funding

Defra is refusing to comment on growing speculation about its future ahead of an autumn review of Government spending that is expected to remove further big chunks removed from its budget.

The Liberal Democrats’ Defra spokesman has urged the Government not to ’disband’ the Department, as the Treasury considers how to make ends meet ahead of its autumn spending review.

NERC, along with RCUK and PraxisUnico, are delighted to announce their collaboration on the Impact Awards 2015, celebrating the outstanding work of Knowledge Exchange, Technology Transfer and Commercialisation Teams (KEC) across the UK.

The Innovation Projects call supports projects that are likely to generate little or no commercial return, but which will deliver impact.

The call aims to increase and accelerate the uptake and impact of NERC funded research output by supporting translational and knowledge exchange activity which delivers direct tangible and demonstrable benefits to end users. The Follow-on Fund is for those projects that aim to be fully commercialised with a revenue stream derived from licensing, spinouts, consultancy etc.

NERC has revealed the first tranche of highlight topics that will tackle some of the biggest environmental challenges facing us today.

NERC's Strategic Programme Advisory Group (SPAG) carefully considered 150 ideas submitted by the environmental science community during summer 2014 and developed several areas of research, called highlight topics. After reviewing the topics, NERC's Science & Innovation Strategy Board (SISB) has decided to pursue five:

Innovation vouchers are open to all kinds of smaller businesses from 10 November 2014. You can claim up to £5,000 towards the cost of expert advice if you are running an SME – or just starting up.

The funding encourages you to seek out fresh knowledge that can help your business to grow and develop.

That could include advice on an innovative idea, learning more about using design within your business or how you should make the most of intellectual property.

This pilot round of the NERC Follow-on Fund has increased the previous maximum amount that could be applied for (£125k) to up to £250k (£200k at 80% FEC). As part of the pilot, NERC has also introduced more flexible time scales, ie funding for projects lasting between 3 and 24 months. These changes have been introduced to provide projects with the very best opportunity for commercial exploitation.

The Future and Emerging technologies Programme with H2020 is a entirely new programme seeking to promote transformational technologies, methods and concepts that will potentially result in entirely new industrial sectors. There are two components to the 2015 FET programme.

NERC, in partnership with the Future Cities Catapult (the FC Catapult), is seeking to invest in an early to mid-career academic with expertise in environmental data to explore the application of environmental datasets to innovative products, processes and services that improve the planning and management of city systems. This KE Fellowship opportunity will focus on translating environmental datasets within the NERC remit to a range of users associated with the FC Catapult’s work on urban innovation.

EPSRC are opening a Water, Energy and Food nexus Sandpit call.

This Sandpit is being led by EPSRC with the support of three RCUK cross-council programmes: Living with Environmental Change, The Energy Programme and the Global Food Security Programme; and the UK cross-government /industry UK Water Research Innovation Partnership (UKWRIP). It is hoped that the sandpit will enable UK researchers to perform research on the water energy food nexus, potentially using revolutionary approaches to challenges in this area.

Innovate UK and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) are to jointly invest up to £1.3m to establish new Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) in or related to the Space sector to help UK companies to gain a greater share of the expanding global Space market.

This targeted competition for KTPs will support 10 to 12 KTP projects of between six and 36 months, helping to translate the UK's academic strengths in this area into commercial success.

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) will consider co-funding KTPs on an individual basis.