October’s Wider Outlook – concentrating on Research Council news is now available, there’s also the opportunity to voice your opinion on open access via the University’s response to the HEFCE consultation – deadline October 16th.
If you have any comments or ideas for future editions we would love to hear from you
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:
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
The Technology Strategy Board is investing up to £15m in projects that stimulate innovation in the UK digital media sector by addressing convergence in digital technologies. This funding opportunity covers film and television, online video, animation and video games (including pre-production, production and post-production processes, particularly in visual effects technologies).
Projects must be business-led but can involve collaboration with Universities. The competition will fund feasibility studies as well as collaborative R&D projects. Projects size is expected to vary according to need, ranging from £300K – £2million for R&D activity of up to 24 months and from £100k to £120k for feasibility studies lasting between six and 12 months.
The competition opens on 23 September 2013. The deadline for registration is 6 November 2013, and the deadline for completed feasibility expressions of interest is noon on 13 November 2013. A briefing event for both strands will take place on 30 September 2013. This event will be filmed and turned into a webinar for applicants to refer to.
For further information click here https://www.innovateuk.org/competition-display-page/-/asset_publisher/RqEt2AKmEBhi/content/cross-platform-production-in-digital-media-collaborative-r-d?p_p_auth=LF3BHyMA or contact n.arblaster@staffs.ac.uk.
The University is also a subscriber to the UK Research Office (UKRO). This specialises in European funding and events. You can subscribe to get emailed when funding calls and events are open in your research area.
To join use this link http://ims.ukro.ac.uk/UKRO/login.aspx and click on the option ‘If you do not yet have a profile’. The site will use your email address to identify you are a member of staff at Staffordshire University and give you free access to it. You subscribe to emails using the ‘My Profiles’ section at the top of the page.
If you want to visit the main UKRO website you can access it here: www.ukro.ac.uk
Research Professional provides an easy way to find research funding for your work. You can search by discipline, type of funding or a whole range of other search fields. You can set up an account to send you a weekly email on new funds that have been launched in your specialised research field.
The guide below take you through the step by step process of how to set up your account for fund updates. Staffordshire University pays a subscription to Research Professional, it can be accessed without a password from anywhere on campus please share it with your colleagues so we can get as much use from it as possible.
Further details: www.researchprofessional.com
Step by step guide on how to find funds using Research Professional https://www.researchprofessional.com/0/rr/Help/Getting-Started.html
Research Professional provides a guide to set up your own Opportunities Alert which highlight when funding in your research area comes up.
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.
Knowledge Alliances are structured partnerships between Higher Education Institutes (HEI) and the business community. They are intended to facilitate long-term active exchange and collaboration between HEI and business to foster entrepreneurship and innovation. Knowlege Alliances are part of the second key activity area for HEI under Erasmus+: cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practice.
Knowledge Alliance activities are expected to trigger innovative approaches, entrepreneural skills and the possibility of new products and services. They are therefore broadly defined and might include the development and implementation of new learning and teaching methods; structured mobility; a new multidisciplinary curriculum or a new company approach to staff development.
At least three counties must be involved in a Knowledge Alliance represented by at least one HEI and one private company in all participating countries. Partner organisations will be expected to raise at least 25% of the funds required for their Knowlege Alliance.
The concept of Knowledge Alliances was piloted in 2011 and 2012. Three out of 94 proposals were selected for funding in 2011 and three out of 103 applications in 2012. The successful pilot proposals are:
CIAKL – Cinema and Industry Alliance for Knowledge and Teaching
EUEN – European University Enterprise Network
KNOWFACT – European Teaching Factory Paradigm in Manufacturing Education
E-NSPIRATION – Energy Innovative Training programme
EDUCCKATE – Education Cultural and Creative Knowledge Alliance for Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs
EURL3A – European Real Life Learning Lab Alliance
For further details see the Knowledge Alliance web site
http://ec.europa.eu/education/higher-education/knowledge_en.htm
The Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowships have announced their Industrial Secondment Scheme for this year, with a deadline of September 30th. Projects must involve a secondment to an industrial host and focus on exchange of current industry working practices to inform teaching and curriculum development. It is aimed that the projects will be tha start of a longer term cooperation. The scheme supports salary costs for the period of the secondment and is open to all disciplines.
Further Information: http://www.raeng.org.uk/research/univ/secondment/default.htm
The study will create a map of institutions and ongoing programmes/activities linking ICT and the arts in Europe and worldwide. It will analyse best practice to enhance interaction between artists and IT experts and to increase the impact of these interactions on innovation and creativity.
1) Provide an overview of European and worldwide activities linking art and ICT in research, education, and innovation.
2) Take stock and analyse best practices in Europe and worldwide for linking art and ICT and thereby enhancing creativity and innovation.
3) A list of recommendations for a DG Connect strategy on how to best engage in H2020 with the arts will be presented and based on the analysis in first objective and second one.
4) The contractor will organise a final 2-day symposium on ‘ICT & art connect’. This event should bring together artists, technologists, scientists and representatives of relevant institutions and funding bodies identified in the study.
Further details:
http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/study-ict-art-connect-smart-20130030
The Society for Research into Higher Education invites applications for its research awards. The awards support new research into higher education.
The society is offering up to four awards annually of £10,000 each for research focused on any aspect of higher education submitted under three overarching themes: higher education policy, higher education and society, and higher education practice.
These awards are only open to individual members of the society at the date of application. Where a proposal is submitted by a research group or team, the lead proposer must be an individual member of the society.
Closing date: September 1st 2013
Further details: