UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service
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 UKRI 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 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 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 24 October 2023 4:00 pm UK time.
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
We 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
We will publish the outcomes of this funding opportunity on our What NERC has funded page.
If your application is successful, some personal information will be published via the UKRI Gateway to Research.
UKRI Funding Service: section guidance
Summary
Word count: 550
In plain English, provide a summary that can be viewed by assessors.
This summary may be made publicly available on external facing websites, so 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.
Applicants
You can only list one project lead.
The PcL (I) role should only be used for applications making use of the UKRI-RCN Money Follows Cooperation agreement or the UKRI-IIASA agreement. We do not otherwise accept PcL (I) applicants.
Find out about UKRI’s new grant roles.
Section: Vision and Approach
Word count 5
You should upload the Vision and Approach document to the UKRI Funding Service as a six-page PDF. The document must have single line spacing, margins of at least 2cm and be typed using Arial 11pt, or another ‘sans serif’ font with an equivalent size to Arial 11pt.
What are you hoping to achieve with and how will you deliver your proposed work?
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
- 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 the potential direct or indirect benefits and who the beneficiaries might be
For the Approach, explain how you have designed your work 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, summaries 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
- describe how complementarity between spokes, and between hub and spokes, is ensured
Within the Approach section we also expect you to:
- demonstrate access to the appropriate services, facilities, infrastructure, or equipment to deliver the proposed work
The Funding Service will provide document upload details when you apply.
Section: Applicant and team capability to deliver
Word count: 1,500 (1,000 words to be used for R4RI modules and, if necessary, a further 500 words for Additions)
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
- the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and your approach to develop others
- contributed to developing the positive research environment and wider community
- proven track record of collaborating or partnerships with financial services sector organisations, or both (including relevant professional institutions and regulators)
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 (project lead and project co-leads, researchers, other (technical) staff for example research software engineers, data scientists and so on, and project 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. 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
You should complete this as a narrative and you should avoid CV type format.
Additions: Provide any further details relevant to your application. This section is not mandatory 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).
Section: Project partners
Word count 500
Provide details about any project partners’ contributions using the template provided.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Download and complete the project partner contributions template (DOCX, 52KB).
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 obtained prior agreement from project partners that, should you be offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the template.
Section: Data management and sharing
Word count: 500
How will you manage and share data collected or acquired through the proposed research?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Provide an outline data management plan which should clearly detail how you will comply with NERC’s published Data Sharing Policy, which includes detailed guidance notes.
Indicate:
- which NERC data centre is required to archive the data
- whether the total volume of data is likely to be larger than 1TB
- any other detail on how you will comply with NERC data policy
Section: Outsourcing
Word count: 500
Question: Are you outsourcing any activity?
If you are not, enter ‘N/A’ in the text box, mark this section as complete and move to the next question.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
UKRI recognises that in some instances, it may be appropriate to outsource elements of the proposed work. If that is the case in this application, please provide the following information:
- the scope of the outsourced activity, that means what is being undertaken and what will be delivered
- the relevance of the outsourced activity to the application
- why the outsourced activity cannot be undertaken in house
- why this provider is the most appropriate
- the cost or costs of the outsourced activity and the tendering process that has been followed.
Please provide any goods and services quotations.
Section: Ethics and responsible research and innovation (RRI)
Word count 500
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
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 you should 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 taken to not preclude further reuse of data
- formal information standards with which study will be compliant
Section: References
Word count: 300
List the references you’ve used to support your application.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Include all references in this section, not in the rest of the application questions.
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, to maintain the information’s integrity, include persistent identifiers (such as digital object identifiers) where possible.
You must not include links to web resources to extend your application.
Ensure your application is a self-contained description. You can provide hyperlinks to relevant publications or online resources. However, assessors are not obliged to access the information they lead to or consider it in their assessment of your application. You must not include links to web resources in order to extend your application. If linking to web resources, to ensure the information’s integrity is maintained include, where possible, persistent identifiers such as digital object identifiers.
Section: Facilities
Word count: 250
Question: Does your proposed research require the support and use of a facility?
If not, enter N/A into the text box, mark this section as complete and move on to the next section.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
If you will need to use a facility, follow your proposed facility’s normal access request procedures. Ensure you have prior agreement so that if you are offered funding, they will support the use of their facility on your project.
For each requested facility you will need to provide the:
- name of facility, copied and pasted from the facility information list (DOCX, 35KB)
- proposed usage or costs, or costs per unit where indicated on the facility information list
- confirmation you have their agreement where required
If you will not need to use a facility, you will be able to indicate this in the UKRI Funding Service.
Section: Resources and cost justification
Word count: 1,000
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
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
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.
This should not simply be a list of the resources requested – when applying on the Funding Service, you will be able to use the Resources and cost summary table for high-level costs.
Where you do not provide adequate justification for a resource, we may deduct it from any funding awarded.
You should identify:
- support for activities to either increase impact, for public engagement, knowledge exchange and to support responsible innovation
- support for access to facilities, infrastructure or procurement of equipment
- support from your organisation or partner organisations and how that enhances value for money
