Our large research investments include:
- research centres
- groups
- large grants
- networks.
Large investments are allocated an investment manager who acts as their main contact within ESRC. Investment directors should develop a good working relationship with their investment manager, whose job it is to support investments to perform well and contribute towards the indicators of success in our Strategic Plan.
Your investment manager will:
- have an in-depth knowledge of performance and potential of investments in their portfolio, and can communicate this effectively
- encourage investments to have a concern for good performance and evidence-informed practice
- focus on identifying, exploiting and reporting opportunities for impact
- enable collaboration between you and ESRC for strategic purposes
- deliver key items to ESRC from investments in their portfolio, provide (and encourage you to seek) advice, guidance, expertise and challenge.
Our investment managers treat their investments as individual cases, and adapt the way they work with them based on performance and potential. Investments and their investment manager will often create good working relationships by using their professional judgement, and they will be informed by the stage the investment has reached and evidence about its progress towards meeting its objectives.
Evaluating large research investments
We no longer automatically evaluate all investments that we fund. We now assess grants on a more strategic basis as part of broader reviews of priority areas, schemes and thematic areas. If your grant is to be part of one of these reviews, you will be contacted in advance by our Evaluation, Strategy and Analysis team.
If your grant is selected for evaluation you will be invited to nominate outputs to include in the evaluation. We will contact grant holders when this applies, and you should not submit nominated outputs unless you are advised to do so.
Last updated: 13 May 2022