We are running this funding opportunity on the new UKRI Funding Service. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.
The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application.
Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI.
To apply:
- Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this page
- Confirm you are the project lead
- Sign in or create a 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 them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the ‘How to apply’ section on this Funding finder page.
- 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.
Watch our research office webinars about the new UKRI Funding Service.
Deadline
We must receive your application by 31 October 2023 at 4:00pm UK time.
You will not be able to apply after this time.
Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.
Processing personal data
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 outcomes
ESRC, as part of UKRI, will publish the outcomes of this funding Opportunity at What ESRC has funded
If your application is successful, some personal information will be published via the UKRI Gateway to Research.
UKRI Funding Service: section guidance
Summary
In plain English, provide a summary that can be sent to potential reviewers to determine if your proposal is within their field of expertise.
This summary may be made publicly available on external facing websites, so please ensure it can be understood by a variety of readers, for example:
- opinion-formers
- policymakers
- the general public
- the wider research community.
Guidance for writing a summary
Succinctly describe your proposed work in terms of:
- its context
- the challenge the project addresses and how it will be applied to this
- its aims and objectives
- its potential applications and benefits.
Word count: 550
Core team
List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following:
- project lead (PL)
- project co-lead UK (PcL)
- project co-lead (International) (PcL (I))
- specialist
- grant manager
- professional enabling staff
- research and innovation associate
- technician
- visiting researcher
Only list one individual as project lead.
Find out more about UKRI’s new grant roles
Section: Thematic Area
Question: State which of the thematic areas your project will address
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Select one or more of the following thematic areas of this opportunity and enter into the text field:
- sustainable economic growth and innovation
- health inequalities
- community connectedness
This information is used to determine eligibility and to assist in the selection of appropriate reviewers.
Word count: 20
Section: Vision and Approach
Question: What are you hoping to achieve with your proposed work and how will you deliver it?
We will ask you to submit a single seven-page PDF attachment covering the ‘Vision’ and ‘Approach’ sections of the application, including the project plan. Please enter the words ‘attachment supplied’ in the text box below. The document must have single line spacing, margins of at least 2 cm and be typed using Arial 11pt, or another ‘sans serif’ font with an equivalent size to Arial 11pt.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
For the Vision, explain how your proposed work:
- is of excellent quality and importance within or beyond the fields or areas
- aligns with one or more thematic areas of this opportunity (sustainable economic growth and innovation; health inequalities; and community connectedness).
- addresses an evidence gap for decision makers involved in relevant policymaking or the delivery of services
- has the potential to advance current understanding, generates new knowledge, thinking or discovery within or beyond the field or area
- is timely given current trends, context and needs
- impacts world-leading research, society, the economy or the environment
Within the Vision section we also expect you to:
- identify a specific intervention or series of interventions that will be evaluated and explain the rationale for proposing to evaluate the intervention(s)
- identify the potential direct or indirect benefits and who the beneficiaries might be
For the Approach, explain how you have designed your approach so that it:
- is effective and appropriate to achieve your objectives
- is feasible, and comprehensively identifies any risks to delivery and how they will be managed
- if applicable, uses a clear and transparent methodology
- if applicable, summarises the previous work and describes how this will be built upon and progressed
- will maximise translation of outputs into outcomes and impacts
- describes how your, and if applicable your team’s, research environment (in terms of the place, its location, and relevance to the project) will contribute to the success of the work
- ensures equitable, ethical, and inclusive collaboration and co-design between researchers, partners, and participants
Within the Approach section we also expect you to:
- describe appropriate methodological approaches and techniques that will be used for the impact evaluation, including where appropriate:
- how randomisation will be achieved
- how comparison groups will be established to enable a valid comparison of outcomes
- what outcomes will be captured and the rationale for these
- datasets or instruments that you plan to use to measure these outcomes
- how data will be collected, including capitalising where appropriate on existing data; and
- how data will be analysed to deliver against the research objectives and provide robust findings
- provide a rationale for your approach to defining the geography most appropriate to the proposed activity and how the proposed activity could support the reduction of place-based inequalities
- demonstrate access to the appropriate services, facilities, infrastructure, or equipment to deliver the proposal, including access to secondary administrative or other data essential to the project and information about the delivery partners or study participants that will be involved
- include a detailed and appropriate one-page A4 plan for how you will acquire and manage data
A list of references used to support your application can be added in the References question.
Word count: five
Section: References
Question: List the references you’ve use to support your application.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
All references should be included in this section of the application and not in any other application question.
You should not include any other information in this section.
We advise you not to include hyperlinks as assessors are not obliged to access the information they lead to or consider it in their assessment of your application. If linking to web resources, use persistent identifiers such as digital object identifiers to ensure the information’s integrity is maintained.
Word count: 1000
Section: Applicant and team capability to deliver
Question: Why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Evidence of how you, and if relevant your team, have:
- the relevant experience (appropriate to career stage) to deliver the proposed work
- the right balance of skills and expertise to cover the proposed work including the expertise needed to employ the evaluation approaches proposed
- the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and your approach to develop others
- contributed to developing a positive research environment and 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.
Use the Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI) format to showcase the range of relevant skills you, and if relevant your team (investigators, researchers, other (technical) staff for example research software engineers, data scientists and so on, and partners), have and how this will help to deliver the proposed work. You can include individuals’ specific achievements but only choose past contributions that best evidence their ability to deliver this work.
