Translational funding
Early Stage Funding Sources
Our funding events in Early Stage Funding Sources are shown below.
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BBSRC: Animal Health Research Club Programme – Outline proposals
The Animal Health Research Club (ARC) is a £9.5M, 5 year partnership between a consortium of leading companies from the animal breeding, animal health and farming sectors, the Scottish Government and the BBSRC, designed to support research that improves our understanding of resistance to pests and diseases in farmed animals. The ARC invites proposals that fit within the research challenges and that are within the remit of the BBSRC. The ARC Research Challenges are:
• Understanding the basis of resistance/resilience to pests and diseases in farmed animal species.
• Developing novel tools for defining disease biomarkers and phenotypes to inform breeding strategies for subclinical diseases and increased disease resistance.
• Understanding variation in vaccine responsiveness, immune-competence at different developmental stages and disease outcomes.
• Determining the effects of selection for production traits on immune function.Funding: Funding is available for projects of up to 5 years in duration. Total funding of around £4.5M is available in this call to support a portfolio of projects at 80% fEC.
Eligibility: Standard BBSRC eligibility rules apply to this call. Collaborative and interdisciplinary applications are particularly encouraged.
Special Conditions: Due to the financial support provided to the ARC by industrial members, special conditions are attached to any research grants, which are explained in the full call document. A letter from Cambridge Enterprise will be requested at the full proposal stage to acknowledge that the institution is able to accept those conditions. All applicants are advised to contact both their Research Operations Office team and Cambridge Enterprise (paul.thomas@enterprise.cam.ac.uk) before applying to the ARC and well in advance of the deadline date.
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European Chemical Industry Council: Various Calls
Through its Long-range Research Initiative, the European Chemical Industry has tendered for research in the following areas:
• Critical review of epidemiological evidence for the potential association between endocrine active chemical and obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Award funding: €100,000 over 4-5 months.
• Contribution of dust to human exposure. Award funding: €350,000 over two years.
• Development of an alternative testing strategy for the fish early life-stage test –OECD 210. Award funding: €500,000 over three years.
• Development of an in silico model of dermal absorption. Award funding: €500,000 over three years.
• Development of an integrated approach to predict internal exposure to chemicals. Award funding: €300,000 over two years.
• Foresight study on introduction of new technologies – the case of nanotechnology. Award funding: €150,000 over one year.
• Mechanistic bioaccumulation models for ionogenic organic substances in fish. Award funding: €300,000 over two years.
• Towards more ecologically realistic assessment of chemicals in the environment. Award funding: €500,000 and €700,000 over 3-4 years.These awards are fixed-price contracts between the Council and the awardee.
Eligibility: Applicants should provide an indication of additional partners and funding opportunities that can be leveraged as part of their proposal.
Deadline: 31 August 2012.
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TSB: Design for Future Climate – Climate Resilient Infrastructure
This Defra SBRI call aims to invest in projects for the development of proposed actions, innovations and associated feasibility studies that will increase the resilience of UK infrastructure to a changing climate. Projects may be for potential future infrastructure projects or to retro-fit existing infrastructure assets. The competition seeks innovations which can demonstrate a ‘route to market’ and can be put into practice as viable business and environmental propositions.
Proposals must address risks identified within the Climate Change Risk Assessment (http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climate/government/risk-assessment/). In particular proposals that take into account the systemic nature of infrastructure, or in some way address risks arising from infrastructure interdependencies, will be welcomed.
Funding: Defra will invest up to £200,000 in this first round of the competition. Individual contracts will be for between £40,000 and £100,000 to fund a feasibility study.
Eligibility: Applications will be accepted from single companies, academia or from consortiums. Projects must begin by 03 December 2012.
Registration deadline: 29 August 2012
Deadline: 06 September 2012 -
TSB: Developing novel approaches to multi-disciplinary software development
The Technology Strategy Board and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) are to invest up to £1m in feasibility studies to stimulate the development of new multi-disciplinary approaches to software development.
We are looking to fund projects that seek to create novel approaches to critical parts of the software development process, such as capturing user requirements and understanding user culture, and the translation of these into proposals for effective business methodologies suitable for small projects and budgets.
Our aim is to reduce the amount of software that is produced that is unfit-for-purpose, because it is developed without a real understanding of the contexts that users are working in, or their cultures and behaviours, and so does not meet user requirements. The AHRC is particularly keen to encourage innovative engagement with research expertise from across the full spectrum of the arts and humanities.
The competition aims to enable software development teams to work with partners with complementary expertise from non-software disciplines (eg the arts, humanities and social sciences), to explore new and better ways of working, meaning that the value of significant annual investment in software development in the UK can be maximised.
Feasibility studies are open to companies of all sizes, and must be business-led and collaborative. Projects can attract up to 75% public funding for SME business partners (65% for larger organisations). Total project costs should not exceed £66,666. We expect projects to last up to six months.
This competition opens on 28 May 2013. A briefing event for applicants will be held on the same day. The deadline for registration for the competition is noon on 3 July 2013, and the deadline for submission of applications is noon on 10 July 2013.
We are also launching a call for Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), lasting up to one year, and focusing on bringing academic learning into software development business practice. The call will open in May 2013. Any organisations applying to both competitions must make sure that their proposals can stand alone and are not dependent on both applications being successful. -
TSB: New methodologies in multi-disciplinary software development - KTP
The Technology Strategy Board is to invest up to £500,000 to establish new Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) in multi-disciplinary software design (MDSD), to enable UK businesses to draw on the latest research in this area. In addition, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) will consider co-funding projects if they involve arts and humanities academic disciplines.
The aim of this initiative is to enable industry to access the MDSD expertise that is available within the UK research base, and to translate it into innovative business practice. The AHRC is particularly keen to encourage businesses to access academic expertise from across the full spectrum of the arts and humanities.
Although there have been many initiatives to involve external expertise (ie expertise from outside computer science) in the software production process after the code has been developed, this initiative focuses on helping businesses access that expertise at the initial stage of software engineering.
We are seeking proposals that will lead to the development of new multi-disciplinary approaches to critical parts of the software development process, such as the capture of user requirements and understanding of user culture, and the translation of these into effective business methodologies that are suitable for small projects and budgets.
Our aim is to reduce the amount of software that is produced that is unfit-forpurpose, because it is developed without a real understanding of the contexts that users are working in, or their cultures and behaviours, and so does not meet user requirements.
This targeted call for KTPs is part of a £1.5m programme to develop innovative ideas and facilitate new cross-sector, industry-led collaborations, bringing software developers together with professionals from non-computer-science disciplines, in small-scale software development. It runs in parallel with a competition for feasibility studies funding, supported by the Technology Strategy Board and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which encourages software companies to experiment with MDSD and to try out new formats and methodologies in this area.
Through this investment we aim to:
help UK software businesses to access academic learning and embed it into business practice
encourage small software companies to experiment with MDSD and create a pool of companies that understand its benefits
give those companies an edge over other software companies that do not employ these methods.
Our ultimate aim is to ensure that the value of significant annual investment in software development in the UK can be maximised.
We will part-fund KTPs. The competition opens for applications on 28 May 2013 and the final deadline for proposals is noon on 2 October 2013. A briefing and brokering event for potential applicants will be held on 28 May 2013.