Time, Gentlemen, Please...Last Orders at the BAr

As mentioned in a previous post, the British Academy is phasing out Small Grants and Conference Funding. To this end they've just announced the final calls to these schemes, as follows:

Overseas Conference Grants
Grants are available for the travel expenses of a scholar delivering a paper at a conference abroad.
Deadline for submission of applications: 2 March 2011
Results expected: end May 2011
Earliest Start Date for Conference: 1 July 2011
Latest Start Date for Conference: 31 December 2011

Conference Support Grants
Grants normally not exceeding £7,500 (but in exceptional circumstances up to £20,000) to promote the dissemination of advanced research. Conference convenors may apply for financial assistance, e.g. to bring key speakers to the conference, or for a wider range of expenses.
Deadline for submission of applications: 16 March 2011
Results expected: end June 2011
Earliest Start Date for Conference: 1 September 2011
Latest Start Date for Conference: 31 August 2012

Small Research Grants
Grants are offered of up to £7,500 for collaborative or individual projects to facilitate initial project planning and development, to support the direct costs of research, and to enable the advancement of research through workshops or by visits by or to partner scholars.
Deadline for submission of applications: 23 March 2011
Results expected: end June 2011
Earliest Start Date for Research: 1 August 2011
Latest Start Date for Research: 1 April 2012

New BA Fellowship Scheme

After all the cuts, something (quite) positive: a new scheme from the BA. The Mid Career Fellowship Scheme looks, on first view, a bit like the old BARDA: £160k fully economically costed, but with a cap of £80k on salaries. It looks like they’re rushing this out slightly, as the first deadline is 9 March 2011.

There's nothing on their website yet, but here's the information that was included in their email today:

Proposals are invited for a new scheme of British Academy Mid-Career Fellowships. The Academy intends, through this scheme, both to support outstanding individual researchers with excellent research proposals, and to support outstanding communicators who will promote public understanding and engagement with humanities and social sciences. The scheme contributes to the Academy’s strategic commitments both to the support of ideas, individuals and intellectual resources and to public engagement and dovetails with the Academy’s new Languages and Quantitative Skills programme.

Aim of the award
The aim of the scheme is to allow successful applicants to obtain time freed from normal teaching and administrative commitments. The time bought by the scheme should be devoted to the completion of a major piece of research and/or to the promotion of a programme of public engagement and communication. Awards will be judged both on the excellence of the research proposed and on the capacity of the applicant to communicate with a broad audience.

Scope of the award
Applicants for the Mid Career Fellowships should be intending to pursue – or, in the case of those applying to support a programme of communication, have pursued – original, independent research in any field of study within the humanities or social sciences. In respect of some of the awards, the Academy will take into account the aim of providing particular support for certain important fields, including modern languages and quantitative and other formal skills. A small proportion of the total number of awards will be offered specifically to contribute to the Academy’s new Languages and Quantitative Skills Programme. All applicants are invited to state how they see their particular programme, whether directly meeting current challenges or not, contributing to the identification of future priorities and challenges.

Eligibility
These Fellowships are awards to individuals, and the Academy is looking particularly to support mid-career scholars. The Academy takes no account of an applicant’s physical age or current status in determining eligibility, but will look to provide opportunities for scholars who have established a significant track record of publication or as an excellent communicator and ‘champion’ in their field, and who are normally within no more than 15 years from the award of their doctorate. In considering eligibility, the Academy will make due allowance for applicants who have had career breaks, and for established scholars who do not have doctorates.

Level of Grant
These Fellowships are covered under the Full Economic Costing (FEC) regime, but the Academy’s contribution to the salary of the Mid-Career Fellow will be capped at £80,000. It is not expected that the total value of an award will exceed £160,000. Awards can be held over a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of 12 months, beginning in the autumn of 2011.

Closing Date
The closing date for applications is 9 March 2011. Decisions will be announced in late May.
Applications must be submitted via eGap, the Academy's electronic grant application system.

KentHealth: Strategic Development Fund

Hot on the heels of its Studentships is another opportunity from KentHealth. The Strategic Development Fund will provide small grants (less than £3k) in order to:

• encourage the development of a collaborative research culture between the University and health practitioners within Kent;
• build the University’s capacity to respond to health-related research priorities of the Funding Councils and other external funders;
• foster collaborative research with non-University health-related research groups in Kent.
  

Collaborative bids are invited from University and non-University health researchers, as detailed below, and will be considered 4 times a year with the following closing dates for consideration: December 31st2010, March 31st, June 30th and September 30th 2011.

Contact Karen Allart for more details and an application form.

KentHealth Studentships

KentHealth, the umbrella organisation that aims to facilitate collaborations between the University and external health organisations, is offering funding for studentships.

