Below is the August edition of Enterprise and Commercial Development’s ‘KT Chronicle’, featuring the latest on all things KTP & KEEN, including: the University’s new partnership with Lister Trade Frames, recent changes to the KTP Programme structure and application process, details of the call for shorter KTPs in multi-disciplinary software development and guidance on what to look for in a potential KTP / KEEN project and partner.
Posted by: Dominic Collins KTP Caseload Coordinator
Full information: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide/skills_acquisition.cfm
Quantitative Skills Acquisition Awards of up to £10,000 are available to support the career development of early career scholars – i.e. those within 10 years of the award of their Phd. who are in established academic posts. These awards aim to develop and enhance their quantitative skills by providing an award to enable early career researchers to spend some time with a mentor at a specialist centre in the field.
This scheme was introduced by the Academy in 2013. Around 20 awards are expected to be available in the next round of competition, with the aim of providing funding to:
The scheme enables researchers to spend time with a mentor in a research group specialising in quantitative methods, and will also provide some funding to meet the costs of a mentor.
Costs of travel, accommodation and subsistence can be applied for, together with a contribution to the cost of teaching relief for the applicant, and the time of the mentor, and although the maximum award is up to £10,000 over 12 months, the average value of award is expected to be significantly lower.
Applications will consist of three main components:
All applications should demonstrate that Academy funds are sought for a clearly defined, discrete piece of research, which will have an identifiable outcome on completion of the Academy-funded component of the research.
The closing date for applications for the next round of skills acquisition awards will be 30 October 2013. Application forms will only be available on the e-GAP system from 4 September 2013. The starting date of grants in this round will be not earlier than 1 September 2014 and not later than 1 April 2015.
Wider Outlook Issue 35 August 2013
Welcome to August’s Wider Outlook—the team have chosen the theme of Citizenship, Equalities and Social Exclusion for this month’s edition. Starting with a report on 2013 as the European Year of Citizens; looking at developments in UK’s approach to policy initiatives with the Government’s What Works, evidence based social policy advice centres; and funding available to promote Equalities and Social Justice.
As ever do contact us with any comments, ideas or suggestions at externalprojects@staffordshire.gov.uk
Many academics struggle to get the time to carry out research. This fund from the British Academy offers free time from teaching. British Academy funding if for the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Applications must be made of their online system. Once submitted they need to be approved by the Universities External Projects Team by the deadline of 18/09/13, so make sure you let the team know you are applying in advance. externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk
Funding Body: British Academy
Scheme: Mid-career Fellowships
Overview: Time freed from normal teaching and administrative commitments to devote to the completion of a major piece of research.
Through this scheme the academy intends to support individual researchers with excellent research proposals and to promote public understanding and engagement with the humanities and social sciences.
Individuals employed at UK universities or other higher education institutions are eligible to apply. Fellowships are intended primarily to provide opportunities for scholars who have already published works of intellectual distinction or have established a significant track record as an excellent communicator and a champion in their field, and who are normally no more than 15 years from the award of their doctorate.
Fellowships can be held over a minimum of six months and a maximum of 12 months, beginning in the autumn of 2014.
Budget: The total value of a fellowship is not expected to exceed £160,000.
Deadlines: 18 September 2013
Further Information: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide/midcareer.cfm
The European Commission IPR Helpdesk publication ‘Patent v Publishing’ (attached) is worthy of careful study. It contains discussion of the traditional tensions within the ‘to publish or not to publish’ conundrum, knowledge sharing, protection of inventiveness, short explanations of the methods used to transfer ownership of IP rights by way of assignment, licensing, and a short reference to Open Access to ‘the Commons’ – the policy that there should be as wide a dissemination of human knowledge and discovery to all as possible.
The European Helpdesk website can be found at:
http://www.iprhelpdesk.eu/
BBC Programme: ‘Gene Patenting’
There is also a programme entitled ‘Gene Patenting’, currently on i-player which includes discussion of the tensions within ‘Patenting v Publishing’ in light of the recent US Supreme Court decision, involving the company known as Myriad and its attempts to patent the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene sequence. The writer has not read the Myriad decision, but understands that Myriad was unsuccessful in its appeal to patent the particular gene sequence that was the subject of its considerable research. The link to the BBC programme is set out below.
