NESTA: Mapping the Start up Acceleration Landscape

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Holly Hoar

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

ESRC: Pre-announcement of two pending calls for an Administrative Data Research Network (ADRN)

Posted on May 15, 2013 by BENNETT Margaret

Following the publication of the Administrative Data Taskforce report Improving Access for Research and Policy (PDF, 1.1Mb), the ESRC will be inviting proposals for a major investment in the new Administrative Data Research Network.

There will be two forthcoming calls:

for the Administrative Data Research Centres (ADRCs) in each of the four regions in the UK
and for the Information Gateway (IG) for ADRCs. Applications will be invited from research organisations eligible for Research Council Funding.

Applicants should be aware that the ESRC is currently in discussion with the statistical authorities in the UK to confirm their role in the new Network – with anticipation that they may become commissioning partners with the ESRC. Applicants should avoid approaching the statistical agencies about forming collaborations until full details of these calls are published.

Full details will become available 5 June 2013.

Potential applicants can register to attend a Bidders’ Information Event to be held in central London 13 June 2013. Those interested in attending should pre-register their details

Email: esrc@vistaevents.co.uk
Telephone: 020 8542 8223

Further information will be available on the ESRC website later in May

http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/26048/administrative-data-research-network.aspx

ESRC: Pre-announcement of a pending call for European-Chinese joint research projects

Posted on May 15, 2013 by BENNETT Margaret

Societal Challenges – Green Economy and Population Change

The research funding organisations of China (NSFC), France (ANR), Germany (DFG), The Netherlands (NWO) and the United Kingdom (ESRC) are delighted to launch a new multi-lateral collaboration consisting of a joint research programme on two basic societal challenges:

The challenges of the Green Economy
The challenges of Population Change

There will be a number of priority areas within these themes and researchers from these countries will be invited to submit proposals for joint projects in these areas. Researchers may have any disciplinary background within the social sciences and beyond, however, the proposal should be predominantly within the social sciences and applicants must satisfy the eligibility criteria of their home funding agency. Projects will also need to involve a number of Chinese and European partners; full guidance will be announced in the call.

The call, its decision procedure and funding mechanisms will be based on the Open Research Area for Social Sciences (ORA), a process established on international standards. Funding will be distributed among the partners according to the place of work of the researchers, and according to the funding rules of each individual agency.

Further information about the priority areas will be made available by the end of June 2013 with the full call launched in September. The closing date of the call will be in early December 2013.

http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/26041/societal-challenges.aspx

Establishment of a European Policy Network of National Literacy Organisations

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Esther KNIGHT

Deadline: 29th of August 2013; 12:00 PM

More than one in five 15-year-olds in Europe, as well as many more adults lack basic reading and writing skills. This makes it harder for them to pursue learning and to find a job, and puts them at risk of social exclusion. Aware of this serious problem, the European Commission has taken action to help improve literacy levels in Europe.

The purpose of this call for proposals is to support the establishment of one European policy network to raise awareness, gather and analyse policy information, exchange policy approaches, good practice and promising campaigns and initiatives to promote literacy in light of the Education and Training framework (ET2020) benchmark that the share of low-achieving 15-years olds in reading should be less than 15 % by 2020.

The objectives of this network are to:

develop country specific knowledge;
facilitate the exchange of good practice;
implement awareness-raising initiatives;
cooperate with other institutions and organisations working in the field of literacy both at national and EU level to promote effective literacy policies.

http://ec.europa.eu/education/calls/s0513_en.htm

ESRC Update

Posted on April 15, 2013 by BENNETT Margaret

ESRC Spring Update powerpoint presentation is attached.

Permission to upload the presentation has been obtained from ESRC.

(Please note that because of the nature of some of the topics covered in the slides, some of the information is likely to become out of date quite quickly).

ESRC Update – Spring 2013

Small Research Grants -Short Deadline!

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Holly Hoar

Funder: British Academy/Leverhulme Trust
Title: Small Research Grants
Deadline: Wednesday 10 April 2013
Value: £10,000 (up to)
Overview: Primary research in the humanities and social sciences. Funds may be used to facilitate initial project planning and development, to support the direct costs of research and to enable the advancement of research through workshops or conferences, or visits by or to partner scholars. All applications should demonstrate that funds are sought for a clearly defined, discrete piece of research with an identifiable outcome. Applications for individual and collaborative projects are equally welcome. International groups of scholars are eligible to apply, provided the lead applicant is a UK-based scholar. Grants are tenable for up to 24 months and are worth between £500 and £10,000.
Plus there is also funding for the following areas:
Up to £1,000 aimed at recent postdoctoral scholars and awards for travel from Funding from the Sir Ernest Cassel Trust.
Up to £10,000 for individual or cooperative research projects relating to Britain or China from the Sino-British Fellowship Trust.
Up to £500 for the study of ancient Persia and related areas from the Ancient Persia Fund.
Up to £2,500 for research on antiquities, historical geography, early history or arts in parts of Asia from the Stein Arnold Fund
Further information: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide/srg.cfm
ARC interest: CABR, IACT, CMAT, CAMH, CSER, IEPR

Supporting Innovation in the UK Retail Sector – full briefing released

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Josephine Beech

The ESRC and TSB have now released a full briefing document for ‘Supporting Innovation in the UK Retail Sector’, the new targeted call for KTP proposals aiming to “help retail managers address the major economic, social and environmental challenges that they face, leading to new opportunities and tangible outcomes for business”. The document can be downloaded at: http://www.innovateuk.org/content/competition/ktp/supporting-innovation-in-the-uk-retail-sector.ashx

