AHRC forward look: winter to spring 2023

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Allan Sudlow

Director of Partnerships and Engagement, Arts and Humanities Research Council

The latest in a series of blogs from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) that will share upcoming opportunities with the community.

Thank you for reading my very first forward look blog post on behalf of AHRC.

I joined AHRC back in March 2022, and I have been astounded by the depth and breadth of activity over the past year.

One of my first engagements in my role as Director of Partnerships and Engagement was to speak at the London Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit, about the launch of our responsible AI programme. This exciting programme is now well underway, with the directors of the programme recently appointed.

Since then, we have launched our strategic delivery plan setting out our priorities for 2022 to 2025. We have celebrated the opening of the funding opportunity for Convergent Screen Technologies And performance in Realtime (CoSTAR) – what is set to be a transformative new creative facility for the UK’s renowned screen and performance sectors – with applications welcome until 2 February.

Furthermore, we have many more opportunities currently live on the funding finder which the arts and humanities community can apply for now. Here are a few, but the full list can be found on the funding finder:

Looking ahead

This winter and spring is looking busier still with more programmes and funding opportunities launching for the arts and humanities community.

A key focus for us this quarter is operational planning for financial year 2023 to 2024, to ensure we further embed our commitments to greater transparency and efficiency.

This includes a large area of work we’re doing as part of the UKRI-wide transition to make applying for our funding as simple and efficient as possible though our new Funding Service. We are using this opportunity to also make changes to our responsive mode funding – and we are committed to keeping you updated on this programme of work every step of the way.

This is an exciting year of real change for AHRC, and we look forward to working with you to deliver on these big commitments we have been talking about for a long time.

Upcoming opportunities

Moving onto specific funding opportunities we’ll be opening over the coming weeks and months…read on to find out more:

CoSTAR lot 3: insight and foresight unit for research and development in screen and performance

In addition to the first 2 funding opportunities, we will launch a third funding opportunity within our CoSTAR programme, which seeks to build national capability for research and development in screen and performance.

We will fund up to £7.5 million over 6 years to create an Insight and Foresight Unit for collection and analysis of data and communication of insight and foresight relating to CoSTAR and the wider industry and research community engaged in the application of creative technologies to advanced media production and performance.

This funding opportunity will launch in early February.

Research commercialisation in the arts and humanities

This is the first of several planned activities as part of AHRC’s commitment to significantly increase our support for research commercialisation in the arts and humanities. The funding opportunity provides funding for existing research projects to create commercial impacts through applied arts and humanities methodologies.

Interdisciplinary approaches are strongly welcomed, and the funding opportunity is open to projects funded by any part of UKRI, so long as the new follow-on work falls within AHRC’s remit.

This funding opportunity will launch on 14 February.

UK India research grants

Building on our successful partnership with India, we are seeking proposals for collaborative India-UK research grants up to a maximum of £400,000 (full economic cost) per project and up to 3 years in duration.

Up to 10 awards will be made focusing on the importance of the creative industries and cultural heritage for both countries. Each proposal will require collaboration between researchers in India and the UK.

Look out for this funding opportunity on the funding finder in March.

Mobilising community assets phase 3

Providing funding for 10 to 15 3-year interdisciplinary research consortia of between £700,000 and £2 million. The programme will support research across the breadth and diversity of health and community asset ecosystems, and develop our understanding of the complexities, barriers and enablers of integrating cultural and community assets within health systems.

Each consortium will produce new models for integration to enable community assets to better support community health improvement and tackle health inequalities across the UK. This is the third phase of our mobilising community assets to tackle health inequalities programme, and will build upon the learnings and evidence from the previous stages.

This funding opportunity will launch on the funding finder in mid-May 2023 and will be delivered on the Funding Service.

New Generation Thinkers 2024

We are opening our next round of applications for our New Generation Thinkers scheme this summer.

This is a highly successful and prestigious career development scheme for early career researchers to develop their media and engagement skills and to get their research in front of the general public using BBC platforms. The scheme is a partnership between AHRC and the BBC and has been running since 2010.

Find out more about our New Generation Thinkers scheme, where you can also watch a video and read more information about the scheme and our New Generation Thinkers’ achievements over the scheme’s first 10 years.

This funding opportunity will open in June 2023.

Keep up to date

To continue to be updated with the latest AHRC opportunities:

Disclaimer

This content was accurate when the blog post was published on 31 January 2023. If you are reading this after that date, some details may have changed.

For the correct information on upcoming opportunities please visit the UKRI funding finder and sign up for email updates via the UKRI website.

Top image:  Credit: a-r-t-i-s-t, DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images

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