Avatar photo

About Holly Hoar

I am the Development Officer (Research & Funding) in Research, Business and Employability Services. The Research team provides information to University staff on external funding, partners, and innovation activities. The team works with researchers and academic staff to help diversify income for Staffordshire University. Our Research and Funding Blog contains information on funding opportunities and the activities of the team. See my staff profile here http://www.staffs.ac.uk/staff/profiles/heh2.jsp

Funding for Staff Exchanges

The European Commission are running a final round of funding under the Marie Curie Fellowships.  They help academic staff in different countries to develop their experience, or bring new expertise to Institutions. The three types of fellowships are open to all kinds of research areas.

IIF –International Incoming Fellowships -Experienced researchers outside the EU carry out high level research in an EU institution for 2-3 years –These are useful if you know someone from outside Europe that you would like to bring to the UK to work at the University.

IEF-Intra-European Fellowships for Career Development – Experienced researchers develop a long term training plan enable them to advance significantly in their career. They go to a host organisation in Europe for 12-24 months. An interesting way for Staffordshire University to get involved with these might be if you know someone in another European country that you would like to get over to the UK.

IOF –International Outgoing Fellowships for Career Development – Experienced researchers carry out high level research in countries outside of the EU for up to three years. These projects might be of interest if you feel you wish to work in a different country for a number of years, you will need to know where you want to work.

You have until 14 August 2013 to apply.

Applicants will need a clear project idea, as the EU is looking for quite detailed bids. However, if your project idea is well defined, it is a relatively straightforward application process.

The funds do not cover University overheads. It is essentially a flat rate payment to the staff doing the exchange and flat rate payment for a management fee.

Staffordshire University has not made as much use of these funds as we could have done, we don’t have any applications in the pipeline at the moment, whereas Keele University are looking at submitting fourteen bids! The External Projects Team is able to support with bid writing, but advise that you start working it up as soon as possible, if you are interested in applying please email externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk. If you don’t think you are ready to apply for this round it is expected that similar funding opportunities will be available next year in the in new Horizon 2020 programme.

Further details: http://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/about-mca/actions/index_en.htm

images

Thanks for the Blog Suggestions

The External Projects Team wishes to thank everyone who took part in the review of the Research and Funding blog. The review has given us lots of thoughts of how to develop the site to make it better for you to use. The team will be working on these ideas over the summer.

The changes we are looking at include alterations to the style of the email updates, adaptions to the structure of the site pages to make information easier to find, and taking up some of the excellent tips from the Universities Journalism department of what makes a good blog.

We will post more updates once we know exactly what the changes will be. Thanks to everyone for their ideas.

images

Funding focusing on Research combining Design and Innovation

The Arts and Humanities Research Council have decided to focus a chunk of their funding on design. They are particularity interested in projects which link design and innovation. This sounds like something Staffordshire University are very good at (Flux, High House), so we should be looking to get a bid in.

They want applications to be in by 3 October 2013. We can only submit a maximum of three bids, and in truth we should really be looking to submit only one, so anyone looking to apply should talk to the External Projects Team and the head of their faculty.

More details here: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Pages/Collaborative-Doctoral-Awards.aspx

1425453_abstract_painting_5

Video Games Funding

The Arts and Humanities Research Council have funding for collaborative research projects with a particular focus on video games

It is unusual for the AHRC to be making a particular focus on just video games, so if it is your research area it is worth looking into the call in more detail because it might not come up again for a while.

Funding body AHRC

Scheme Videogames Research Networking Funding Call

Overview These are for collaborative research projects between arts and humanities researchers and video developers. Proposals should explore new areas of interest to research and development in the videogames industry, be multi-institutional and demonstrate creative and innovative approaches.

Deadlines 1 August 2013

Budget Grants are worth up to £30,000 for projects of six to 18 months, and an additional £15,000 may be sought to cover international activities.

For further information: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Pages/AHRC-Videogames-Research-Networking-Funding-Call.aspx

New Fund for Todays Biggest Problems

A new fund launched recently by the Prime Minister will provide money for researchers to solve a range of issues which of importance to the public.

The prize was launched as a celebration of the 300th anniversary since the Longitude Prize was won by watch make John Harrison with the invention of the chronometer. The invention changed ocean going navigation forever, by making it possible to work out where you were at sea even when the sun or stars we not visible.

The new prize, which will be run by NESTA, is hoping to follow in these steps by getting the public to vote for some of today’s biggest problems and then providing funding to solve them.