The specific aims of this call are to:

o increase knowledge exchange between retailers and economic / social scientists*

o develop a greater understanding of the changing nature of the UK High Street and retail spaces to drive growth, innovation and efficiency within the sector

o stimulate and support innovations in e-commerce, m-commerce and omni-commerce, to maintain and strengthen the UK’s position as a global leader in internet retailing

o promote and enable innovations in the use of ‘big data,’ providing insights into consumer behaviour, increasing efficiency and growth within the retail sector

o support other innovative projects, addressing one or more sectoral challenges

*It’s well worth academics working outside of these disciplines submitting expressions of interest, though. As the briefing makes clear (p.4) – if the ESRC doesn’t fund them, another KTP funder might (and see also the last of the five aims, above – “other innovative projects” will be funded). Interdisciplinary and cross-faculty approaches can also be considered.

Partners should be businesses in the retail sector that:

need further support to understand and respond to the challenges facing the sector;
are looking to access social and economic science skills and knowledge (see above) to help them innovate in dealing with these challenges;
want to build and improve their capability in innovation.

The application process is essentially the same as that for a ‘normal’ KTP and the deadline for submission is 21st August, 2013. Please contact Dominic Collins (01785 353404 / d.collins@staffs.ac.uk )if you’re interested.

Using new data sources and analytic techniques to map innovation and business growth in the UK

Posted on February 21, 2013 by BENNETT Margaret

An invitation to propose research projects

Nesta plans to award a number of grants to fund research that uses new analytical techniques or new data sets to measure and map innovative activity and growth among businesses across the UK.

What Nesta is looking to fund:

Nesta invites proposals for research projects that make use of new analytic technologies to cast light on innovation and business growth in the UK. Methodologies that we are particularly interested in supporting include:

a) Analysis of new data from social media or other online interactions used to provide more up-to-date or granular figures than structured official statistics.

b) Analysis of unstructured data through web scraping, text mining or similar techniques

c) Novel combinations of structured and unstructured data to review new insights.

We are particularly interested in research addressing any of the following questions:

i. Insight into start-up activity in the UK, including levels of start-up activity, trends among start-ups, and other insights into what start-ups are doing

ii. Insight into high-tech firms in the UK, including levels of activity, trends among tech businesses, and other insights into what tech businesses are doing

iii. Connections between start-ups and supporting organisations (e.g. accelerators, funders, incubators)

iv. Connections between start-ups or high-growth firms and economic growth or innovation

Deadline: Monday 4th March 2013, 09:00am GMT

We would expect projects to be substantially complete by 31 March 2014, but are willing to consider exceptions where this would improve the research.

For further information go to: http://www.nesta.org.uk/library/documents/ITTDatascienceinnovationgrowthgrants2.pdf

Engineering for Growth campaign to show the value of engineering to the economy and society

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Esther KNIGHT

The Royal Academy of Engineering has launched its Engineering for Growth campaign with a collection of activities to stimulate entrepreneurship and a report highlighting the £481bn contribution engineering makes to the UK economy.

Engineering for Growth will be a major theme for the Academy in 2013. It will demonstrate the economic impact and societal benefits delivered by engineering and provide the focus for specific activities designed to drive business innovation.

“Engineering for Growth is aligned with both our advocacy and operational activities,” says Sir John Parker GBE FREng, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

“Engineering already makes up at least 28% of the UK economy and employs over 5.4 million people. It will need to play an even greater role as we rebalance and deliver growth in the economy. We will continue to highlight the huge benefits of investing in innovation and relevant skills as well running our own programmes in support of stimulating economic activity.”

Sir Roger Carr, President of the CBI, says: “The UK economy can only grow if it has the ability to turn innovative ideas into dynamic products and services. Engineering for Growth highlights the vital role engineering will need to play if we are to achieve this and maintain our place as a global economic power.”

Business Secretary Vince Cable says: “Engineering is central to building a stronger economy, which is why skills are such an important part of the Government’s Industrial Strategy. Engineers contribute widely to many areas of the economy; their understanding of technology and the opportunities it brings is helping drive up competitiveness across many sectors. Engineering for Growth activities will certainly play their part in supporting our ambitions to support talent-growth in the sector.

“We strongly support the Royal Academy of Engineering’s work to help young, highly-skilled engineers to develop entrepreneurial skills to take technologies to market. Small businesses are an important part of an agile economy, and having entrepreneurism as well as technical knowledge of the sector is essential to ensure success.”

The Academy’s Engineering for Growth campaign is available from: www.engineeringforgrowth.org.uk

Later this spring the Academy will launch the Enterprise Hub, a new business resource that will see a large number of Academy Fellows mentoring new engineering and technology start-ups.

As part of the Hub’s activities, the Academy aims to build on its Engineering Enterprise Fellowships programme, which enables entrepreneurial academics to spend a year starting a business.

The Academy also aims to build a new programme that will take ‘the best of the best’ early stage companies and provide them with a long term package of mentoring, training and bespoke support.

The Academy will continue to fund over 130 Researchers and build crucial links between industry and academia – providing the lifeblood for innovation in the UK.

Founded in 1976, the Royal Academy of Engineering promotes the engineering and technological welfare of the country. The fellowship – comprising the UK’s most eminent engineers – provides the leadership and expertise for the activities, which focus on the relationships between engineering, technology, and the quality of life. As a national academy, it provides independent and impartial advice to Government; work to secure the next generation of engineers; and provide a voice for Britain’s engineering community. http://www.raeng.org.uk/

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