We are running this funding opportunity on the new UKRI Funding Service. You cannot apply for this opportunity on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.
Only the lead organisation, that is the organisation employing the candidate for a secondee, can submit an application to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
If you have not used the Funding Service before you will need to create an account. Please consider that registration can take up to 15 working days. You cannot apply as lead applicant if your organisation is not registered.
If the lead organisation, that is the organisation employing the candidate for a secondee, is not listed as an eligible organisation on our website, please email support@funding-service.ukri.org with the organisation’s name and address (including a confirmation that it is based in the UK), and the opportunity name ‘AHRC Innovation Scholars’ in the email title to register.
Once your account on the Funding Service has been created, you must complete the financial information spreadsheet available to download under ‘Additional Information’ on the UKRI funding finder opportunity page and email it to researcher.development@ahrc.ukri.org
You must populate and return it at your earliest convenience to avoid delays in processing your application. The information in the spreadsheet is only required from applicant organisations which are not already on the UKRI list of eligible organisations, for example some private and third sector organisations.
The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but we expect all project partners to contribute to the application.
To apply:
- Confirm you are the project lead.
- Sign in or create a UKRI Funding Service account. To create an account, select your organisation, verify your email address, and set a password. If your organisation is not listed, email support@funding-service.ukri.org
- Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to complete them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. If we need you to upload a document, follow the upload instructions in the Funding Service. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the ‘How to apply’ section on this funding finder page.
- Allow enough time to check your application in ‘read-only’ view.
- If you work at a university, send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.
- Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.
- If you apply from an organisation that doesn’t have a research office, you must submit the application yourself.
Please contact us for advice if needed.
Watch our research office webinars about the new Funding Service.
Deadline
We must receive your application by 4.00pm UK time on 30 April 2024.
You will not be able to apply after this time.
Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.
Personal data
Processing personal data
AHRC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your funding service account and the registration of your funding applications.
We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice.
Publication of outcomes
AHRC, as part of UKRI, will publish the outcomes of this funding opportunity on the AHRC panel outcomes and attendance list.
If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the UKRI Gateway to Research.
Summary
Word count: 550
In plain English, provide a summary we can use to identify the most suitable experts to assess your application.
We may make this summary publicly available on external-facing websites, so make it suitable for a variety of readers, for example:
- opinion-formers
- policymakers
- the public
- the wider research community
Guidance for writing a summary
Clearly describe your proposed work in terms of:
- context
- the challenge the project addresses
- aims and objectives
- potential applications and benefits
Core team
List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following:
Only list one individual as project lead.
Find out more about UKRI’s new grant roles.
Core questions
Vision
Word count: 500
What are you hoping to achieve with your proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Explain how your proposed work:
- is of excellent quality and importance within or beyond the field(s) or area(s)
- has the potential to advance current understanding, or generate new knowledge, thinking or discovery within or beyond the field or area of its focus
- is timely given current trends, context, and needs
- impacts world-leading research, society, the economy, or the environment
- will increase porosity between sectors and intensify knowledge exchange
Within the Vision section we also expect you to:
- list the objectives of your secondment, and associated success measures
- detail at least one potential innovative output expected from the secondment. This output could be a new process, service, product, training resource, publication, or a public engagement activity
- identify the potential direct or indirect benefits to the host organisation
- identify how your secondment will add value to the design sector and wider society, for example through improved ways of working, enhanced public engagement with research, supporting levelling up activity
Approach
Word count: 2,500
How are you going to deliver your proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Explain how your approach:
- is effective and appropriate to achieve your objectives
- is feasible, and comprehensively identifies any risks to delivery and how you will manage them
- uses a clear and transparent methodology (if applicable)
- summarises the previous work and describes how you will build on and progress this work (if applicable)
- will maximise translation of outputs into outcomes and impacts
- demonstrates how your research environment will contribute to the success of the work (in terms of place, location, and relevance to the project)
Within the Approach section we also expect you to:
- demonstrate that both your host organisation and your employing organisation will protect your time commitment to the secondment
- demonstrate access to the appropriate expertise, support, services, facilities, infrastructure, or equipment at the host organisation to deliver the proposal
- provide a project schedule including milestones and timelines in the form of a Gantt chart or similar
In this section you can include embedded images. Follow the guidance and principles below.
