forced Displacement

• GCRF Development-based approaches to Protracted Displacement
• GCRF Preventing Conflict, Building Sustainable and Inclusive Peace
• GCRF Protection in Contexts of Conflict and Displacement

Calls that cut across the portfolios

• GCRF Coherence Grants
• GCRF Gender and Intersectionality Network Plus
• GCRF Global Engagement Networks

Details have been launched regarding the Global Engagement Networks call (Deadline 14 February 2019), and we are expecting further announcements this week about other calls, so keep your eyes on the Blog.

(Ed – AHRC are already advertising their leadership of  various calls, and an indication of the types of project that willl be supported – e.g. networks, partnership building and research programmes).

As ever, if you’re interested in calls, please contact your Research Development Manager or International Research Development Manager as early as possible for advice and support.

 

 

 

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/

 

Urban Europe: Europe-China Joint Call – internal expressions of interest required

This is an important post for those of you who may be considering an application to the latest Urban Europe call: Europe-China Joint Call: Sustainable and Liveable Cities and Urban Areas.

The ESRC (who fund the UK’s participation) have announced demand management measures for the call.

From the ESRC’s guidance: “It is our expectation that applicants will seek to improve the quality and regulate the volume of proposals coming from the same Research Organisation in the UK before they are submitted to this call, ensuring that only those deemed to have the highest chance of success are submitted. We expect applicants to use internal institutional pre-submission review and quality control mechanisms to achieve this. A UK applicant, can be involved in a maximum of two proposals, but can only be the Main Applicant on one proposal. A person can be a Co-applicant (and the lead for a UK component) on a maximum of two proposals.”

In order to comply with this requirement, we would like to invite expressions of interest from those of you who may be considering a submission to this call either as a partner or as lead by 9 March 2018.

An EoI form can be obtained from RKE Directorate via euro_res@mmu.ac.uk and potential applicants are asked not to register their interest via Urban Europe’s website at this point.

ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre Innovation Fund

The ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre is inviting proposals from UK-based academics for projects that will capitalise on their core consumer data sets, extend their network of partners, and drive forward substantive and innovative social science research across a broad range of disciplines and research areas.

They are inviting proposals that contribute to their research themes, as well as extensions into other research areas of strategic significance, including those aligned with ESRC’s priorities in:

• Mental Health
• Housing
• Productivity
• Understanding the Macro-Economy
• Ways of Being in a Digital Age

The Centre is looking to fund in the region of 8-10 projects, each valued at between £20,000-£60,000 (100% fEC). Projects will run from early October 2017 and must be completed no later than the end of September 2018.

Deadline for Applications: 5pm 31st July 2017.

For more information, please visit the Consumer Data Research Centre.

AHRC-ESRC-FCO Knowledge Exchange Fellowship Scheme

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) are pleased to invite applications to the AHRC-ESRC-FCO Knowledge Exchange (KE) Fellowships scheme.

The scheme will provide the opportunity for each intake of fellows to be seconded into the FCO to work alongside, advise and influence policymakers.

The fellowship scheme will go beyond current ad hoc arrangements, create deeper engagement between academia and policy, impact on diplomacy, increase the professional reputation of participating scholars and build long term, two way relationships. The benefits will flow to the wider academic community through fellows’ engagement with their home research organisation and wider research communities as well as through a dedicated policy seminar series hosted by the FCO during the lifetime of the scheme.

Deadline for Applications: 31st October 2017

For more information, please visit the ESRC.