Funding opportunity

Funding opportunity: AHRC responsive mode: follow-on funding for impact and engagement: round one

Follow-on funding supports unforeseen knowledge exchange, public engagement, active dissemination and commercialisation activities that arise during the lifespan of, or following, an AHRC-funded project.

AHRC funds grants of up to £100,000 for a maximum of one year, and smaller grants of up to £30,000 for shorter or higher-risk activities.

Who can apply

Before applying for funding, check the following:

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has introduced new role types for funding opportunities being run on the new UKRI Funding Service.

For full details, visit Eligibility as an individual.

The project should primarily be led by the original project lead of the research that the proposal builds upon.

Another member of the original research team may lead the project if the nature of the proposed activity makes it more appropriate. In such cases, the original project lead would be expected to be named as project co-lead or at least as an advisor. This would need to be justified within the proposal.

We allow international researchers to act as project co-leads in the proposal.

There are no restrictions on how long ago the original project was funded, but if a significant amount of time has elapsed you must make the case for how the new proposal is relevant.

If you are part of a research group within a research organisation and wish to exploit a piece of research in the absence of the original project lead, you will need to seek their permission and where possible involve the original project lead in an advisory role. Your research organisation must ensure any continuity issues including intellectual property or copyright are addressed.

Proposals must:

  • be based on either previous or current research directly funded by us (except research conducted under masters, doctoral or collaborative doctoral, and knowledge transfer partnerships)
  • alternatively be based on research that has been co-funded with another UKRI research council, funded entirely by another UKRI research council, or funded under UKRI-supported schemes such as the Humanities in the European Research Area joint research programme, provided the proposal genuinely falls within the AHRC remit. In these cases you need to provide strong justification for why you are applying for AHRC funding, together with supporting evidence and the previous proposal
  • support innovative pathways to impact opportunities that could not have been foreseen at the original proposal stage and have not already been taken account of in the original award. Proposals need to demonstrate clearly how the new pathways to impact opportunities will enhance the value and wider benefit of the original AHRC-funded research project
  • exploit creative and innovative ideas rather than repeating, continuing or extending existing activities or conducting new research
  • be focused towards non-academic audiences and relevant user communities. You should show how you engage with potential users and stakeholders throughout the project

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.

We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:

  • career breaks
  • support for people with caring responsibilities
  • flexible working
  • alternative working patterns

Find out more aboutequality, diversity and inclusion at UKRI and AHRC’s equality, diversity and inclusion policy.

What we're looking for

Scope

The proposed activities should enhance the value and wider benefit of your original research project, and have a significant economic, social, cultural or policy impact.

The follow-on funding for impact and engagement aims to:

  • explore unforeseen pathways to impact either within the lifespan of an AHRC research project or resulting from a completed research project
  • enhance the value and benefits of AHRC-funded research beyond academia
  • encourage and enable a range of interactions and creative engagements between arts and humanities research and a variety of user communities, including business, third sector and heritage sector, public policy, voluntary and community groups, or the general public

Duration

The duration of this award is up to 12 months.

Smaller awards of up to £30,000 (full economic cost) are encouraged for shorter, higher risk activities, for example the feasibility of an idea, exploring new partnerships for knowledge exchange, testing the market or investigating a new business model. Funding decision making times are reduced for these smaller awards.

Funding available

The full economic cost of your project can be up to £100,000.

AHRC will fund 80% of the full economic cost.

What we will fund

The activities supported by this grant can include:

  • activities enabling knowledge exchange, interactive public engagement or active dissemination. These activities must engage new user communities and audiences
  • commercialisation or proof of concept
  • activities that build upon knowledge exchange and pathways to impact already undertaken. You must take these activities in a new direction and to new audiences
  • conferences and seminars for a policy or practice audience
  • pursuit and development of new user contacts
  • feasibility studies to test the potential application of ideas emerging from the research in different business, policy, or practice contexts

What we will not fund

The grant does not cover:

  • pathways to impact activities that have already been considered in the original proposal
  • grant extension, continuing similar or existing activities, or conducting further research
  • activities to develop or extend an existing resource or website
  • activities connected to research leave or primarily funding staff time
  • support for principally academic outputs (such as an academic paper, conference or a publication)

Supporting skills and talent

We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.