You must:
- use images sparingly and only to convey important information that cannot easily be put into words
- insert each new image onto a new line
- provide a descriptive legend for each image immediately underneath it (this counts towards your word limit)
Files must be:
- in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format
- smaller than 8MB
Host’s organisation suitability
Provide details of support from your host organisation.
Provide, as an attachment, a two-page statement of support from your host organisation and type ‘attachment supplied’ into the text box when submitting the file.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
The two-page statement of support from your host organisation should demonstrate:
- their suitability as a host for your proposed project
- their commitment to helping you realise your full potential during the secondment
- the feasibility of the research questions taking into consideration the context of the organisations involved or the broader sector or community, or both
- what match funding and in-kind or direct support will be provided to support your secondment activity
The assessment panel will be looking for a strong statement of commitment from your host organisation.
Any cash or in-kind contributions from the seconding or hosting organisations must be detailed in the statement of support. These could include:
- the costs incurred by the hosting organisation in hosting the secondee, including any workplace training which may be required
- any project and activity costs including equipment and consumables
- any other costs to the seconding organisation including indirect and overhead costs
- any costs associated with the seconding organisation’s commitment to the secondee as an employee, for example mentoring
We encourage the host organisations to grant the secondees access to all relevant facilities and systems for the duration of their secondments.
Career progression
Word count: 1,000
Why is the proposed work, the environment it will be conducted in and the support provided by the host organisation the right way to develop your career?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
That you have identified:
- career progression goals appropriate to the secondment opportunity
- necessary support to enable you to transition, change and grow as an independent leader or researcher and achieve your stated career progression goals, including mentoring where appropriate
- how the proposed work will provide a feasible and appropriate trajectory for you to acquire additional skills, like leadership, communication and management skills
Within the ‘Career progression’ section, we also:
- expect you to provide a detailed and comprehensive plan of training and development to support your career advancement
- do not require you to be explicit about a future career change being the planned outcome of your secondment. If the secondment enables you to make a career move in the future, UKRI and AHRC would regard that as an impact. For example, a project focused on enhancing an academic secondee’s knowledge of innovation in a business environment may result in a de-risking of the business subsequently employing that secondee
Applicant capability to deliver
Word count: 1,500
Why are you the right individual to successfully deliver the proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Evidence of how you have:
- the relevant experience (appropriate to career stage) to make best use of the benefits presented by this opportunity to develop your career
- the right balance of skills and aptitude to deliver the proposed work, or feasible plans to develop these
- contributed to developing a positive research environment in a wider community
The word count for this section is 1,500 words, 1,000 words to be used for R4RI modules and, if necessary, a further 500 words for Additions. You should complete this section as a narrative. Do not format it like a CV.
Use the Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI) format to showcase the range of relevant skills you have and how this will help to deliver the proposed work. You can include specific achievements and choose past contributions that best evidence your ability to deliver the proposed work.
Complete this section using the following R4RI module headings. You should use each heading once, see the UKRI guidance on R4RI. You should consider how to balance your answer, and emphasise where appropriate the key skills you bring:
- contributions to the generation of new ideas, tools, methodologies, or knowledge
- the development of others and maintenance of effective working relationships
- contributions to the wider research and innovation community
- contributions to broader research or innovation, users and audiences, and towards wider societal benefit
Additions
Provide any further details relevant to your application. This section is optional and can be up to 500 words. You should not use it to describe additional skills, experiences or outputs, but any factors that provide context for the rest of your R4RI (for example, details of career breaks if you wish to disclose them) and are relevant to your application.
You should complete this section as a narrative. Do not format it like a CV.
In this section you can include embedded images. Follow the guidance and principles below.
