You must apply using the Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) system.
You can find advice on completing your application in:
You must start a new application in Je-S. You must not use existing or previous copies of applications.
We recommend you start your application early.
Your host organisation will also be able to provide advice and guidance.
Submitting your application
Before starting an application, you will need to log in or create an account in Je-S.
When applying:
- Select ‘documents’, then ‘new document’.
- Select ‘call search’ .
- To find the opportunity, search for: ‘pushing the frontiers of environmental research Jan 23’.
This will populate:
- council: NERC
- document type: standard proposal
- scheme: standard grant
- call/type/mode: pushing the frontiers of environmental research Jan 23.
Once you have completed your application, make sure you ‘submit document’.
You can save completed details in Je-S at any time and return to continue your application later.
Deadline
NERC must receive your application by 17 January 2023 at 4:00pm UK time.
You will not be able to apply after this time. Please leave enough time for your proposal to pass through your organisation’s Je-S submission route before this date.
You should ensure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines that may be in place.
Any proposal that is incomplete or does not meet NERC’s eligibility criteria or follow NERC’s proposal submission rules will be office rejected and will not be considered.
There are restrictions on how many applications a research organisation can make. This will depend on the organisation’s previous standard grants success rate. The proposal will count as a submission for the organisation under the demand management calculation.
Marine facilities
Applicants wishing to use NERC’s marine facilities must complete an online shiptime and marine equipment (SME) or autonomous deployment (ADF) application form on the Marine Facilities Planning website.
The SME or ADF number should be included on the Je-S grant proposal form under ‘services and facilities’. Completed SMEs or ADFs should be submitted by 29 November 2022 and approved by NERC Marine Planning by the time the Je-S proposal is submitted.
Failure to do so may result in the request not being considered for inclusion in the NERC Marine Facilities Programme.
British Antarctic Survey Antarctic Logistics Support
Applicants requiring NERC British Antarctic Survey Antarctic Logistics Support must complete a pre-award operational support planning questionnaire (OSPQ) online.
You must email the Antarctic Access Office (AAO) at BAS (afibas@bas.ac.uk) stating your name, institution and proposal title.
The AAO will set up a new and numbered pre-award OSPQ and send the link to the applicant along with instructions for completion.
The deadline for pre-award OSPQs to be submitted is 17 October 2022. Any funding applications that request Antarctic logistic support without having received prior logistic approval will not be awarded.
Attachments
Mandatory attachments include the:
- proposal form
- case for support.
Please attach blank documents as needed to manage any validations in Je-S which cannot be removed. This is a temporary requirement while we migrate to a new system.
Proposal form
A proposal form (Je-S proforma) must include an estimated high-level costs summary. The costs will not be considered as part of the assessment process.
Case for support
This must be a maximum of seven sides of A4 and include the following.
Description of the research project
This must be no more than five sides of A4 and include all necessary tables, figures and references. This must highlight the ground-breaking, high-risk and high-reward nature of the research project.
Description of the applicants’ skills and capability to deliver
This must be no more than two sides of A4 and should:
- demonstrate the ability of the team to conduct ground-breaking, innovative research and that they have the capability to successfully execute the project
- be a narrative, drawing on the Royal Society’s Résumé for Researchers, explaining your suitability to undertake and deliver high quality, innovative science.
The assessment process will consider your ideas and contribution, relative to career stage, to your field of science, the wider research and innovation community and users of research. It will not be solely based on metrics (for example, publications and income).
Technical assessment, facility form or quote
Where relevant, you should submit relevant facility quotes with the proposal.
The quotes will not be made available to reviewers or panels. If required, a blank document can be attached to pass the system validation, in which case, any successful applicants will need to provide the quotes to NERC before grants are awarded.
Non-UK components
These are required if the proposal is being submitted under a lead agency agreement.
Proposal cover letter
This attachment does not go out to panels, so should not be used except to flag up a significant issue to the NERC office.
This attachment should be used to declare any relevant interests, and list any collaborators.
For this current round, the proposal cover letter should also be used to declare if you would have been eligible to apply as a new investigator under NERC’s previous standard grants scheme (which is no longer in operation).
Under the previous standard grants scheme, applicants would be eligible to apply as a new investigator if they:
- were within five years of first becoming eligible for NERC funding as a principal investigator (taking account of any career breaks)
- had not received competitive research funding from any source, as a principal investigator, that included postdoctoral research assistant staff support costs.
This information will be used in the current funding round solely for the purposes of internal monitoring of the impacts of NERC’s new Discovery Science funding schemes launched in 2022 to 2023.
What you must not submit
Do not submit the following:
- justification of resources: successful applicants will be asked to provide NERC with more details before the award, to enable NERC to manage costs for services and facilities use and requests for equipment
- CV: the principal investigator and co-investigators should provide relevant information in the ‘capability to deliver’ section of the case for support
- outline data management plan (ODMP): successful grant holders will be required to produce a full data management plan working with the relevant NERC data centre
- project partner letter of support: the involvement of any key project partners can be explained briefly in the case for support, where required
- letters of support.
Research disruption due to COVID-19
We recognise that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major interruptions and disruptions across our communities. We are committed to ensuring that individual applicants and their wider team, including partners and networks, are not penalised for any disruption to their career, such as:
- breaks and delays
- disruptive working patterns and conditions
- the loss of ongoing work
- role changes that may have been caused by the pandemic.
Reviewers and panel members will be advised to consider the unequal impacts that COVID-19 related disruption might have had on the capability to deliver and career development of those individuals included in the proposal.
They will be asked to consider the capability of the applicant and their wider team to deliver the research they are proposing.
Where disruptions have occurred, you can highlight this within your application, if you wish, but there is no requirement to detail the specific circumstances that caused the disruption.
