The Science Faculty has a £40,000 investment fund to spend in 2014/15 on research activities. As in previous years, the fund will be used to support longer term development of research in the Faculty. It will be spent in three tranches.
- Open round for bids. Total amount available £15,000. Bids to be received by Thursday 20 November 2014. Results will be announced early December 2014.
- Open round for bids. Total amount available £15,000. Bids to be received by Thursday 12 March 2015. Results will be announced mid-March 2015.
- Open round for bids. Total amount available £5,000. Bids to be received by Thursday 14 May 2015. Results will be announced mid-May 2015.
In addition a Fighting Fund of £5000 is available on demand at the discretion of the Director of Research for urgent bids.
Criteria: Excellence. Make a case that this funding will develop your research over the next few years. For example, it may deliver/enable some combination of high quality research, grow your international reputation, prepare for a grant bid (including Horizon 2020), or help to host expert visitors. Funding applications are open to both lecturers, etc and post-docs. Applications from early career researchers are particularly welcomed.
[Note that the PVC (Research and Innovation) also has a fund which will be used this year to support twinning arrangements with EU universities ranked in the top 200 worldwide.]
How to bid: Bidding will operate in two steps.
Step 1. Send 1 page of A4 maximum (font: Ariel 11pt, or Times New Roman 12pt minimum) case to your School’s Director of Research (DoR). The format must be PDF. Explain the criteria by which we will be able to assess your achievements afterwards. Include a timeline for the spend and activity.
Submit this to your DoR at least one week before the Faculty deadline.
Step 2. Each School DoR writes a single accompanying statement of support, commenting on all the applications from their school. It is essential that this statement explains for each application
(i) how the School supports research, and why normal School funds are not available;
(ii) that the proposal is acceptable to the school; and
(iii) its value to the School from a School and discipline specific context.
The School DoR should submit their School’s applications and the accompanying statement of support (PDF) to J.L.Walpole@kent.ac.uk (the Dean’s PA) by email by 5 pm on the closing date.
Note: All funds awarded must be spent by the end of July 2015. You will be required to submit a final report explaining the outcomes of this investment.
Judges: Faculty DoR, the Dean, a School DoR, a Research Funding Officer and the FAM will assess. If necessary other parties may be added to the group. We expect to be over-subscribed and will have to exercise judgement.
Amounts? This is up to you. £500, a few thousand…it is highly unlikely that a single bid will win it all (on that sort of scale you need School or external funding).
More information is available on the website:http://www.kent.ac.uk/stms/research/index.html