Researcher Development Day next Wednesday!

Posted on January 26th, 2012 by Annalisa Jones
Research and Enterprise will be hosting a series of workshops and training sessions on Wednesday 1st February to help set you on the path to funding success!

 

1) Introduction to research grant writing, 1 hour, 9.30am – 10.30am.

Targeted at those who have little or no experience of writing research funding bids, this session will take you back to the basics of how to build a proposal for research funding. This session will also be of use to staff with more experience of writing proposals but would like a few hints and tips to maximise the chances of success. Staff who support research funding applications are also welcome to attend.

 

2) How to engage with the EU and raise your research profile, 1 hour, 10.45am -11.45am.
The how to engage with the EU and raise your profile session will provide tips, tricks and best practice on how to increase your chances of success when applying for European Commission funding.

 

3) Impact and Benefit, 2 hour workshop, midday-2pm.
There is an ever increasing emphasis on this aspect of research proposals; which many find difficult to address. This is a 2 hour discussion workshop developing the techniques and strategies required to maximise the many and diverse arguments and justifications required to ensure the research application is both structured correctly and presented in the optimum manner to be competitively ahead of the others.

 

4) Marie Curie fellowships, 1 hour 2.30pm– 3.30pm.

We will discuss what the Marie Curie fellowships scheme offers, why it’s worth applying for and how to maximise your chances of success.

 

5) Introduction to research grant writing, 1 hour 3.45pm– 4.45pm. (As above)

 

The training will be facilitated by Dr Martin Pickard, who has been writing and supporting literally thousands of grant applications and projects over the past 25 years.  You are able to attend as many sessions as you would like. To book a place on any of these sessions please email us.

 

Martin will also be holding his usual bid writing surgery on Thursday 2nd February. Please contact research@lincoln.ac.uk if you wish to book an appointment to speak to Martin about a bid to any funder.

 

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Call for Expressions of Interest for EPSRC Sandpit on Innovative Solutions to Flood Risk now Open!

Posted on January 26th, 2012 by Annalisa Jones

The call for expressions of interest for the EPSRC Sandpit focused on Innovative Solutions to Flood Risk, which I brought to your attention a couple of weeks ago,  has now been announced!

Introduction

Natural environmental hazards, and flooding in particular, have been cited by the National Security Review as one of the key risks facing the UK.

A range of studies have examined future flood risk. Generally these have indicated that risk, both in the UK and globally, is likely to increase in the future in the face of both climate change and socio-economic pressures. The potential societal impacts and economic damages from flood risk are therefore significant.

Given that at least 6 million properties in the UK are at risk of flooding, addressing flooding in terms of prevention and mitigation with due regard for the economic and social costs is a high priority.

The Living with Environmental Change programme (LWEC), a cross-government funding partnership for Environmental Change research, has recently developed a research strategy for Flooding and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM). The report is available on the LWEC website:  UK Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Research Strategy (PDF 2.65MB)

In response to the recommendations of the report and in line with EPSRC strategy on water the Engineering and LWEC Themes are planning a Sandpit directed at developing creative and novel research projects to answer some of the challenges identified in the report.

The Research Challenge

The challenge identified for the sandpit is Innovative Solutions to Flood Risk.
Thinking at the Sandpit is expected to span the basic to applied end of the research spectrum identified in the LWEC report and is expected to represent a broad range of disciplines.

The scope of the Sandpit will address the three Risk Themes identified in the report:

  • Understanding Risk
  • Managing Probablility
  • Managing Consequence

It is not expected that these themes will operate in isolation as there are many issues which may be seen to cut across these themes. The Sandpit intends to explore the engineering and physical science aspects of these key areas whilst recognising that this is a multidisciplinary area. Potential research questions might address:

  • Data and observations and their use in multi-scale multi-user modelling
  • Asset resilience, design and whole life management
  • Resilience of critical infrastructure to flood risk events

Achieving the Sandpit objective will require the participation of leading researchers from a broad range of disciplines. Participants whould be able to apply their knowledge, skills and experience across discipline areas to develop innovative research with the potential to deliver practical solutions to the challenges around flood risk.

For more information and to download the application form please visit the call page on the EPSRC website.

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British Academy Small Grant Scheme to Continue

Posted on January 24th, 2012 by Annalisa Jones

The Leverhulme Trust has confirmed a £1.5 million, three-year grant to support the British Academy scheme awarding small research grants for the humanities and social sciences.

