UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service
We are running the funding opportunity on the new Funding Service. You cannot apply for this opportunity on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.
If you do not already have an account with the Funding Service, you will be able to create one by selecting the ‘Start application’ button at the start of this page. Creating an account is a two-minute process requiring you to verify your email address and set a password.
If you are a member of an organisation with a research office that we do not have contact details for, we will contact them to enable administrator access. This provides:
- oversight of every Funding Service application opened on behalf of your organisation
- the ability to review and submit applications
Research offices that have not already received an invitation to open an account should email support@funding-service.ukri.org
To find out more about the role of research office professionals in the application process, watch a recording of a recent research office webinar on YouTube.
Submitting your application
Applications should be prepared and submitted by the lead research organisation but should be co-created with input from all investigators, and project partners, and should represent the proposed work of the entire consortia.
Please note that there are multiple sections that each require a response, even if it is only ‘not applicable’. Not all of these sections are included in the opportunity document, rather information can only be found on the Funding Service. Project leads have edit rights on the Funding Service and their research office has visibility. We expect project leads to share an off-line copy of the application with co-applicants using the ‘read view’ tab on the Funding Service, so that all are aware of the requirements at the outset. Attachments (for example vision and approach) will need to be shared separately as they do not automatically appear in the download.
To apply:
- Select the ‘Start application’ button at the start of this page.
- This will open the ‘Sign in’ page of the Funding Service. If you do not already have an account, you’ll be able to create one. This is a two-minute process requiring you to verify your email address and set a password.
- Start answering the questions detailed in this section of ‘How to apply’. You can save your work and come back to it later. You can also work ‘offline’, copying and pasting into the text boxes provided for your answers.
- Once complete, use the service to send your application to your research office for review. They’ll check it and return it to you if it needs editing.
- Once happy, your research office will submit it to UKRI for assessment. Only they can do this.
As citations can be integral to a case for support, you should balance their inclusion and the benefit they provide against the inclusion of other parts of your answer to each question. Bear in mind that citations, associated reference lists or bibliographies, or both, contribute to, and are included in, the word count of the relevant section.
Deadline
We must receive your application by 26 September 2023 at 4:00pm UK time.
You will not be able to apply after this time.
You should ensure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines that may be in place.
EPSRC, 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.
We will publish the outcomes of this funding Opportunity at Grants on the Web.
If your application is successful, some personal information will be published via the UKRI Gateway to Research.
UKRI Funding Service: section guidance
Summary
Word count: 550
In plain English, provide a summary that can be sent to potential reviewers to determine if your proposal is within their field of expertise.
This summary may be made publicly available on external facing websites, so please ensure it can be understood by a variety of readers, for example:
- opinion-formers
- policymakers
- the general public
- the wider research community.
Guidance for writing a summary
Succinctly describe your proposed work in terms of:
- its context
- the challenge the project addresses and how it will be applied to this
- its aims and objectives
- its potential applications and benefits.
Applicants
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
- grant manager
- professional support staff
- research and innovation associate
- technician
- visiting researcher
You can only list one project lead.
The project co-lead (international) (PcL (I)) role should only be used for applications making use of the UKRI-RCN Money Follows Cooperation agreement or the UKRI-IIASA agreement. We do not otherwise accept project co-lead (international) applicants.
Find out about UKRI’s new grant roles and eligibility.
Section: Vision and Approach
Word count: 5
You should upload the Vision and Approach document as a six-page PDF, plus an additional page for a diagrammatic workplan. The document must have single line spacing, margins of at least 2cm and be typed using Arial 11pt, or another ‘sans serif’ font with an equivalent size to Arial 11pt.
You may include images, graphs, tables, provided you adhere to the page length rule and bear in mind that you can only upload 1 PDF and its file size cannot be larger than 8MB.
For the file name, use the unique Funding Service number the system gives to your proposal – when you create an application – immediately followed by the words ‘Vision and Approach’. Then use the upload button below.
If the attachment does not meet these requirements, the application will be rejected.
Unless specifically requested, please do not include any personal data within the attachment.
Once you have uploaded, enter ‘attachment provided’ in the textbox, mark this section as complete and move to the next one.