International collaboration

If your application includes international applicants, project partners or collaborators, visit UKRI’s trusted research and innovation for more information on effective international collaboration.

Find out about getting funding for international collaboration.

How to apply

We are running this funding opportunity on the new UKRI Funding Service. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.

The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the UKRI Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application.

Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI.

To apply:

Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this Funding finder page.

  1. Confirm you are the project lead.
  2. Sign in or create a Funding Service account. To create an account, select your organisation, verify your email address, and set a password. If your organisation is not listed, email support@funding-service.ukri.org
  3. Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to complete them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. If we need you to upload a document, follow the upload instructions in the Funding Service. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the How to apply section on this Funding finder page.
  4. Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.
  5. Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.

Watch our research office webinars about the new UKRI Funding Service.

Deadline

During the initial phases of the UKRI Funding Service, the system will continue to develop in response to internal and external user needs. AHRC responsive mode funding opportunities will run as consecutive rounds with defined closing dates. Opening in rounds means we will be able to accommodate system developments and assess applications in a batch submitted under the same conditions.

Applications may be submitted at any time while a round is open; you do not need to wait until the closing date. We will begin to process applications as soon as we receive them, so if an application is submitted early in a round we may be able to provide you with an earlier decision.

We must receive your application by 14 September 2023 at 4:00pm UK time. You will not be able to apply to round one after this time, instead you will need to complete a new application and submit it to round two.

You will not be able to apply after this time.

Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.

The second round will open on 28 September 2023 and will close on 7 December.

Round three will open in early January, details will be published in the autumn.

Personal data

Processing personal data

AHRC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your funding service account and the registration of your funding applications.

We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice.

Publication of outcomes

If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the UKRI Gateway to Research.

Summary

Word limit: 500

In plain English, provide a summary we can use to identify the most suitable experts to assess your application.

We may make this summary publicly available on external-facing websites, so make it suitable for a variety of readers, for example:

  • opinion-formers
  • policymakers
  • the public
  • the wider research community

Guidance for writing a summary

Clearly describe your proposed work in terms of:

  • context
  • the challenge the project addresses
  • aims and objectives
  • potential applications and benefits

Core team

List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following:

  • project lead (PL)
  • project co-lead (UK) (PcL)
  • project co-lead (international) (PcL (I))
  • specialist
  • professional enabling staff
  • research and innovation associate
  • technician

Only list one individual as project lead.

Find out more about UKRI’s new grant roles.

Vision

Word limit: 500

What are you hoping to achieve with your proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Explain how your proposed work:

  • is of excellent quality and importance within or beyond the fields or areas
  • has the potential to advance current understanding, or generate new knowledge thinking or discovery within or beyond the field or area
  • is timely given current trends, context, and needs
  • impacts world-leading research, society, the economy, or the environment

Within the Vision section we also expect you to:

  • identify the potential direct or indirect benefits and who the beneficiaries might be

Approach

Word limit: 1,500

How are you going to deliver your proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Explain how you have designed your approach so that it:

  • is effective and appropriate to achieve your objectives
  • is feasible, and comprehensively identifies any risks to delivery and how they will be managed
  • uses a clearly written and transparent methodology (if applicable)
  • summarises the previous work and describes how this will be built upon and progressed (if applicable)
  • will maximise translation of outputs into outcomes and impacts
  • describes how your, and if applicable your team’s, research environment (in terms of the place and relevance to the project) will contribute to the success of the work

Within the Approach section you can also:

  • demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. It should not include workplans or Gantt charts and should not be used to circumvent the word count for this section.

You must:

  • use images sparingly and only to convey important information that cannot easily be put into words

Applicant and team capability to deliver

Word limit: 1,500

Why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Evidence of how you, and if relevant your team, have:

  • the relevant experience (appropriate to career stage) to deliver the proposed work
  • the right balance of skills and expertise to cover the proposed work
  • the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and your approach to develop others
  • contributed to developing a positive research environment and wider community

The word count for this section is 1,500 words, 1,000 words to be used for R4RI modules and, if necessary, a further 500 words for Additions.

