EU Prize for Women Innovators 2014

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Josephine Beech

The European Commission has launched the second edition of the EU Prize for Women Innovators. The competition is open until 15th October 2013 and aims to raise public awareness about the need for more innovation and more women innovators. It will reward three women who have developed outstanding innovations and brought them to market, with prizes ranging from €25,000 to €100,000.

Any woman innovator complying with the following criteria can apply:

Resides in an EU Member State or in a country associated to the Research Framework Programme.
Is a founder or co-founder of an existing and active company.
Your company must have been registered before 1st January 2011.
The annual turnover of the company must have been a minimum €100,000 in 2011 or 2012.
Either you or the company you founded/co-founded have received or is receiving funding from the European Union or the European Atomic Energy Community Research Framework Programme, or from the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP).

If you would like to participate, please got to the contest website before the 15th October 2013.

NESTA – Digital makers fund

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Esther KNIGHT

Image of Digital Makers homepage

The digital makers fund is about getting 1000’s of young people involved in making digital activities. Something we seem pretty well placed to do as a university.

NESTA expect successful initiatives will use young people’s existing interests, passions and pastimes as a gateway to digital making, inspiring young people to become creators, not just users of digital technologies. NESTA are looking for applications from organisations, or partnerships between organisations, that have the capacity to engage thousands of young people in digital making activities.

Further details:

http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/public_services_lab/digital_education/assets/features/digital_makers_fund_second_open_call

Use different interests and content to reach new audiences – how can digital making tie in with music, fashion, sport, film or brands that will inspire young people to participate?
The ‘making’ element is important. NESTA want ideas that lead participants to the creation of a digital product that they can show to and share with others.
NESTA are interested in reaching different networks and communities for learning – youth clubs, libraries, after school clubs, interest groups and social networks speak to thousands of young people every day. How can they integrate digital making into their activities?

NESTA take a broad view of digital making that encompasses 3D printing and physical computing, as well as coding and programming, and want to work with partners who are noisy advocates for the importance of digital making; who will use all the channels available to them to shout about and promote their projects.

Deadline: 14 November 2013

Grants between £20,000 and £50,000

Call for Innovations/Inventions for the Cleantech Innovate 2014

Posted on July 23, 2013 by nl6

This is a great opportunity for you to get your innovation/invention out there and to promote Staffordshire University! If you are interested or have worked collaboratively with a company who would be interested then please let me know and I will support you in the development of the application and throughout the whole process!

Cleantech Innovate 2014 Feb 13th 2014 | Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, Sponsored by DECC

ecoConnect’s Cleantech Innovate 2014 is a great way for leading British entrepreneurs to showcase their innovative low carbon designs!

ecoConnect are now actively seeking the great green UK innovations from which they will draw 40 finalists. It is free to apply and applications are welcome from:

Corporate Research & Development
University and Science Park Research & Development and spin-outs
Entrepreneurs with privately developed technology

The 40 finalists will be seen by an audience of:

Investors seeking new investment opportunities in Cleantech
Corporate buyers seeking green solutions and partnerships
Media covering the sector and its trends
Dealmakers from Law Firms and Accountancy practices

Application deadline for presenters: 7 October 2013

How It Works

The day is divided into key sectors, e.g.: Transport, Built Environment; Energy Generation and Storage etc. Presentations within these sectors are organised into groups of 5 – each technology will present for 5 minutes and there will be opportunities for Q&A after each group of 5. Click here to see the day’s agenda http://www.cleantechinnovate.com/agenda/

If you are interested please contact me on n.arblaster@staffs.ac.uk Tel: 01785 353519

Looking to collaborate with partners in Australia?