You must:
- use images sparingly and only to convey important information that cannot easily be put into words
- insert each new image onto a new line
- provide a descriptive legend for each image immediately underneath it (this counts towards your word limit)
Files must be:
- in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format
- smaller than 8MB
Resources and cost justification
Word count: 1,000
What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Justify the application’s resources, in particular:
- project staff, that is your own replacement salary costs to cover the time you will spend in the hosting organisation or undertaking activities required within the secondment (salary, national insurance, tax and any pension costs)
- significant travel for field work or collaboration, regular travel between collaborating organisations, travel to conferences and other relevant events
Please only include costs under the headings ‘Staff costs’ and ‘Travel and Subsistence’.
No other costs should be added to your application.
Assessors are not looking for detailed costs or a line-by-line breakdown of all project resources. Overall, they want to be assured that costs:
- are comprehensive, appropriate, and justified represent the optimal use of resources to achieve the intended outcomes
- maximise potential outcomes and impacts
Ethics and responsible research and innovation (RRI)
Word count: 500
What are the ethical or RRI implications and issues relating to the proposed work, or both? If you do not think that the proposed work raises any ethical or RRI issues, explain why.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Demonstrate that you have identified and evaluated:
- the relevant ethical or responsible research and innovation considerations
- how you will manage these considerations
If you are collecting or using data, identify:
- any legal and ethical considerations of collecting, releasing or storing the data including consent, confidentiality, anonymisation, security and other ethical considerations and, in particular, strategies to not preclude further reuse of data
- formal information standards with which your study will comply
In this section you can include embedded images. Follow the guidance and principles below.
You must:
- use images sparingly and only to convey important information that cannot easily be put into words
- insert each new image onto a new line
- provide a descriptive legend for each image immediately underneath it (this counts towards your word limit)
Files must be:
- in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format
- smaller than 8MB
Applications from non-eligible organisations
Word count: 10
If you are from a non-eligible organisation please confirm you have emailed the completed financial information spreadsheet to AHRC.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
If your organisation is on the UKRI list of eligible organisations, enter ‘N/A’ within the service.
If your organisation is not on the UKRI list of eligible organisations, please complete the financial information spreadsheet available to download under ‘Additional Information’ on the UKRI Funding Finder opportunity page and email it to researcher.development@ahrc.ukri.org before submitting your application. Please put ‘Innovation Scholars in design’ in the email title. Once this action is completed, enter ‘email sent’ into the text box.
Note that the data provided in the financial information spreadsheet does not form part of the assessment process. The information in the spreadsheet is only required from applicant organisations which are not already on the UKRI list of eligible organisations, for example some private and third sector organisations, so UKRI can undertake financial checks. If you have not received the template and are expecting to have to complete it, please email researcher.development@ahrc.ukri.org adding ‘Innovation Scholars financial information spreadsheet’ in the title of your email.
Project partners
Word count: 2,000
Provide details of any project partners’ contributions, and letters or emails of support from each named partner (if applicable).
What the assessors are looking for in your response
If you have a host organisation but do not have any project partners, you will be able to indicate this in the Funding Service: simply add ‘N/A’ into the text box, mark this section as complete and move to the next section.
Firstly, download and complete the Project partner contributions template (DOCX, 52KB). Then copy and paste the table within it into the text box.
Secondly, provide a letter or email of support from each partner. Each letter or email you provide should:
- confirm the partner’s commitment to the project
- clearly explain the value, relevance, and possible benefits of the work to them
- describe any additional value that they bring to the project
Save letters or emails of support from each partner in a single PDF no bigger than 8MB.
Unless specially requested, please do not include any personal data within the attachment.
For the file name, use the unique funding service number the system gives you when you create an application, followed by the words ‘Project partner’.
If the attachment does not meet these requirements, the application will be rejected.
The Funding Service will provide document upload details when you apply.
Ensure you have prior agreement from project partners so that, if you are offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the contributions template.
For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.
Eligibility as an organisation.