The purpose of this fund is threefold:
• To encourage the development of a collaborative research culture between the University and health practitioners within Kent
• To build the University’s capacity to respond to health-related research priorities of the Funding Councils and other external funders
• To foster collaborative research with non-University health-related research groups in Kent.
Collaborative bids are invited from University and non-University health researchers; the closing date will be 31st December 2010.

Contact Karen Allart for more information.

Funding Deadlines for 2010/11

I've prepared a list (xls) of all the funding deadlines for 2010/11 that I could find.

The spreadsheet is split into two worksheets: one for open deadlines, for which you can apply anytime, the other for set deadlines.

Click on the tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet to access the different lists. For the set deadlines, a rough indication has been given of what faculties may be interested in each funding scheme. You can ‘filter’ the list using the arrows at the top of each column. So, if you just want opportunities offered by, say, the Wellcome Trust, you can tick ‘Wellcome’ on the filter. Alternatively you can filter by colour on the faculties columns to select only the opportunities relevant to your faculty.

Food Glorious Food

The Food Standards Agency is looking for organisations and individuals to apply to be part of a framework that will carry out social science research to support the development, monitoring and evaluation of food policy. The framework will enable the Agency to commission social science research more effectively in future.The framework will be split into the following areas:

• reviews (desk research)
• innovation in research design
• primary research (collection and analysis of new data)
• secondary analysis
• evaluation

But you need to move fast: the call closes on 10 Sept. More info is available here.

Rowntree Seeks a 'Better Life'

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) is seeking proposals in four areas of its 'Better Life' programme. This five year programme will focus on a significant modern-day challenge: how to ensure quality of life for the growing number of older people with high support needs in the UK. The calls are in the following areas:

• Exploring the potential of approaches based on exchange
• Affordability, choices and quality of life in housing with care
• Housing with care - community or care setting?
• Living together, getting along
  

The deadline for all is 5 Oct. Click on any of the links above for more information on the calls.

ERC Starting Grant: Funding 'Almost Doubled'

I've posted before about the ERC's current Starting Grant and UKRO's Info Day. One piece of info that might have slipped below your radar is the fact that the EC is almost doubling the funding for the grants compared to last years round: from €325m to €661m. Better still is the fact that the field of potential applicants is somewhat limited by the ERC's rules that state that, if you applied to the last round, you can't apply to this one. So think seriously about applying: if you're between 2-12 years out from your PhD and are a promising up and coming academic it's well worth a shot.

An overview and FAQs on the scheme are available, via UKRO, here.

JRF: Climate Change & Social Justice

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has issued a couple of calls under its Climate Change and Social Justice Programme. The deadline is relatively short - 28 Sept - so if you work in the borderlands between environment and society, have a look at them. They are:

• Just adaptation responses to climate change in the UK, and
• A socially just transition to a low carbon economy and society.
  

EPSRC Collaborative Funding

There seems to be something in the air at the moment: following swiftly on from Henley's call to collaborate at Defra, and our announcement that the next Grants Factory workshop will focus on interdisciplinary and collaborative working, the EPSRC has just announced two calls for research at the boundary of their remit with the ESRC.

Promoting Cross-Disciplinary Research aims to fund a small number of cross-disciplinary projects around:

• Quantitative Aspects of Understanding Behaviours, which could include:
  

• new models of social systems
• understanding behaviours and engineering behavioural change.
• understanding vs. simulation in decision making
• Behaviour could include: social relations, social practices, social structures, organisational behaviour, economic behaviour and social institutions

• Innovation at the Bottom of the Pyramid, which could include:
  

• Novel technologies for developing countries or deprived social systems.
• Disruptive technologies for development
• Optimisation of cutting edge technology
• Technical solutions very different from traditional approaches

Up to £6m has been earmarked for this call and the closing date: 12 October 2010 (though you need to register your intention to submit by 10th September 2010).

Discipline-Hopping will be smaller awards, aimed at encouraging researchers to cross disciplinary boundaries. Up to £1 million has been earmarked for this targeted activity and, subject to the quality of the submissions received, it is anticipated that we will fund approximately 10 proposals. Deadline: 16 September 2010.

JISC Open for Business Again

Apologies for the week-long gap in updates on this site: I was called to do jury service. Now I'm back in the office and trawling through emails and updates. The first that caught my eye was this:

In January the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) had put a number of calls on hold, whilst it waited to hear from HEFCE as to how exactly the Funding Council would cut £130m from its budget. Now JISC has announced that the previously announced managing research data grant funding call and strand two of its developing community content grant funding call will go ahead. More details here.

