eFuturesXD awards

 

eFutures is an EPSRC funded network which aims to consolidate the academic community engaged in all aspects of electronics research in a bid to address the major challenges of the future.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s eFuturesXD programme invites applications for its Staff Awards, Travel Awards, Facilities Awards, Meeting Awards.

Staff Awards

Staff awards are primarily aimed at small teams of researchers from two or more disciplines who wish to carry out key experiments or measurements to confirm an initial hypothesis. This is for carrying out larger scoping or proof-of-concept studies that require dedicated staff to carry out specific experiments or an extended visit to a laboratory in order to be immersed in another discipline. No funding will be available for academic staff time or other directly allocated costs.

Applicants must be academic employees, at lecturer level or equivalent, of an eligible organisation and must be resident in the UK. EPSRC fellows, except postdoctoral fellows and Royal Society fellows are also eligible to apply. Awards are not available to industry or international collaborators. Applications must consist of at least two partners from UK universities and be cross-disciplinary within ICT. It is anticipated that inter-university applications will form the majority, but applications where partners are from the same institution are also welcome.

Maximum award (100% FEC): £60,000

Travel Awards

The aim of this award is to allow researchers from one ICT discipline a chance to spend a short time in a different institute or for two researchers to spend time in each other’s institutions. Visits are expected to be no longer than a month and exchanges no more than two weeks per visit (1 month in total).Visits or exchanges should have a clear purpose and should include promotion of the visit(s) (and the eFuturesXD scheme) where possible (e.g. departmental seminars, report of visit published in departmental newsletter).

Travel outside the UK is not permitted.

Maximum award (100% FEC): £5,000

Facility Awards

This is for the use of expensive characterisation facilities such as microscopy, fabrication of novel structures using clean rooms or the manufacture of test chips using Europractice. Facilities can be outside the UK if appropriate. The award is intended for researchers who have a current or recent cross-disciplinary project and require additional resources to take their idea towards commercialisation or require further investment to bridge the gap with follow-on funding. Applications from early-stage work are also permitted but evidence of success factors should be included in the application. Applicants must be academic employees, at lecturer level or equivalent, of an eligible organisation and must be resident in the UK. EPSRC fellows, except postdoctoral fellows, and Royal Society fellows are also eligible to apply. Awards are not available to industry or international collaborators. Applications must consist of at least two partners from UK universities and be cross-disciplinary within ICT. It is anticipated that inter-university applications will form the majority, but applications where partners are from the same institution are also welcome.

Applications for buying new equipment or refurbishing current equipment will not be permitted.

(A list of EPSRC supported facilities can be found here: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/facilities/epsrc/Pages/default.aspx but this is not definitive).

Awards of more than £15k will require recipients to give two presentations at community events, one soon after the award and one at the end of the award. The final profile payment will be withheld if this is not adhered to.

Maximum award (100% FEC): £20,000

Meeting Awards

This supports events specifically aimed at building a research consortium (including sandpits, speed dating etc.) comprising researchers from a number of departments and institutions across the information and communication technology portfolio. There is no upper limit on the number of people who can be involved in events funded by the award. Resources can be requested to allow non-UK researchers to attend and give talks.

Applicants must be academic employees, at lecturer level or equivalent, of an eligible organisation and must be resident in the UK. EPSRC fellows, except postdoctoral fellows, and Royal Society fellows are also eligible to apply. Awards are not available to industry or international collaborators. Applications must consist of at least two partners from UK universities and be cross-disciplinary within ICT. It is anticipated that inter-university applications will form the majority, but applications where partners are from the same institution are also welcome.

Maximum award (100% FEC): £10,000

View website for details: http://efutures.ac.uk/

For further information contact: externalprojects@staffs.ac.uk

Technology Strategy Board (TSB) – Technology Inpsired Innovation

 The Technology Strategy Board is to invest up to £10m in fast-track and collaborative research and development projects that stimulate innovation across the key enabling technology areas of advanced materials, biosciences, electronics, sensors and photonics and information and communications technology.

Additional funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) may be available for projects in line with the scope of this competition that contain a significant, high-quality academic research component and demonstrate added value by building on or being complementary to their existing research programmes and portfolios.

We are seeking innovative proposals that focus on projects that advance the development of a recent technological discovery or breakthrough in the context of significant and identifiable technological risk, which can be broadly applied across a wide range of market opportunities and needs.

Projects must be collaborative and business-led.

 For clarity please note that ESP stands for Electronics, Sensors and Photonics; ICT stands for Information & Communication Technologies.

 The competition has two strands:

Strand 1 is a single-stage fast-track process. Projects must be led by a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) and must last between six and 12 months.

Strand 2 is a two-stage competition. Consortia should include at least one SME partner and projects must last between 12 and 24 months.

The competition opens on 3 December 2012.

Open date: 03 December 2012

Registration close date: 23 January 2013

 Close date: 10 April 2013

For more Information please contact Naomi Arblaster on N.Arblaster@staffs.ac.uk or call 01785 353519