Funding opportunity

Funding opportunity: Place Based Impact Acceleration Account

Opportunity status:: Closed
Funders:: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Funding type:: Grant
Total fund:: £25,000,000
Award range:: £500,000 - £5,000,000
Publication date:: 4 October 2022
Opening date:: 6 October 2022 10:00am UK time
Closing date:: 25 April 2023 4:00pm UK time

Apply for consortia funding to support a programme of impact activities within a research and innovation cluster.

You must be at an organisation eligible for EPSRC funding to apply.

Proposals must:

be co-created with civic actors
be aligned with civic ambitions
engage business and local stakeholders
involve at least 2 universities
draw from the full breadth of UK research and development activity

There are 2 funding streams:

stream 1 (for emerging or nascent clusters): estimate 3 to 5 awards with maximum £2.5 million per award, over 4 years
stream 2 (for established or mature clusters): estimate 3 to 5 awards with maximum £5 million per award, over 4 years

Who can apply

Standard EPSRC eligibility rules apply. Research grants are open to:

UK higher education institutions
research council institutes
UK Research and Innovation-approved independent research organisations
eligible public sector research establishments
NHS bodies with research capacity

Check if your institution is eligible for funding.

Collaboration with a civic body is mandatory on this opportunity. Successful delivery of a Place Based Impact Acceleration Account will require collaboration with some of the following:

universities
industry
public or third sector
community groups
the public

This list is not intended to be exhaustive, and we encourage applicants to identify the most appropriate partners or collaborators as necessary.

You can apply if you are a resident in the UK and meet at least 1 of the conditions below:

are employed at the submitting research organisation at a level equivalent to lecturer or above
hold a fixed-term contract that extends beyond the duration of the proposed project, and the host research organisation is prepared to give you all the support normal for a permanent employee
hold an EPSRC, Royal Society or Royal Academy of Engineering fellowship aimed at later career stages
hold fellowships under other schemes (please contact EPSRC to check eligibility, which is considered on a case-by-case basis)

Holders of postdoctoral level fellowships are not eligible to apply for an EPSRC grant.

Submissions to this funding opportunity will not count towards the EPSRC repeatedly unsuccessful applicants policy.

What we're looking for

This is the first of 2 expected Place Based Impact Acceleration Account (PBIAA) funding rounds. We anticipate the second opportunity will be of similar scale and be launched in government financial year 2023 to 2024.

What is a PBIAA?

Our institutional Impact Acceleration Accounts (IAA) are strategic awards that provide flexible funding to research organisations enabling them to drive impacts from their research portfolio through a wide range of activities. Our PBIAAs offer a new complementary funding approach intended to enhance the capabilities of clusters and drive regional growth. Key features of PBIAAs are as follows:

a focus on developing place-based impact (meaning, a more concentrated delivery of impact that drives benefits within a research and innovation cluster)
delivery through a consortium approach that encourages collaboration on impact between UK universities, and with civic bodies and businesses
broadening access to impact funding for eligible research organisations, enabling all those with a relevant research portfolio to contribute

In this opportunity we define ‘the consortium’ as containing a minimum of 2 applicant universities plus other eligible research organisations as appropriate. Leadership or membership of the consortium is not restricted to current EPSRC IAA holders.

PBIAAs will enable impact from the engineering and physical sciences research of several universities to be realised within a defined research and innovation cluster, in collaboration with civic bodies and businesses operating within that cluster. EPSRC requires PBIAAs to be co-created with civic actors and aligned with civic ambitions. The programme of impact activities should therefore be tailored to the needs of the place. PBIAAs and their activities should be at least 50% within the EPSRC’s remit but activities delivered need not link to prior EPSRC funding.

You can prepare proposals against 2 funding streams:

stream 1 (targeting emerging or nascent clusters): estimate 3 to 5 awards with maximum £2.5 million per award, over 4 years
stream 2 (targeting established or mature clusters): estimate 3 to 5 awards with maximum £5 million per award, over 4 years

The resource level requested should be evidenced and commensurate with the maturity of the cluster, its absorptive capacity, and the place and consortium partners’ ability to realise impact. Similarly, we expect the activities delivered to be tailored to the needs of the place.