AHRC Submission 'Blackouts' in March-May 2010

The AHRC is moving its operations to Swindon, and there's going to be some substantial 'application blackouts' in the coming months.

• Research Grants and Fellowships Schemes: you won't be able to apply between 19 March 2010 - 31 May 2010. In addition, Fellowship applicants are strongly advised to submit their applications before the end of February as the outcomes of some applications submitted in March are unlikely to be announced until spring 2011. They are also rescheduling their panel meetings during 2010 which may mean that applicants will not receive outcomes when they would have been expecting them.


• Research Networking Scheme: no applications accepted between 26 February and 31 May 2010.


• Knowledge Transfer Fellowships: no closing date in May. The scheme will re-open later in 2010 on an open deadline basis on a date to be confirmed.


• Knowledge Catalysts: no applications accepted between 26 February 2010 and 31 August 2010. This will give time to consider the outcomes of the current review of the scheme due to be completed by end of March and implement any changes in the light of the review.

Glass Half Full

Despite recent headlines the outlook for research funding is not (yet) as gloomy as it might at first seem. Recently announced cuts to science and education will predominantly hit capital funding, and mask a rise in recurrent research funding of £106m next year. So, whilst times are getting tighter and there may be trouble ahead, we’re not there yet. In the meantime staff should not be put off applying for research funding – whilst the times are still good.

ERC: Call for Advanced Investigator Grants

The European Research Council (ERC) has launched a call for its flagship 'Advanced Investigator Grants'. Pitched at 'exceptional' established researchers and academics, they offer up to €3.5m for up to 5 years. Applications should tackle pioneering and far-reaching challenges at the frontiers of the field(s) addressed, and involve new, ground-breaking or unconventional methodologies, whose risky outlook is justified by the possibility of a major breakthrough with an impact beyond a specific research domain/discipline.

But you need to get your skates on: the deadlines are relatively short:

• Physical Sciences & Engineering Domain : 24 February 2010
• Life Sciences: 17 March 2010
• Social Sciences & Humanities: 7 April 2010
  

This is Europe, so there's a positive tsunami of information and guidance. Start by looking at the UKRO ERC pages, and if you need further help, get in touch with me.

DFID Funding Opportunities

The Department for International Development (DFID) has just issued a slew of funding opportunities. These include:

• Livelihoods, Social Protection and Basic Services in Conflict Situations
• States Delivering for Poor People
• Governance, Security and Justice in Fragile and Conflict-affected Situations
• Studies on Effective Tax in Effective States

Click on any of these for more details of the call.

Get with the Programme

In the past I've always steered people away from the glitzy 'research programmes' issued by the funders. You know the kind of thing: 'ESRC/AHRC issue a £10m Programme of Cross Council Research to End World Poverty', or some such.
My reason for doing so is that they inevitably attract everyone who specialises in that area (so competition is fierce), but the resources available are limited. As a result success rates are usually pitiful.
However, looking at the AHRC's recent 2008-09 Annual Report the succes rates for different schemes makes startling reading:

• Responsive Mode success rates ranged between 10-33%
• Strategic Mode (i.e. Programmes) ranged between 6-100%

6% I can understand, but 100%?? Surely some mistake?? But no, the overall average success rate for the programme grants is a very respectable 41%; for responsive mode a risible 18%. So the message to take away is never to dismiss Programme grants out of hand: if your project is strong, your subject appropriate and your application clear and well-written, then your chances are as good (if not better) than for standard grants. More detail on the success rates in 2008-09 are available on p79 of the Annual Report.

Help with Health Applications

The National Institutes for Health Research (NIHR) has issued a raft of recent health funding opportunities. If you want to take advantage of these it would be worth contacting the Research Design Service South East. A collaboration between the Universities of Brighton, Kent and Surrey, the Service provides free support to develop research proposals for NIHR programmes.

ESRC Large Grants: Security, Conflict & Justice

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has announced its Large Grants Competition for 2009/10. The Grants are for £1.5 - £5m, and are aimed at 'experienced researchers

requiring longer term or extended support for research groups, inter-institutional research networks, linked-project programmes, medium-to-large surveys, other infrastructure or methodological developments, or any related larger scale projects'.

This year they're highlighting 'Security, Conflict and Justice'. There's a two part application process, with the deadline for outlines on 16 Nov. More detail is available here.

Happy?

The ESRC, together with the MRC and a clutch of government departments, have launched a funding initiative for an interdisciplinary research group on 'subjective wellbeing', or 'happiness or life satisfaction as reported by individuals,' and how this relates to public policy. The turnaround on this is tight: they want expressions of interest by 16 Oct. However, this need only be a one page summary. Funds of up to £4.4 million (at 100 per cent full economic costing, at current prices) are available over a five year period. More detail here