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

FP7 ERC proof of concept call

The European Commission Framework Programme 7: European Research Council/Ideas invites applications for the European Research Council proof-of-concept grants. Grants enable ERC-funded ideas to be brought to a pre-demonstration stage where potential commercialisation opportunities have been identified. Funds support:

•establishing viability, technical issues and overall direction;

•clarifying intellectual property rights position and strategy;

•providing feedback for budgeting and other forms of exploitation opportunity discussion;

•providing connections to later stage funding;

•covering initial expenses for establishing a company.

Applications are accepted by host institutions in association with principal investigators. All principal investigators benefiting from a recent ERC advanced or starting grant may participate and apply for ERC proof-of-concept funding. Candidate host institutions must engage the principal investigator for at least the duration of the proof-of-concept activity and must be established in a member state or an associated country. Any type of legal entity may host the principal investigator and their team. ERC actions are open to researchers of any nationality who intend to establish and conduct their research activity in any member state or associated country. Principal investigators may be of any age and nationality and may reside in any country at the time of the application. The indicative budget for this funding scheme is €10 million, to be divided equally over two rounds. Grants are worth up to €150,000 over 12 months to cover 100 per cent of eligible costs. One proof-of-concept grant will be awarded per ERC-funded project. FP7 ERC-2013-PoC.

  • Closing date 24 Apr 13

http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/page/call_FP7?callIdentifier=ERC-2013-PoC&specificProgram=IDEAS#wlp_call_FP7