Deadline: 17 June 2020
The UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Irish Research Council (IRC) are pleased to invite proposals for the ESRC-IRC UK/Ireland Networking Grants call, aimed at fostering the development of long-term relationships between British and Irish social science researchers, leading towards the potential development of future joint research proposals between the two countries.
This call seeks to improve the connectivity between British and Irish social science research communities. Funding will be provided to groups of researchers for the purpose of fostering new connections, identifying common interests, building networks and developing common research agendas, helping to lay the groundwork for future collaborative research activity while also enabling new sustainable collaborations to be formed and existing relationships to be strengthened.
Interdisciplinary proposals across the breadth of the social sciences are strongly encouraged. Applicants should also consider how their proposal makes the best use of available expertise in the UK and ROI, together with the added value of new or existing collaborations.
Specific objectives that underpin this call are:
- To establish and develop partnerships between UK and ROI social science researchers.
- To identify common research priorities and promote the sharing of research ideas (including new methodologies) between UK and ROI researchers.
- To facilitate the development of interdisciplinary collaborations between UK and ROI researchers for the purpose of submitting high-quality joint research proposals to possible future funding calls or responsive mode competitions.
- To establish networks with non-academic collaborators (such as policy makers, businesses or third sector organisations) and engage with the wider population through public engagement activities, if applicable to the research area.
Applicants are encouraged to develop innovative, creative and genuinely collaborative programmes of activity which could include (but are not limited to):
- Mobility, networking and travel for one or more investigators in either direction
- Scoping studies
- Digital collaboration, such as webinars
- Workshops to explore future collaboration opportunities
- Researcher exchanges (e.g. research visits, short stays, staff exchanges, etc.)
- Other collaborative activities, aimed at developing/reinforcing research networks and giving way to future cooperation
Funding Information
The overall budget for this call is £200,000 co-funded between ESRC and IRC. Applicants may request up to £10,000 GBP per proposal for the UK component, and up to €11,800 EUR per proposal for the Irish component. Proposals must be a maximum duration of 12 months. They expect to fund in the region of ten grants from this call, with some variance depending on the amount of funding requested and the quality of proposals received.
Eligibility Criteria
Investigators involved in proposals to this call are strictly limited to UK and ROI researchers based at eligible UK and ROI research organisations:
- UK investigators must be of postdoctoral level or higher, based at a UK research organisation eligible for UKRI funding.
- ROI investigators must be of postdoctoral level or higher. They also have to be based in an eligible research institution in the ROI, with a contract of sufficient duration to cover the term of the proposed project under this call.
For more information, visit https://esrc.ukri.org/funding/funding-opportunities/esrc-irc-uk-ireland-networking-grants/