Author Archives: Josephine Beech

Innovation Challenge Knowledge Exchange School 2014

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Nesta innovation grants

Saturday May 10th to Wednesday May 14th
The Work Foundation, St.James’, London

Knowledge exchange is increasingly a central part of research projects in all disciplines and is playing an ever greater role in the assessment of academic research. Familiarity with, and experience of, knowledge exchange techniques has become crucial to the development of successful research careers both within the university sector and in the world of commercially focussed research.

This school is for post-graduate research students seeking to raise their awareness of knowledge exchange, team work and approaches to innovation in preparation for post-doctoral work.  It is run by Lancaster University in partnership with The Work Foundation and brings together early-career academic researchers with partners from both private and non-profit sectors to work on real-world innovation challenges. It is based on the successful Enterprise School model; as one of our participants put it after the last School: it ‘can absolutely change your way of thinking, approaching life and progress your career’.

Working with tutors and mentors from Lancaster University and The Work Foundation’s partners alongside independent experts, participants will be introduced to a series of key, applied knowledge exchange skills used widely in the business sector. The programme offers the opportunity to develop experience project based teamwork, and skills that will serve students well during their research as well as helping their post-doctoral career development (be it in academia or in another sector).

Working with Astute Radio (a young Internet media company) and a group of The Work Foundation’s network partners from various sectors, teams will deploy and develop these approaches to work on innovation challenges set by the partners and reflecting real-world issues confronted by these various organisations.

The school is hosted by the Work Foundation in London St.James’ and includes hotel accommodation nearby and all necessary refreshments/meals as part of the package.

Cost: the programme costs £600 per student

 For an application form please email J.a.beech@staffs.ac.uk

 

 

AHRC Research Networking

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Design and innovation

The Research Networking Scheme is intended to support forums for the discussion and exchange of ideas on a specified thematic area, issue or problem. The intention is to facilitate interactions between researchers and stakeholders through, for example, a short-term series of workshops, seminars, networking activities or other events. The aim of these activities is to stimulate new debate across boundaries, for example, disciplinary, conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and/or international. Proposals should explore new areas, be multi-institutional and can include creative or innovative approaches or entrepreneurship. Proposals must justify the approach taken and clearly explain the novelty or added value for bringing the network participants together.

Proposals for full economic costs up to £30,000 for a period of up to two years may be submitted. The exact mechanism for networking and the duration is up to the applicants to decide but must be fully justified in the proposal. An additional threshold of up to £15,000 full economic cost may be sought to cover the costs of any international participants or activities in addition to the £30,000 fEC scheme limit. Proposals will need to be submitted by an eligible Research Organisation but must involve collaboration with at least one other organisation, as well as having significant relevance to beneficiaries in the UK.

There is no specfic closing date for this call.

​Research-Funding-Guide.pdf provides an overview of
the Research Networking Scheme. It details the eligibility criteria, assessment
criteria, information on how to apply, application deadlines, eligible dates and
terms and conditions of awards. You must ensure that you meet all of the
eligibility criteria before submitting an application.

If you are interested in this opportunity please email us at externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk

 

 

Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Programme – NIHR

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NETSCC programme thumbnail

 The EME Programme funds clinical efficacy studies. The studies test if an intervention works as expected in a well-defined population or group of patients. The Programme also provides an opportunity to use clinical studies to understand disease or treatment mechanisms, which may in turn lead to improvements in health and patient care.

EME funds clinical studies to test interventions where proof of concept has already been demonstrated, allowing their progress through early clinical trials and on to larger, later clinical trials. Treatment with drugs or biological compounds, psychological interventions, public health initiatives, diagnostic tests and medical devices are all within the remit of the Programme. Treatments or interventions intended to prevent disease are also included.

To see the latest calls please click HERE

EPSRC Manufacturing Advanced Functional Materials

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EPSRC are inviting research proposals from consortia across the Engineering and Physical Sciences communities to address the manufacturing research challenges in developing applications, production technologies and future processes that incorporate advanced functional materials.

 

EPSRC are expecting to commit up to £10 Million on large, long term (up to five years), multidisciplinary programmes that capitalise on the UK’s growing research capability in functional materials and identify the most promising pathways for scale-up to applications and devices of these innovative materials. A two-stage process will be used to allocate the funding. This first stage of the call seeks expressions of interest to submit a full proposal. The submitted expressions of interests will be assessed at a short-listing panel in May 2014 and those that align appropriately with the scope for this call will be invited for the full proposal stage. The deadline for full proposals will be in July 2014 and these will be peer reviewed during the summer. Funding decisions are expected to be made in Autumn 2014

 

Closing date:15 April 2014

Type: Expression of interest

 

If you are interested in this call please email externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk

 

BIG LOTTERY event a Great Success!