Welcoming this major new collaboration, Sir Adam Roberts, President of the British Academy said, ’Small Research Grant awards are one of the Academy’s best known and most valued schemes, offering significant returns on the investment of small-scale funding in individual researchers and small networks of scholars.’

Professor Gordon Marshall, Director of the Leverhulme Trust, added, ‘The Trust welcomes this opportunity to add to its portfolio of research support by offering this new funding to support new scholarship and research in the Humanities and Social Sciences.  We particularly welcome the way the scheme supports research by scholars in the early part of their careers, which for us is an especially valuable feature of the Academy’s Small Grants scheme.’

As you may recall, the Academy announced this time last year that the Small Grants scheme was to end, a decision that reflected the move by other funders, particularly Research Councils, away from small grants in favour of longer and larger grants. That decision was revoked in the summer when the Academy announced that the Small Research Grants scheme would be resumed, although with more restricted funding. The announcement that the Small Grant Scheme, which provides a maximum of £10,000 for a variety of research projects, international fieldwork or pilot studies, will come as welcome news for researchers. Small Research Grants are open to researchers at any UK Higher Education Institution or other research organisation, as well as to independent scholars, and are particularly valuable in supporting early career scholars.

The boost to funding will enable the Academy to hold two rounds of competition for the scheme each year, with deadlines in the spring and autumn.

The scheme will continue to be administered by the Academy.

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NERC to Introduce Demand Management Measures

Posted on January 23rd, 2012 by Annalisa Jones

From the 1st April demand management measures will be introduced for applications submitted to the following NERC responsive mode schemes: Urgency, Large and Standard grants (including those led by new investigators).

The RCUK efficiency of Peer Review Project report published in February 2006, advised that success rates below 20% introduce unacceptable inefficiencies, and NERC’s success rate for standard grant proposals has fallen from 20% in 2088 to just 16 per cent in recent rounds. This is despite measures to manage demand, such as limiting re-submissions and publishing the success rates of research organisations to encourage self-regulation.

All research organisations that apply to NERC for funding will be required to participate in demand management and will be eligible for sanction if they fail to reduce the number of uncompetitive proposals to certain agreed targets within the agreed timescales. However the type of sanction has not yet been announced by the Council.

NERC will be contacting research organisations in the summer to provide relevant information that will assist self regulation, with annual reports produced from autumn 2013. From the autumn of this year, NERC will be engaging with research organisations in order to provide further information and advice in support of these demand management practices, including setting targets for changes in submission behaviours.

The provisional timetable for the introduction of the measures is below:

Provisional timetable for introduction of demand management measures

1 April 2012
Monitoring of submissions and outcomes for demand management purposes commences

April 2012
Request for research organisations to nominate designated point(s) of contact for demand management interactions.

July 2012
Initial identification of research organisations with high number or proportion of uncompetitive submissions.

Summer 2012 
Provision of past performance data.

Rolling schedule starting Autumn 2012
Scheduled visits and dialogue.

Annually from Autumn 2013
Provision of updated data and analyses.

To read the full announcement please visit the NERC website.

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Research News and Funding Opportunities Weekly Digest for January 23rd

Posted on January 23rd, 2012 by David Young
generic (feed #5)
Posted Latest Calls For Proposals – NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Programme….
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Posted Latest Calls For Proposals – NIHR Programme Development Grants.
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Posted Latest Calls For Proposals – NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research….

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RCUK Energy Programme – NSFC Call for Collaborative Research with China on Smart Grids

Posted on January 19th, 2012 by Annalisa Jones

Following the announcement by the Chancellor George Osborne on Tuesday of two new UK Research Council partnerships with the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the EPSRC have just released a call as part of the RCUK Energy Programme for collaborative research with China within the field of Smart Grids. The themes of this call are:

  • Integration of large Scale Renewables, including HVDC
  • Distribution Network Operation and Planning
  • Scalable flexible power systems operation and control, including risk and uncertainty

Further details on these themes can be found on the EPSRC call page.


Up to £3million is available across the theme areas from the Energy Programme with matched equivalent resources from NSFC (up to 3million RMB per project). Between three and four proposals are expected to receive funding and consortia should consider how their proposal makes the best use of available expertise in the UK, how it networks the UK community and how it positions UK activities against other international opportunities.
Proposals should include leading UK researchers wishing to develop contacts with leading researchers from NSFC institutes in China.

 

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