Question: What are you hoping to achieve with and how will you deliver 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, generates 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:
- describe your hub concept and its context
- demonstrate the alignment of the proposal to the funding opportunity objectives
- highlight the ambition, adventure, and transformative aspects of the concept
- clearly state the research challenges that your hub will address. These research challenges must lie within EPSRC’s remit and fit within the scope of the opportunity
- Provide a summary explanation of how you will embed environmental sustainability within all the hub activities, noting that there is a separate section where detail should be provided.
For the Approach, explain how you have designed your work 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
- if applicable, uses a clear and transparent methodology
- if applicable, summarises the previous work and describes how this will be built upon and progressed
- 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, its location, and relevance to the project) will contribute to the success of the work
Within the Approach section we also expect you to:
- demonstrate the appropriateness of critical mass funding and the hub and spoke model for addressing the identified research challenges and the extent to which this would deliver added value
- demonstrate access to the appropriate services, facilities, infrastructure, or equipment to deliver the proposal
- provide a detailed and comprehensive project plan including milestones and timelines in the form of a Gantt chart or similar (additional one-page A4)
- include a detailed and appropriate plan for how you will acquire and manage data (additional one-page A4)
Section: Embedding environmental sustainability
Question: How will you embed environmental sustainability within all the hub activities?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Explain how your proposed work:
- will centre and embed environmental sustainability throughout hub aims, objectives, operations and research outcomes, considering the context of each hub’s specific research area
- ensure that environmental impact and mitigation is explicitly considered at all stages of the research lifecycle and throughout the lifetime of the hub
- will identify the major challenges relating to environmental sustainability in the chosen research area and integrate these as part of the hub research programme. You should consider ambitious challenges, which may be at a lower technology readiness level but will support a step change in future sustainability, as well as how to improve and embed sustainability in technology that is closer to commercialisation
- demonstrates leadership in environmental sustainability by carrying out hub operations in an environmentally sustainable way, with consideration of how to minimise the negative environmental impact of running the hub. You should seek opportunities to influence others and leave a legacy of environmental sustainability within the broader operations of your academic and industry partners
Environmental sustainability may include consideration of such broad areas as:
- reducing carbon emissions
- protecting and enhancing the natural environment and biodiversity
- waste or pollution elimination
- resource efficiency and circular economy
Environmental sustainability is complex and there are often conflicting drivers. Hubs will need to take a whole systems approach to enable consideration of the trade-offs, risks and mitigations associated with different approaches and ensure research outcomes are used to support industry and government partners to make informed choices and mitigate unintended consequences.
Word count: 1,000
Section: Applicant and team capability to deliver
Word count: 1,500 (1,000 words to be used for R4RI modules and, if necessary, a further 500 words for Additions)
Question: 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
Use the Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI) format to showcase the range of relevant skills you, and if relevant your team (investigators, researchers, other technical staff for example research software engineers, data scientists and so on, and partners), have and how this will help to 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 below. You should use each heading once and include a response for the whole team, see the UKRI guidance on R4RI. You can enter N/A for any you think irrelevant, and will not be penalised for doing so, but it is recommended that you carefully consider the breadth of your experience:
- 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 (you can use this heading to provide information which provides context to the wider application, such as detail of career breaks – it is not a requirement)
Additions: Provide any further details relevant to your application. This section is not mandatory and can be up to 500 words. You should not use it to describe additional skills, experiences or outputs, but any factors that provide context for the rest of your R4RI (for example, details of career breaks if you wish to disclose them).
You should complete this as a narrative and you should avoid CV type format.
Section: Your Organisation’s Support
Word count: 1,500
Question: provide details of support from your research organisation.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
Provide a statement of support from your research organisation detailing why the proposed work is needed. This should include details of any matched funding that will be provided to support the activity and any additional support that might add value to the work.
The panel will be looking for a strong statement of commitment from your research organisation.
We recognise that in some instances, this information may be provided by the Research Office, the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) or equivalent, or a combination of both.
You must also include the following details:
- a significant person’s name and their position, from the TTO or Research Office, or both
- office address or web link
Section: References
Word count: 1,000
Question: List the references you’ve used to support your application.
What the assessors are looking for in your response:
You should include all references in this section of the application and not in the rest of the application questions.
You should not include any other information in this section.