Focus of your application

You should clearly define and describe your focus, ensuring this is meaningful to the civic organisations involved, and allows the inclusion of key stakeholders, including businesses, that will underpin and support growth. PBIAAs will support similar activities to our institutional IAAs but they must deliver impact within a target cluster. We ask you to define your:

geographic focus: there should be a clear description of the geography of the target cluster. This does not need to be a single location where there are unifying characteristics between the locations included (for example, shipping ports) or where clusters are connected across several sites (for example, as a result of their supply chain or other activity). The geographic area should be of a scale proportionate to the level of investment requested, and the cluster’s absorptive capacity
thematic focus: the thematic focus should have relevance to the interests of the cluster and the discovery or mission-inspired priorities described in EPSRCs’ strategic delivery plan

Co-creation and civic support

We expect applications to be co-created between consortia members and 1 or more civic organisations that have an interest in developing the identified cluster. Involvement of relevant publics or businesses in this co-creation process is also encouraged.

The funding will allow consortia to operate in flexible, responsive and creative ways that align with civic, business and university strategies. We expect to see integration with existing local research and development, impact, knowledge exchange and business activities. The PBIAA should complement and provide additionality, it should not be used to duplicate or ‘top up’ existing local or UK Research and Innovation investments.

PBIAAs should aim to deliver benefit to the cluster in the short and long term. These benefits may include (but are not restricted to):

local and regional economic growth, skills development, job creation or retention
increased private investment, including foreign direct investment, in a specific place
cluster development including through knowledge diffusion, supply chain development, small and medium-sized enterprise growth, generation and growth of spin outs
development of research, development and innovation infrastructures

Examples (non-exhaustive) of organisations we consider to have a civic role:

enterprise, development or skills bodies (such as local enterprise partnerships or devolved equivalents)
local authorities, councils or combined authorities
growth, city, and region deals
devolved administrations and their agencies (noting projects still need to be focused on clusters or geography sub-national level)
regional or local industrial bodies
local NHS trusts

We do not consider international bodies to have a civic role. They can however be included as project partners on proposals where it is appropriate to the aims of the scheme and your PBIAA application.

Examples (non-exhaustive) of possible support from civic bodies:

involvement in PBIAA governance
access to innovation or knowledge exchange activity
secondments to or from PBIAA activities or projects
supporting or facilitating networking and engagement beyond the consortium
supporting policy development and delivery
direct adoption of research outputs
market assessments
infrastructure

Flexible resource to support the involvement of non-consortia members (hereafter referred to as ‘the collaborative fund’)

Consortium membership is not a pre-requisite to receive funding from a PBIAA. While consortia members must have demonstrable strengths aligned to the cluster, PBIAAs should seek to ensure they are drawing on the full strengths of the UK. You should have clear plans to engage local stakeholders relevant to the cluster (including the business and public where appropriate) in order to understand their needs and challenges.

Insights should then be translated into impact activities that enable funds to be administered supporting universities beyond the consortium to contribute. This should include consideration of institutions with smaller or specialised world class portfolios that can contribute to the success of the PBIAA. The collaborative fund may be used to support the involvement of civic bodies where appropriate and necessary.

Public engagement

We expect to see public engagement as an integral component to PBIAAs. We ask you to capitalise on the place-based nature of these awards to build collaborative relationships that engage publics both within the target place and beyond (where appropriate). You should seek to develop co-production methods that enable equity in relationships and a sense of shared commitment to the objectives of the PBIAA between researchers, civic partners and communities. We particularly encourage efforts to involve and engage with underrepresented groups.

We encourage you to be creative in your public engagement approaches but also to draw on existing expertise and networks. Value can also be added by appropriate involvement and engagement with other relevant actors to ensure maximum impact of any activity is achieved.

Further guidance and information can be found:

UKRI public engagement
EPSRC public engagement
EPSRC framework for responsible innovation
National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement, which offers guidance, expert advice, training and tools for public engagement

Applicants

Institutions may only submit 1 application as lead institution (not 1 per stream). Your team should include relevant domain experts and where appropriate involve relevant institutional level impact leads. We expect the principal investigator to be a domain expert with skills and expertise relevant to the cluster and delivery of the PBIAA.

