Extended Description

The Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) is the UK’s national funding agency for research across both arts and humanities.

With its Follow-on Funding for Impact and Engagement Scheme, the AHRC provides funds intended to enhance the value of existing AHRC-funded projects. This enhanced value could be achieved in a number of ways, and proposals including (but not limited to) knowledge exchange projects, public engagement strategies, commercialisation activities or active dissemination agendas are encouraged.

Proposals should show that there is a non-academic need for the work, and demonstrate engagement with potential stakeholders in developing the project. Successful projects will add value to the original research, and clearly show how economic, social, cultural or policy impacts will be delivered.

The scheme is intended to foster a range of interactions between arts & humanities researchers multiple user communities such as business and commercial, third sector and heritage sector, public policy, voluntary and community groups and the public.

Eligibility Criteria

This funding is targeted at Principal Investigators who are conducting (or who have recently finished) AHRC-funded research projects.

Only Principal Investigators working for eligible Research Organisations may apply. These organisations are:

• Higher Education Institutions (HEI) that are directly funded for research by HEFCE, DEL, HEFCW and SFC.
• Independent Research Organisations that have received Research Council recognition to apply to the AHRC.
• Research Council Institutes.

Principal Investigators must:

• Be actively engaged in postdoctoral research and be of postdoctoral standing. This means that they either have a doctorate or can demonstrate in the application that they have equivalent research experience and/or training.
• Have a level of skills, knowledge and experience appropriate to the nature of the proposed research.
• Be employed by the Research Organisation submitting the proposal, or
• If not employed by the submitting organisation, have an existing written formal arrangement with the organisation confirming that the research will be conducted as if the Principal Investigator were an employee, or
• Be scheduled to move to the submitting organisation before the proposed start date of the grant, whether or not the proposal is successful, in such a way that would ensure that the previous two criteria are met by the time the grant starts.
• Have a contract of employment that extends beyond the duration of the proposed grant, or
• Have an assurance from the submitting organisation that, if the proposal is successful, the contract of employment, or formal commitment to provide support if not employed at the organisation, will extend to beyond the end date of the grant.
• Be resident in the UK
• Not be both a Principal or Co-Investigator and a research assistant on the same project.

Value Notes

The scheme offers awards of up to £100,000 (full economic cost) for a maximum of 12 months.

Smaller awards are available to support shorter or riskier proposals.

Match Funding Restrictions

The AHRC will fund proposals at 80% of full economic cost, with a number of exceptions applying to specific costs:

• Project studentships (funded at 100%)
• Externally contracted social surveys (funded at 100%)
• Equipment (variable funding rate, please contact to clarify)

Restrictions

Ineligible activities include:

• Support pathway to impact activities that have already been taken into account (ie included as part of the original projects outputs and impacts and funded as such).
• Extension to an existing grant or award, or to continue similar or existing activities or conduct further research.
• Support resource enhancement activities, or to develop or extend an existing website.
• Cover research leave type activities or primarily fund staff time.
• Support principally academic outputs (such as an academic paper, conference or a publication).

In addition, universities, colleges, further education institutions, related departments, or spin-out companies may not participate as non-academic partners.

Terms and Conditions

In addition to the scheme-specific requirement to enhance the impact of previous AHRC research, projects will be assessed according to the following general criteria:

• Quality and importance of the proposal (including the significance and importance of the project and the contribution it will make to increasing knowledge and understanding of the chosen area in a national or international context).
• Calibre of people involved (including the quality and importance of work to date and ability to monitor the project and see it through to completion as stated in the application).
• Project management (including whether the lines of responsibility and accountability are clearly set out and the amount of work and resources involved properly understood).
• Value for money (including whether the likely outcome of the research represents value for money and the resources asked for are reasonable in the context of the proposed research).
• Outputs, dissemination and impact (including the appropriateness and effectiveness of the proposed dissemination methods and how well the research process is documented in a manner which allows outcomes to be disseminated to the widest possible audience.

Application Procedure

There are no formal deadlines for the scheme, which is open to applications at any time of the year.

Applications should be made through the Joint Electronic Submission – (JE-S) System. Assistance in using this system can be found by contacting the JE-S helpdesk on 01793 444164, or on JesHelp@rcuk.ac.uk.

– Information provided by Grantfinder, Idox