We advise you not to include hyperlinks as assessors are not obliged to access the information they lead to or consider it in their assessment of your application. If linking to web resources, to ensure the information’s integrity is maintained include, where possible, persistent identifiers such as digital object identifiers.
You must not include links to web resources in order to extend your application.
Section: Project partners: contributions
Word count: 1,000
Question: Provide details about any project partners’ contributions using the template provided.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
For your project partners, download and complete the project partner contributions template (DOCX, 52KB) then copy and paste the table within it into the text box.
Ensure you have obtained prior agreement from project partners that, should you be offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the template.
A project partner is a collaborating organisation that is contributing to the application and will have an integral role in the proposed research. Project partners cannot normally receive funding directly from the grant. Two exceptions to this are:
- where a project partner is providing services or equipment that will go through a formal procurement process audited by the host research organisation
- the project partner can receive small amounts of funding from the grant, such as for travel and subsistence to attend project meetings. These will need to be requested and fully justified in the application
Section: Project Partners: letters (or emails) of support
Word count: 10
Question: Upload a single PDF containing the letters or emails of support from each partner you named in the table in the previous ‘contributions’ section.
What the assessors are looking for in your response
For your named project partners in the previous ‘contributions’ section, enter the words ‘attachment supplied’ in the text box below.
Each letter or email 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
- please refer to the EPSRC’s guide for more guidance
Please do not provide letters of support from host and co-investigators’ research organisations.
Unless specifically requested, please do not include any personal data within the attachment.
Upload details are provided within the service on the actual application.
Upload a single PDF containing the letters or emails of support from each partner you named in the table in the previous ‘contributions’ section ensuring it is no larger than 8MB.
For the file name, use the unique Funding Service number the system gives to your proposal – when you create an application – immediately followed by the words ‘Project Partner Letters of Support’. Then use the upload button below.
For audit purposes, we require formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.
Section: Resources and cost justification
Word count: 1,000
Question: What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost?
Using the costs table within the resources and cost section, provide details of the total funding required under each fund heading. You should include high-level costs only, not a detailed breakdown of individual items. You should use the textbox for the justification of resources to provide further details on what is being requested and why it is needed to deliver your proposed work.
Using the text box, 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
This resources and cost justification should not simply be a list of the resources requested, as this will already be given in the costs table. Costings should be justified on the basis of full economic costs (FEC) of the project, not just on the costs expected from UKRI. For some items we do not expect you to justify the monetary value, rather the type of resource, such as amount of time or type of staff requested.
Where you do not provide adequate justification for a resource, we may deduct it from any funding awarded.
You should identify:
- support for activities to either increase impact, for public engagement, knowledge exchange or to support responsible innovation
- support for access to facilities, infrastructure, or procurement of equipment
- support for preserving, long-term storage, or sharing of data
- support from your organisation or partner organisations and how that enhances value for money
Reviewers and panels may acknowledge the impact of university support but will not consider the level of matched university funding as a factor on which to base funding recommendations.
Section: Facilities
Word count: 250
Question: Does your proposed research require the support and use of a facility?
What the assessors are looking for in your response
If not, enter N/A into the text box, mark this section as complete and move on to the next section.
If you will need to use a facility, you should follow your proposed facility’s normal access request procedures. Where prior agreement is required, ensure you obtain their agreement that, should you be offered funding, they will support the use of their facility on your project.
In the text box below, for each requested facility you should provide:
- the name of facility, copied and pasted from the facilities information list (DOCX, 35KB)
- the proposed usage or costs, or costs per unit where indicted on that list
- confirmation you have their agreement where required. Copy the following text: ‘I confirm that I have contacted the facility and their agreement that, should you be offered funding, they will support the use of their facility on my project for the usage specified.’
Do not put the facility contact details in your response.
Section: Ethics and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)
Word count: 500
Question: 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
Using the text box, demonstrate that you have identified and evaluated the relevant ethical or responsible research and innovation considerations, and how you will manage them.
Additional sub-questions (to be answered only if appropriate) will be included in the Funding Service. These will ask about numbers, species/strain and justification about:
- genetic and biological risk
- research involving the use of animals
- conducting research with animal overseas
- research involving human participation
- research involving human tissues or biological samples
If you are collecting or using data you should 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 taken to not preclude further reuse of data
- formal information standards with which study will be compliant
