Funding Opportunity

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC), are planning a major new investment as part of the Valuing Nature Programme.

The new call will provide an opportunity for natural and social scientists, and arts and humanities researchers to form substantial interdisciplinary research collaborations which aim to increase understanding of the role biodiversity and ecosystem processes play in human health and wellbeing. The focus of the call will on the themes of:

Decision-makers are increasingly faced with the challenge of making our infrastructure resilient and mitigating the effects of extreme weather events and climate change. There is a wealth of data, knowledge and expertise in the UK research base that could address this challenge, but this valuable resource is often difficult to access and requires translating to be more readily used. NERC is investing £5 million into an Innovation Programme driven by the needs of business and decision makers.

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is inviting proposals to its International Opportunities Fund (IOF). The IOF scheme provides resources to NERC-supported researchers to allow them to forge long-term partnerships with overseas scientists that add value to current NERC-funded science. IOF grants are pump-priming, to help stimulate novel research collaborations. Mature research collaborations should apply to NERC's Standard or Large Grant schemes, which allow for overseas project partnerships, or to other appropriate sources of funding.

£6m funding opening soon for registration - 16 March 2015

The Valuing Nature Programme is inviting interested parties to contribute to the shaping of its forthcoming Health & Wellbeing call - to be announced in May 2015 - by completing the an online survey (deadline March 13th) 

Applications are invited from SMEs and entrepreneurs seeking investment!

INNEON provides access to specialist business support, pan European market intelligence and networks, an online matchmaking platform, and exclusive networking to improve the quality of investment propositions and allow for efficient matching of entrepreneurs and investors.

To find out more and see if your business is eligible, visit the Water Innovation Network website.

NERC invites proposals for the first round of highlight topics, a new route for funding strategic research. Highlight topics focus strategic research on defined topic areas, and will be delivered through independent projects.

The highlight topics in this call are:

• Understanding and predicting anomalous trends in surface temperature and implications for decadal to centennial climate behaviour
• Environmental pathways, impacts and fate of manufactured nanomaterials
• Dynamics of freshwater ecosystems within an integrated landscape system

Highlands and Islands Enterprise, supported by Innovate UK is launching a new SBRI funding competition with up to £800K funding available.

The aim of this competition is to develop new and innovative solutions to recover phosphorus and/or priority substances from the water environment.

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) are inviting research proposals under the ‘Using Critical Zone Science to understand sustaining the ecosystem service of soil and water’ call. This call is supported by the UK through the Newton Fund which forms part of the UK governments Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment and is only open to joint UK-China applications.

Innovate UK, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are to invest up to £7.5m in collaborative R&D projects, with a proportion available for feasibility studies. Proposals must be collaborative and business-led.