Posted on July 22, 2013 by ejd2

CAESIE is a new consortium established to promote partnerships between European and Australian Researchers and SMEs

CAESIE (Connecting Australian European Science and Innovation Excellence) is a bilateral partnership supported by the European Union and the Australian government. It provides a range of support to foster bilateral SME research links including partner brokerage, funding to develop new collaborations and support to access mainstream international collaborative research funding. We can therefore get assistance to develop links with SMEs in Australia through this scheme. CAESIE prioritises the following three areas:

clean energy
healthy ageing
sustainable cities

Further details: http://caesie.org/

Urban Europe: funding call

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Esther KNIGHT

Urban Europe invites proposals for its joint transnational call for proposals, addressing research and experimental development for creating attractive, sustainable and economically viable urban areas.

This enables researchers, practitioners, innovators and other stakeholders dedicated to the development of European urban areas to suggest international research and innovation projects. Proposals may either address governance of urban complexity or urban vulnerability, adaptability and resilience.

Consortia may include partners from universities, research organisations, institutes, city councils, SMEs, industry and stakeholder associations, and must include partners from at least three of the following countries: Austria; Belgium; Cyprus; Denmark; Italy; the Netherlands; Norway; Sweden; Turkey; the United Kingdom. Partners from third countries may participate using their own funding.

The budget for this call is €15 million. There is no minimum or maximum funding amount per project, although approximately 10 projects, with budgets in the range of €1 million to €2m, are typically expected. Projects may last for up to three years, and must commence between May and September 2014.

The ESRC has made available €2 million (£1.7million) to fund British aspects of proposals.

pre-proposal – 18 September 2013
shortlist published – November 2014
full proposal – 21 January 2014
announcement of results to main applicants – April 2014
start of projects – May-September 2014

Further information

ESRCs national agency contact – Rick Hamilton – email: cities@esrc.ac.uk

Further details:

ESRC http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/26565/urban-europes-second-pilot-joint-call18-september.aspx

And http://www.jpi-urbaneurope.eu/About/Vision_Mission

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

Final Eco-Innovation Call Launched

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Holly Hoar

The European Commission has launched the final call for the Eco-Innovation Fund. This is not a brilliant fund as it only covers 50% of costs. But could be worth looking into if work is already being developed around this theme.

Funding body: European Commission

Scheme: Eco-Innovation

Overview: The Eco-Innovation initiative is designed to support projects on the first application or market replication of eco-innovative techniques, products, services or practices which have already been technically demonstrated with success but which, owing to residual risk, have not yet entered the market.

The priorities for this year’s call are:

• Materials Recycling;

• Sustainable Building Products;

• Food and Drink Sector;

• Water; and

• Greening businesses.

Deadlines: 05/09/2013

Budget: Grants for successful projects cover up to 50% of the eligible project costs, and this call has a total budget of €31 million.

Website: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eco-innovation/apply-funds/call-proposal/index_en.htm

An Information Day on the 2013 call is also taking place in Brussels on Monday 27 May. Registration can be done via the web page above.

UK droughts and water scarcity grants – outline bids

Posted on April 4, 2013 by BENNETT Margaret

The Natural Environment Research Council, in collaboration with the Economic and Social Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, invites outline bids for its UK droughts and water scarcity grants. These are for consortia to respond to one of three work packages in relation to droughts and water scarcity in the UK. The three work packages are:

• characterisation and quantification of the roles of multiple drivers, their impacts, and cumulative effects during historic periods of drought and water scarcity and methods to support decision-making, worth up to £1.5 million;

• forecasting droughts and water scarcity, and methods to support decision-making, worth up to £2m;

• impacts of droughts and water scarcity, and methods to support decision-making, worth up to £7m for individual consortia of up to £3.5m.

All consortia must be interdisciplinary and cover an appropriate range of environmental, social, economic, historical and cultural contexts at multiple scales within the UK. Project duration should be between 36 and 48 months. Applicants must be eligible for RCUK research grant funding.

The total budget is worth up to £10.5m.

Closing date 03 May 13 for outline bids, full proposals due 21 August 2013.

http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/programmes/droughts/events/ao.asp?cookieConsent=A

For further information contact externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk

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

Staffordshire University Research and Funding Blog

Category Archives: Sciences