You are reminded that you can include expertise from beyond the engineering and physical sciences disciplines and should do so, if appropriate and beneficial.

Expertise in entrepreneurship and regional development, innovation research and management, innovation and productivity growth, regional productivity, regional economic development, regional innovation ecosystems, public engagement are likely to be useful in supporting the growth and development of clusters.

While we encourage multidisciplinary teams, applications should be at least 50% within EPSRC remit.

Equality, diversity and inclusion, and responsible innovation

Promoting equality, diversity and inclusion is an integral part of our vision to deliver new knowledge and an enriched, healthier, more sustainable and resilient society and culture, and to contribute to a prosperous economy.

Responsible innovation is also an integral part of our vision and we expect you to consider the benefits, but also potential impacts from your activities.

You are expected to work within the EPSRC framework for responsible innovation. Please see our trusted research pages for guidance on getting the most out of international collaboration while protecting intellectual property, sensitive research and personal information.

Funding available

You are asked to carefully consider how your budget is allocated, including the balance between the consortium resource and the collaborative fund and should also consider the research portfolio within and outside of the consortia, and the needs of the cluster.

PBIAAs may be used to fund:

consortium management costs: 80% full economic cost
- staff managing and coordinating the delivery of the IAA funding across the consortium (meaning, a PBIAA manager) can be supported. Up to 15% of the budget (to a maximum of £500,000) can be used for management staff costs
consortium resource and collaborative fund (projects and other activities) 100% directly incurred costs:
- impact project costs: directly incurred projects costs can be claimed, this includes staff time and travel and subsistence
- support to involve civic bodies where appropriate and necessary
- other engagement, knowledge exchange, training and culture change activities can also be supported

PBIAA activities

PBIAAs can support similar activities to our institutional IAAs but all activities must deliver impact within the cluster.

Funding can be used to support a wide range of activities that support the scheme aims, including:

engaging users and forging new strategic partnerships
building the clusters capability and culture
progressing towards commercial opportunities, whatever best fits the strategic aims and opportunities of the cluster

We encourage the development of creative and innovative approaches to accelerating impact and building or enhancing ecosystems. Activities could include:

strengthening engagement with local users and their networks or supply chains to accelerate the translation of research outputs into place-based impacts
building and maintaining a local environment and culture that enables effective and ambitious knowledge exchange and impact, including development of skills, capacity and capability within the consortium and for the identified cluster
supporting, developing and fostering strategic partnerships as part of place-based knowledge exchange and impact activity, including across disciplines and sectors
providing early-stage support for progressing research outputs towards the next stages in the impact pipeline, for example:
- proof of concept projects
- commercialisation
- market validation
- activities targeting policy, business and the third sector
driving continuous improvement in impact by supporting innovation, enabling ‘fast failure’, and capturing learning through appropriate mechanisms
enabling flexible and adaptive approaches to knowledge exchange and impact, including the ability to respond quickly to emerging opportunities
dedicated resource to support the engagement of, and impact activities involving institutions and their researchers from outside of the consortia
public engagement (please see ‘Public engagement’ section)

PBIAAs may not be used to support:

new fundamental research
impact activities that should already have been anticipated and supported through standard routes, for example impact activities costed as part of basic research proposals or Centre for Doctoral Trainings
broader activities and institutional culture change relating to impact
duplication of other sources of funding that can be used more appropriately for the impact activity within remit of research council
any costs relating to intellectual property protection including but not limited to registering, maintaining, or supporting patents or property rights
undergraduate or postgraduate activities or training, or core PhD training including tuition or bench fees
contributions to Knowledge Transfer Partnerships

We encourage you to read the recent report ‘Evidence of what works: research and innovation and place’ and to consider how your PBIAA might be used to support research and innovation activities that lead to positive place based outcomes in particular by:

building the components of the ecosystem, either by strengthening (or evolving) existing components, creating new components, and breaking path dependency
building the links within the ecosystem
building capacity and leadership

EPSRC approach to equipment funding

Where possible, researchers are asked to make use of existing facilities and equipment, including those hosted at other universities. If equipment is needed as part of the proposal, you must follow EPSRC’s rules for requesting equipment over £10,000 in value.