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team 2

Pictured from left to right, Jose Beech, Stephna Davis-Watts, Holly Hoar

The External Projects Team hosted a BIG Lottery funding event on Wednesday in the Ashley building. Over 40 people from different organisations attended to hear Stephna from the BIG Lottery talk about the “Reaching Communities” (RC) fund. 

RC funds projects for 1-5 years with a clear community benefit, the fund has a 30% success rate and is prioritising a number of geographical locations in Staffordshire, including Tamworth, Newcastle-u-Lyme and East Staffs. Awards range from £10k to £500k. The four outcomes of the BIG Lottery Fund are:

  • People have better chances in life
  • Stronger communities
  • Improved rural and urban environments
  • Healthier and more active people and communities 

For more information please email general.enquiries@biglotteryfund.org.uk

If you would like a copy of the slides or would like more information on opportunities to work in partnership please email the team at externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk

 

Lebanese learn about H2020…..

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The External Projects Team have supported the EU funded Business School project IDEAL (The Innovation and Development of Academic-Industry Partnerships through Efficient Research Administration in Lebanon). Emma and Jose filmed a 90 minute training video on the latest EU Research Funding Programme Horizon 2020. This film covers a number of key areas, including the policy framework for Horizon 2020 and detailed description of the funding mechanisms and opportunities for engagement.

The IDEAL programme, launched in early December 2012, it is helping to forge links between local researchers and their international counterparts, while working with industry to identify research priorities and commercialize any innovative ideas.  The project is coordinated by the Office of Grants and Contracts at the American University of Beirut and Staffordshire University are one of the partners.

Pictured are from left to right: Emma Davies, Tom Ward, Jose Beech and Ian Jackson.

For more information on H2020 and the latest calls for proposals please get in touch with externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk

For more information on IDEAL please follow the Link http://www.ideal4lebanon.org/

 IDEAL

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Policy & Research Small Grants Open Call

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Ourfundingmoney

 

Nesta have launched a New small grants fund they want to find new ideas and foster collaboration with a wide array of organisations so a open call has been launched where up to ten projects in total will be funded across the year. The maximum budget is 10k and examples of expected projects are:

  • primarily research-based
  • developing a paper
  • a proof of concept
  • policy idea.

 NESTA research themes

  • Development and application of innovative methods for understanding innovation
  • Using big data or open data to understand innovation
  • Mapping and analysing new trends in social, business or technological innovation
  • Public policies to promote innovation
  • Adoption of innovation in public services
  • Innovation in emerging economies

 To find out more click on this link – http://www.nesta.org.uk/Small-Grants-Open-Call

 

Erasmus + Webinars

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Ecorys and the British Council have advertised webinars for the new Erasmus + programme of funding. These are taking place in January and February.imagesCAGFFZM5

All of the details on how to register and when the webinars are taking place can be found Here

The External Projects Team will be listening in to the Webinars, so we will be sending out a blog with all the latest info later this month, in the meantime, if you are interested in accessing the E+ funding please get in touch with us at externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk

 

 

Erasmus + calls now launched

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eat-erasmus

The successor of the Life Long Learning Programme, Erasmus + has now published its first calls for proposals. Staffordshire University has successfully applied for the “Erasmus Charter” a pre requisite of applying for the programme and there are now open calls. A summary of these can be found with indicative budgets and call deadlines below.

You can link to the programme document for more detail ERASMUS + Programme Guide  

BUDGET

Education and training : EUR 1 305,3 million
Youth : EUR 174,2 million
Jean Monnet : EUR 11,2 million
Sport : EUR 16,6 million

Key Action 1

Mobility of individuals in the field of education, training and youth (all) 17 March 2014
Mobility of individuals in the field of youth only 30 April 2014
Mobility of individuals in the field of youth only 1 October 2014
Joint master degrees 27 March 2014
Large-scale European voluntary service events 3 April 2014

 

Key Action 2

Strategic partnerships in the field of education, training and youth (all) 30 April 2014
Strategic partnerships in the field of youth only 1 October 2014
Knowledge alliances, sector skills alliances 3 April 2014
Capacity building in the field of youth 3 April 2014

2 September 2014

The external projects team will be disseminating this information across the University, but if you would like any further information please get in touch with the team at externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk

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UKRO and H2020 is now Launched!!

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Hurrah!! At last all of the next Horizon 2020 proposals have been released. Following a great UKRO session yesterday with Eevi from the Brussels office (see pic below) the External Projects Team hosted a great day long programme of presentations on Erasmus + and the H2020 calls. We have been anticipating the launch which happened yesterday and we are now in the process of producing briefing sheets to help you to digest all of the information, but in the meantime you can access all of the latest info from the Commission HERE

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