Gene Patenting:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b037vb4d
Private Enterprise Development in Low Income Countries (PEDL) and Centre for Economic Policy Research have Exploratory Grants between £10,000 – £35,000 available to promote research in the following four research themes:
Proposals should inform policy and support researchers to explore new approaches to the study of firms in low-income-countries (LICs) and develop sources of data on firms in LICs. Cross cutting themes encouraged include fragile and conflict affected states, gender and climate, environment and social compliance.
The deadline for bid submission is 30th September. Further details: http://pedl.cepr.org/content/exploratory-research-grants-0
This fund aligns with a number of the research areas in the University. It looks like a good opportunity for a few ARCs to collaborate. As well as collaboration across the University, applications would need to collaborate with other institutions. The Research Council UK is keen to see a cross-disciplinary approach to this research.
Anyone interested in pursuing this fund should make sure they attend the Town Meeting on 23 September 2013 (details from the web link below). Plus they should get in touch with the External projects Team externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk to say they are following it up, this will help us to make a University orientated response rather than just a faculty based response.
Funding Body: ESRC, AHRC, EPSRC
Scheme: Ethics and rights in a security context
Overview: The Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council invite proposals for their ethics and right in a security context, under the Research Councils UK Global Uncertainties programme. This call aims to develop greater understanding of how questions of ethics and rights play out in a security environment, with a focus on government. The call focuses on the following research themes:
•legitimacy; •jurisdiction; •autonomy; •temporality; •surveillance; •protection; •agency.
Collaborative research groups which address at least two of the councils’ remits may apply. Projects are for a duration of 24 months. It is anticipated that eight to 10 research grants will be awarded. Grants will commence on 1 September 2014.
Budget: The total budget for this call is between £2 million and £2.5m. Funding is worth up to £200,000 at 80 per cent of the full economic costs
Deadlines: 21 November 2013
Further Information: http://www.globaluncertainties.org.uk/funding/pre-call-ethics-and-rights-in-a-security-context.aspx
This factsheet gives details of the Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grants. These grants provide funding in almost any research area. The grants cover staffing time for Principal Investigators, research assistants and Post Graduate Students. They do not cover overhead costs.
Grants tend to be for around £250,000 for 2-3 years. There are three calls a year, but a quick stage one bid is made before submitting a full grant application.
Leverhulme Research Project Grants Factsheet
http://www.ashersarlin.com/archives/2004/09/honestly_who_co.php
Jean Cater, Assistant Director of The Leverhulme Trust will be visiting Staffordshire University on Wednesday 25th September to give a presentation to colleagues about funding opportunities with the Trust and the application process. There will be a Q&A session and small group discussions with Jean, following the presentation.
The event will take place in Court Room 2 in the Law School and will commence at 2.00pm.
If you would be interested in attending the event, please would you contact externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk
This call has a deadline date of 26 September 2013.
The European Commission has launched a call for proposals for the provision of support services to assist European Union Small to medium sized enterprises in China. The budget is stated to be 1.2 million Euros (EUR 1 200 000)
The central aim of the call is to provide support services for European Union Small to medium sized enterprises with a view to protecting and enforcing Intellectual Property Rights in work either in, or relating to China. The target audience is both European small to medium sized enterprises in the EU (and those who already have a presence in China) or who are either investing in or doing business with China.
The specific objectives under the Call:
1. Provide EU SMEs with first line advice services
2. Developing and providing state of the art training materials and trainers
3. Report on the latest intellectual property law developments and available support to seek enforcement if possible
4. Provide the contents of a multi-lingual web portal for IPR protection in China, focusing on IPR protection in the business context
5. Monitor selected IPR cases and follow IP policy affecting SMEs
6. Presence at trade fairs and business parternship events
7. Providing basic support for initial contacts with local law enforcement agencies
For those who wish to ignore Napoleon’s masterly late 18th century soundbite (‘Let China sleep, for when she wakes she will shake the world’) full information for making the call to China can be found at:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/page/call_CIP?callIdentifier=73-G-ENT-CIP-13-B-N02C02&specificProgram=EIP