Individual items of equipment between £10,000 and £400,000 can be included on proposals if the equipment is essential to the proposed activity and if no appropriate alternative provision can be accessed. Where equipment is requested, we expect to see a robust strategic case for how equipment will maximise the impact from research, enable collaboration with business and ultimately drive benefits within the cluster and society in general.

The purchase of equipment to undertake non-impact focused research is out of scope for this opportunity. EPSRC will contribute 80% of the final purchase price and will expect the research organisation or project partner to contribute the remainder (20%) from non-EPSRC funding.

You must attach a letter of support from the research organisation or project partner detailing the proposed contribution to the cost of the equipment. All requested equipment funding must be identified at the point of application.

More information is available on our guidance for equipment on research grants.

Smaller items of equipment (individually under £10,000) should be in the ‘directly incurred – other costs’ heading.

See EPSRC approach to equipment funding.

How to apply

You should ensure you are aware of and comply with any internal institutional deadlines that may be in place. You should prepare and submit your proposal using the research councils’ Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) system.

When adding a new proposal, you should go to documents, select New Document, then select:

‘Create New Document’
council: ‘EPSRC’
document type: ‘Standard Proposal’
scheme: ‘Standard’
on the project details page you should select the ‘Place Based Impact Acceleration Account’ opportunity

After completing the application:

you must ‘Submit document’, which will send your application to your host organisation’s administration
your host organisation’s administration is required to complete the submission process. You should allow sufficient time for your organisation’s submission process between submitting your proposal to them and the opportunity closing date

EPSRC must receive your application on 25 April 2023 by 4:00pm UK time.

As well as the Je-S application form, the following documents must be submitted.

You must indicate which stream you are applying against in the title of their proposal by writing either ‘STREAM 1: [Title]’ or ‘STREAM 2: [Title]’ on your Je-S form.

Attachments

Your application must include the following attachments:

case for support (8 pages, 2 on your track record and 6 on the impact case), information to include:
consortium track record and research portfolio, including project partners (please include details of both the discipline or domain track record and impact track record of the team)
place and theme focus, for example what place will the PBIAA benefit? How is the cluster defined geographically and thematically? If the cluster in not a single continuous area, please justify how the areas are connected through unifying characteristics
justification of the chosen stream, for example why is the cluster considered nascent or emerging, or mature or established?
aims, objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) of the PBIAA with reference to standardised IAA indicators of success (PDF, 131KB)
network building and communications with those external to the proposal consortium (for example, other universities, industry, public or third sector organisations, community groups and the public). This should include routes to promote opportunities as part of the collaborative funds administration).
approach and activities planned to prioritise, allocate and monitor the use of both consortium resource and collaborative funds (this could include plans to grow the fund through leverage from other sources)
management and governance plan including details of the advisory body and any other management bodies, management and performance KPIs, risk management and the approach to embedding equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I), and responsible innovation into the management of the award. You should note that reflecting the co-created nature of this investment we expect civic partners to be involved in the governance of the PBIAA.
workplan including project timeline (1 page)
justification of resources (2 pages):
- you must provide an outline of your consortium management costs and your consortium resource and collaborative fund costs. You should outline the anticipated type, scope and number of activities anticipated under each of these headings
CVs (up to 2 A4 sides each) for named:
- postdoctoral staff, researcher co-investigators (research assistants who have made a substantial contribution to the proposal and will be employed on the project for a significant amount of time)
visiting researchers
letters of support from all project partners included in the Je-S form (no page limit, but letters can be combined in a single PDF document), see EPSRC guidance on project partners letter of support
specific requirement for a letter from a civic organisation: a letter of support from a civic partner is mandatory. The letter should evidence co-creation with the university partners and explain the relevance of the bid to the civic strategy and ambitions. Where appropriate letters should provide some background on previous investments or activities made to develop the cluster. Letters from civic bodies must also provide a forward look that illustrates how their future planned activity will complement the PBIAA, providing detail on any contribution being made to the PBIAA itself. You are asked to note how we will treat civic contributions during assessment. See the ‘place’ criterion in the assessment criteria.
letter of support from host organisation including a summary of any internal selection process relating to the leadership or team involved in the application and any associated ED&I actions
quotes for equipment above £25,000 (no page limit)
equipment business case for any items of equipment or combined assets with a value above £138,000: up to 2 pages
technical assessments for facilities listed as requiring one in the Je-S guidance (no page limit)
cover letter (optional attachment, no page limit, not seen by peer review)