Complete this section using the R4RI module headings listed below. You should use each heading once and include a response for the whole team, see the UKRI guidance on R4RI. You should consider how to balance your answer, and emphasise where appropriate the key skills each team member brings:
- 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).
You should complete this as a narrative and you should avoid CV type format.
Word count: 1,500
If you require project partners information, use the following two sections below
Section: Project partners
Question: Provide details of any project partners’ contributions, and letters or emails of support from each named partner.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
If you do not have any project partners, simply add ‘N/A’ into the text box, mark this section as complete and move to the next section.
Download and complete the project partner contributions template (DOCX, 52KB) then copy and paste into the text box below.
Include letters or emails of support from each partner in a single PDF and upload.
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
- be no more than one A4 page in length
The Funding Service will provide document upload details when you apply. If you do not have any project partners, you will be able to indicate this in the Funding Service.
Ensure you have prior agreement from project partners so that if you are offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the template.
For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.
Unless specifically requested, do not provide letters of support from host and project co-leads’ research organisations.
Word count: 1000
Section: Facilities
Question: Does your proposed research require the support and use of a facility?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
If not, enter N/A into the text box, mark this section as complete and move on to the next section.
If you will need to use a facility, (including access to, and use of data, infrastructure and resources) you should follow your proposed facility’s normal access request procedures. Where prior agreement is required, ensure you obtain their agreement that, should you be offered funding, they will support the use of their facility on your project.
In the text box below, for each requested facility you should provide:
- the name of facility, copied and pasted from this list
- the proposed usage or costs, or costs per unit where indicated on that list
- confirmation you have their agreement where required
Do not put the facility contact details in your response.
Word count: 250
Section: Data management
Question: how will you manage and share data collected or acquired through the proposed research?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Provide a data management plan which should clearly detail how you will comply with ESRC’s published Data Sharing Policy, which includes detailed guidance notes.
If you are not generating new data as part of your grant application, you are not required to complete this section. Please enter ‘N/A’ in the text box, mark this section as complete and move to the next question.
UKRI recognises the importance of research data quality and provenance. Research data generated by UKRI-funded research must be well-managed by the grant holder to enable their data to be exploited to the maximum potential for further research.
Using the text box below you should:
- describe how you will publish your research findings,
- demonstrate that you comply with ESRC’s Research Data Policy and ESRC Framework for Research Ethics. This should include confirmation that existing datasets have been reviewed and why currently available datasets are inadequate for the proposed research. You should cover any legal and ethical considerations of collecting, releasing or storing the data, including consent, confidentiality, anonymisation, security and other ethical issues
- explain how data collected, generated or acquired through the proposed research (such as primary input into research and first order results of that research) will be managed, including planning for the research through the life cycle of the award until data is accepted for archiving by the UK Data Service (UKDS). See the importance of managing and sharing data on the UKDS website for further information. Detailed advice on what assessors are looking for in your response can also be found on the UKDS site. We expect you to provide a summary of the points provided
- critically consider any challenges to data sharing (for example, copyright or data confidentiality), with possible solutions discussed to optimise data sharing. Most data collected, generated, or acquired as a result of economic and social research can be successfully archived and shared. However, some research data are more sensitive than others. It is a responsibility of the grant holders to consider all issues related to confidentiality, ethics, security and copyright before initiating the research.
Word count: 500
Section: Ethics and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)
Question: What are the ethical or RRI implications and issues relating to the proposed work? 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
Using the text box, demonstrate that you have identified and evaluated the relevant ethical or responsible research and innovation considerations, and how you will manage them.
All proposals have to comply with the ESRC Framework for Research Ethics which includes guidance for applicants and links to related web resources.
All necessary ethical approvals must be in place before the project commences, but do not need to have been secured at the time of application.
If you are generating new data as part of your project, you should complete the Data management question and should cover ethical considerations relating to data in your response.
If you are not generating new data and have not completed the Data management question you should address any legal or ethical considerations relating to your use of data here.
Additional sub-questions (to be answered only if appropriate) relating to research involving:
- human participants
- genetically modified organisms
Word count: 500
Section: Resources and cost justification
Question: What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Use the resources and cost summary table to enter the full costs. Include high-level costs only, not a breakdown of individual items. Use the justification text box to demonstrate how the resources you anticipate needing for your proposed work:
- are comprehensive, appropriate, and justified
- represent the optimal use of resources to achieve the intended outcomes
- maximise potential outcomes and impacts
This section should not simply be a list of the resources requested, as this will already be given in the costs table. Costings should be justified on the basis of full economic costs (FEC) of the project, not just on the costs expected from UKRI. For some items we do not expect you to justify the monetary value, rather the type of resource, such as amount of time or type of staff requested.
Where you do not provide adequate justification for a resource, we may deduct it from any funding awarded.
You should explain:
- support for activities to either increase impact, for public engagement, knowledge exchange or to support responsible innovation
- support for access to facilities, infrastructure or procurement of equipment
- support for preserving, long-term storage, or sharing of data
- support from your organisation or partner organisations and how that enhances value for money
- support for activities outsourced to a third party (such as consultancy or social surveys)
- support for project co-leads under ESRC’s international, business and third sector eligibility policies
For detailed guidance on eligible costs please see the ESRC Research Funding Guide.
Word count: 1,000