Use the Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI) format to showcase the range of relevant skills you and, if relevant, your team (project and project co-leads, researchers, technicians, specialists, partners and so on) have and how this will help deliver the proposed work. You can include individuals’ specific achievements but only choose past contributions that best evidence their ability to deliver this work.

Complete this section using the R4RI module headings listed. Use each heading once and include a response for the whole team, see the UKRI guidance on R4RI. You should consider how to balance your answer, and emphasise where appropriate the key skills each team member brings:

  • contributions to the generation of new ideas, tools, methodologies, or knowledge
  • the development of others and maintenance of effective working relationships
  • contributions to the wider research and innovation community
  • contributions to broader research or innovation users and audiences and towards wider societal benefit
Additions

Provide any further details relevant to your application. This section is optional and can be up to 500 words. You should not use it to describe additional skills, experiences, or outputs, but you can use it to describe any factors that provide context for the rest of your R4RI (for example, details of career breaks if you wish to disclose them).

Complete this as a narrative. Do not format it like a CV.

UKRI has introduced new role types for funding opportunities being run on the new Funding Service.

For full details, see Eligibility as an individual

Ethics and responsible research and innovation (RRI)

Word limit: 500

What are the ethical or RRI implications and issues relating to the proposed work? If you do not think that the proposed work raises any ethical or RRI issues, explain why.

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Demonstrate that you have identified and evaluated:

  • the relevant ethical or responsible research and innovation considerations
  • how you will manage these considerations

If you are collecting or using data, identify:

  • any legal and ethical considerations of collecting, releasing or storing the data including consent, confidentiality, anonymisation, security and other ethical considerations and, in particular, strategies to not preclude further reuse of data
  • formal information standards with which your study will comply

Resources and cost justification

Word limit: 1,000

What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost?

What the assessors are looking for in your response

Justify the application’s more costly resources, in particular:

  • project staff
  • significant travel for field work or collaboration (but not regular travel between collaborating organisations or to conferences)
  • any equipment that will cost more than £10,000
  • any consumables beyond typical requirements, or that are required in exceptional quantities
  • all facilities and infrastructure costs
  • all resources that have been costed as ‘Exceptions’

Assessors are not looking for detailed costs or a line-by-line breakdown of all project resources. Overall, they want you to demonstrate how the resources you anticipate needing for your proposed work:

  • are comprehensive, appropriate, and justified
  • represent the optimal use of resources to achieve the intended outcomes
  • maximise potential outcomes and impacts

Additionally, where relevant you should explain:

  • support for any project partners organisations

Eligibility to apply for opportunity

Word limit: 250

How, regarding the rules on the previous funded research, do you feel this new work is eligible for follow-on funding?.

What the assessors are looking for in your response

You should ensure that you demonstrate that this new work:

  • will support innovative pathways to impact opportunities that could not have been foreseen at the original proposal stage
  • will enhance the value and wider benefit of the original UKRI-funded research project
  • will exploit creative and innovative ideas rather than repeating, continuing or extending existing activities or conducting new research
  • be focused towards non-academic audiences and relevant user communities.
  • will engage with potential users and stakeholders throughout the project

additionally, you should:

  • Identify the UKRI funded research that this new work will build upon, including the grant reference

Discipline Classification – primary

Word limit: 5

Please provide the primary research area of your proposal.

What the assessors are looking for in your response

You must select from one of these research disciplines:

  • archaeology
  • area studies
  • classics
  • cultural and museum studies
  • dance
  • design
  • development studies
  • drama and theatre studies
  • education
  • history
  • human geography
  • information and communication technologies
  • languages and literature
  • law and legal studies
  • library and information studies
  • linguistics
  • media
  • music
  • philosophy
  • political science and international studies
  • social anthropology
  • theology, divinity and religion
  • visual arts

This information will be used for the purposes of processing your proposal and in the selection of appropriate assessors.

Discipline Classification – secondary

Word limit: 50

Please describe, using keywords, the research area of your proposal and where relevant the approach, time period or geographical area.