Further information on the prizes will be launched in the coming months www.nesta.org.uk

watch

NESTA: Mapping the Start up Acceleration Landscape

NESTA funding to look at the success of acceleration start ups. This has been sent out by email to the CABR ARC, but is on the blog in case there are any other academics who may be interested in the research area.

It is a short deadline, 1 July, and they ideally want to see some money brought to the project, so it is not a hot fund. But just in case the details are below

Funding body: NESTA

Scheme: Analysis and evaluation of startup acceleration in Europe.

Overview: Research will support Nesta in developing a series of projects, mapping the startup acceleration landscape, analysing methods and models of support and measuring their causal effect on startup performance, as well as on the local ecosystem in which they operate. Proposals may address one or more of the following topics:

•mapping the development of Startup Factories in Europe;

•a series of detailed case studies on state-of-the-art support methods and interventions employed by such accelerator programmes;

•measuring the effectiveness of accelerators;

•network analysis;

•corporate incubation and corporate venturing.

Deadlines: 01 July 2013

Budget: The overall budget for this call is £75,000. Nesta particularly welcomes projects that involve co-funding by other organisations and partnerships with other organisations providing access to valuable data sets, as well as those that aim to open up research and data publicly.

Website/Contact: http://www.nesta.org.uk/about_us/working_with_nesta

First World War Lottery Funding

Funding from the National Lottery can be applied for to celebrate next year’s centenary of the First World War.

Funding body: National Lottery
Scheme:    First World War: Then and Now
Overview: Projects to mark the Centenary of the First World War. These grants aim to make a real difference to a wide range of people by helping them understand the war and its impact better. In particular, they want to involve young people in marking the Centenary. See examples of the heritage your project might explore.
In assessment, they take account of the broad range of outcomes that projects achieve. Projects need to cover a number of the following areas:
Outcomes for heritage
With our support, heritage will be:
•    better managed
•    in better condition
•    better interpreted and explained
•    identified / recorded
Outcomes for people
With our investment, people will have:
•    developed skills
•    learnt about heritage
•    volunteered time
Outcomes for communities
With our support:
•    more people and a wider range of people will have engaged with heritage.
Deadlines: Open Call -apply anytime
Budget: £3,000 to £10,000. They also provide grants of more than £10,000 for First World War projects

The Lottery are looking to fund not-for-profit organisations; and partnerships led by not-for-profit organisations.

European Cyber Security Month: October 2013

October sees the start of the European Cyber Security month (ECSM).

Public and private sector organisations in the area of Network and Information Security are invited to get involved. This year’s programme will be based around the EU Cyber Security Strategy.

The event aims to promote public awareness of cyber security issues and to provide up to date security information through education, good practice example and competitions. Activities will take place throughout October all over Europe.

The call for expressions of interest is now open and the organisers want to hear about activities planned in member states – social media campaigns, news articles, student fairs, road-shows, information sessions by Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs), round-table discussion sesions etc.

To share ideas of events visit the website http://www.enisa.europa.eu/media/news-items/european-cyber-security-month-2013-get-involved

You can subscribe to their RSS feed to get news on the events that will be taking place http://www.enisa.europa.eu/media/news-items/news-wires/RSS

Erasmus Charter for Higher Education 2014-2020

Staffordshire University submitted an application for an Erasmus Charter for Higher Education for the years 2014-2020. If the Unviersity is successful, it will mean the University is eligible to apply for funding under the new EU programme for education, training, youth and sport supports –Erasmus for All. The University had the same status for the 2007-2013 Lifelong Learning Programme.

The Erasmus for All programme has not yet been adopted by the European legislators. However, the Commission published the call for proposals in order to allow for a smooth implementation of the Programme as soon as its legal basis has been adopted.

The Erasmus Charter for Higher Education (ECHE) provides the general quality framework for European and international cooperation activities a higher education institution (HEI) may carry out within the Programme. 188 UK institutions have applied for an ECHE under this call, with a total of 4,577 applications submitted in total across the EU.  A published list of institutions selected will be provided in December, we should be informed of our individual application result in November.  Further information is available at http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/funding/2014/call_he_charter_en.php.

Don’t Miss Out! Chance to win up to £200 towards your professional development

A reminder for anyone who missed last weeks post, the External Projects Team have produced a short Qualtrix survey to gather your views on the Research and Funding Blog. This is a designed to take a few minutes of your time and once completed you have the option of leaving your name and being entered into a prize draw for up to £200 towards your professional development.

To take part in the survey please click on the link below:

http://staffordshire.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9NY2cw3PeDVn9Jj

The closing date for the questionnaire is the 5th June 2013. The winner of the prize draw will be contacted directly following the closing date.

Thanks for your support!

Banknotes