You should attach your documents as PDFs to avoid errors. They should be completed in single-spaced Arial 11 font or similar-sized sans serif typeface

Advice on writing proposals for EPSRC funding.

PBIAA town hall events and EPSRC delivery plan sessions

To support the launch of our Place Based Impact Acceleration Account (PBIAA) opportunity we will be delivering 4 town hall events at which we will introduce the opportunity and discuss what we are looking to achieve through the awards.

Although the events are primarily aimed at supporting the PBIAA, we are taking the opportunity to simultaneously provide information on our latest delivery plan, which will help applicants applying to the opportunity but may also be of interest to a broader audience. As such when you apply to attend you will be asked if you are primarily interested in the PBIAA opportunity or the delivery plan content.

These events are open to academic researchers, research office staff working in impact, and knowledge exchange, representatives from university alliances and civic organisations. We encourage potential applicants from universities to share details of the opportunity and these events with civic partners you may wish to involve in an application.

We will be hosting 4 events across the UK:

7 November 2022, Belfast
14 November 2022, Cardiff
16 November 2022, Leeds
22 November 2022, Edinburgh

In the case of our events being oversubscribed, we reserve the right to determine attendees based on their role and organisational affiliation to ensure as many universities or organisations as possible can attend. In such an event preference will be given to those willing to share information from the event within their organisation.

In order to apply, you should register on SmartSurvey. Please register at least 1 week before the event you plan to attend so that we can confirm your attendance.

Webinars are also being planned for December 2022 or January 2023.

The format of these webinars will differ to our in-person events, but will provide a brief recap of the opportunity, and then run through the frequently asked questions received, before providing an opportunity for additional questions from those online.

Details of how to attend the webinar will be released at a later date.

Ethical information

EPSRC will not fund a project if it believes that there are ethical concerns that have been overlooked or not appropriately accounted for. All relevant parts of the ‘ethical information’ section must be completed.

Guidance on completing ethical information on the Je-S form.

EPSRC guidance can be found under ‘additional information’.

How we will assess your application

Assessment process

This opportunity will consist of a two-stage assessment process. At both stages proposals will be grouped and assessed with other proposals in the same stream. All assessment criteria will be considered at both stages.

Stage 1: expert panel review and prioritisation

Proposals will be assessed by an expert panel. Highly ranked proposals will be invited to interview stage based upon 2 factors:

performance against all assessment criteria
panel consideration of geographic and thematic portfolio distribution across the UK (see Funding decisions: a portfolio approach)

Applications that are invited to stage 2 will be invited to provide a written response to panel feedback.

Stage 2: interview panel

Stage 2 will be assessed by interview, after which the expert panel will make a funding recommendation. As much as is practicable we will group applicant interviews by stream. A representative of the civic body must be part of the interview team.

We anticipate interviews will be held the week commencing 26 June 2023.

Funding decisions: a portfolio approach

Subject to a satisfactory quality threshold being met, decisions will be made using a portfolio approach, to ensure an appropriate geographic and thematic coverage across the UK. We will seek (as much as is practical), to avoid excessive clustering of investments in any 1 geographic area as well as to avoid dominance of any theme.

To enable panel to do this, the portfolio distribution will be considered at both stages in the assessment process (meaning, prioritisation and interview).

Subject to satisfactory quality, equal numbers of awards will be made against each stream.

Full details of the interview and decision process will be sent to candidates prior to their interviews.