This will further help with the selection of appropriate assessors.

Project partners

Word limit: 1,000

Provide details of any project partners’ contributions, and letters or emails of support from each named partner.

What the assessors are looking for in your response

If you do not have project partners, simply add ‘N/A’ into the text box, mark this section as complete and move to the next section.

Download and complete the Project partner contributions template (DOCX, 52KB).

Each letter or email of support you provide should:

  • confirm the partner’s commitment to the project
  • clearly explain the value, relevance, and possible benefits of the work to them
  • describe any additional value that they bring to the project

Ensure you have prior agreement from project partners so that, if you are offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the contributions template.

For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.

Do not provide letters of support from host and project co-leads’ research organisations.

How we will assess your application

Assessment process

Proposals over £30,000 (full economic costing)

Proposals will be subject to two specialist peer reviews by members of AHRC’s Peer Review College, followed by a response from the project lead. The proposal, reviews, and the project lead response will be moderated by a review panel who will make funding recommendations to us.

We aim to complete the assessment process within 14 to 16 weeks. The earliest start date for the project should be no earlier than five months and no later than nine months after submission.

Proposals under £30,000 (full economic costing)

Proposals will be reviewed directly by the panel, and the project lead will not be offered a response.

We aim to complete the assessment process within six weeks. The earliest start date for the project should be no earlier than three months and no later than nine months after submission.

Find out more about AHRC’s assessment process.

Feedback

Written feedback will only be provided in the form of the anonymised peer reviews (only for proposals above £30,000) and the final grade from the panel.

We reserve the right to modify the assessment process as needed.

Principles of assessment

We support the San Francisco declaration on research assessment (DORA) and recognise the relationship between research assessment and research integrity.

Find out about the UKRI Principles of Assessment and Decision Making.

Assessment criteria

The criteria we will assess your application against are:

  • eligibility to apply for opportunity
  • vision
  • approach
  • applicant and team capability to deliver
  • ethics and responsible research and innovation
  • resource and cost justification

Find details of assessment questions and criteria under the ‘Application questions’ heading in the How to apply section.

Contact details

Get help with your application

For help on costings and writing your application, contact your research office. Allow enough time for your organisation’s submission process.

Ask about this funding opportunity

Email: support@funding-service.ukri.org

We aim to respond to emails within two working days.

Phone: 01793 547490

Our phone lines are open:

  • Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 5:00pm
  • Friday 8:30am to 4:30pm

Sensitive information

If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email the Funding Service helpdesk on support@funding-service.ukri.org

Include in the subject line: [the funding opportunity title; sensitive information; your Funding Service application number].

Typical examples of confidential information include:

  • individual is unavailable until a certain date (for example due to parental leave)
  • declaration of interest
  • additional information about eligibility to apply that would not be appropriately shared in the Applicant and team capability section
  • conflict of interest for UKRI to consider in reviewer or panel participant selection
  • the application is an invited resubmission

For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read UKRI’s privacy notice.

Additional info

Archaeology project: carbon dating

We provide funding to the Natural Environment Research Council Radiocarbon Facility (NRCF) to allow our research communities to make use of the facility. If your project requires radiocarbon dates, you must request these from NRCF.

For more information read our research funding guide.

Research disruption due to COVID-19

We recognise that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major interruptions and disruptions across our communities. We are committed to ensuring that individual applicants and their wider team, including partners and networks, are not penalised for any disruption to their career, such as:

  • breaks and delays
  • disruptive working patterns and conditions
  • the loss of ongoing work
  • role changes that may have been caused by the pandemic

Reviewers and panel members will be advised to consider the unequal impacts that COVID-19 related disruption might have had on the capability to deliver and career development of those individuals included in the application. They will be asked to consider the capability of the applicant and their wider team to deliver the research they are proposing.

Where disruptions have occurred, you can highlight this within your application if you wish, but there is no requirement to detail the specific circumstances that caused the disruption.

Updates

  • 11 September 2023
    Second round opening date now 28 September 2023.
  • 8 August 2023
    Updates made to the 'How we will assess your application' section.

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