Funding opportunity

Research climate and cultural heritage with international partners

• Opportunity status: Closed
• Funders: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
• Co-funders: Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) on behalf of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF), Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), Belgium, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MŠMT), Czech Republic, French National Research Agency (ANR), France (project lead), Irish Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA), Ireland, Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR), Italy, Lietuvos mokslo taryba (Research Council of Lithuania, LMT), Lithuania, Dutch Research Council (NWO), Netherlands, Research Council of Norway (RCN), Norway, Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), Spain, Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Switzerland, National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT), Thailand, The Scientific and Technological Research Council (TÜBITAK), Turkey, National Science Foundation (NSF), US, Adaptation Research Alliance, FutureEarth
• Funding type: Grant
• Publication date: 12 June 2023
• Opening date: 26 April 2023
• Closing date: 8 September 2023 7:00pm UK time

Apply for funding to research climate and cultural heritage and tackle urgent challenges with international partners.

You must:

• be based at a UK research organisation eligible for AHRC funding
• work with researchers from at least two other participating countries

Applications from early career researchers are particularly encouraged.

The full economic cost (FEC) of the UK elements of a project can be up to €250,000 FEC. AHRC will fund 80% of the FEC. The total fund available is €2.69 million FEC.

Projects can be up to 36 months.

This funding opportunity is being jointly run by ANR and NWO.

Who can apply

This funding opportunity is open to teams of researchers from the following participating countries. Each consortium must consist of a minimum of three investigators from three of the participating countries.

The participating countries are:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Czech Republic
• France
• Ireland
• Italy
• Lithuania
• the Netherlands
• Norway
• Spain
• Switzerland
• Thailand
• Turkey
• the UK
• the US

The researchers from each country must:

• meet the eligibility criteria of their respective funding council
• be based at organisations that meet those eligibility criteria

Additionally each consortium must include one ‘Societal Partner’ as detailed in guidance. Please note that ‘Societal Partner’ is broadly equivalent to the UK Research and Innovation term ‘Project Partner’. An organisation participating in the project as a subcontractor would not count as a ‘Societal Partner’.

Applications from early career researchers are particularly encouraged.

This funding opportunity is being run by our French and Dutch partners, ANR and NWO.

What we're looking for

This funding opportunity aims to:

• support transdisciplinary and convergent research approaches on cultural heritage and climate change
• foster collaboration among the research community across several regions
• contribute to knowledge advances and policy change at the global level

You are invited to submit research proposals that should address at least one of the three funding opportunity themes:

• the impact of climate change on cultural heritage
• cultural heritage as a resource for climate mitigation and adaptation
• sustainable solutions for heritage

Full details of each theme can be found on the Belmont Forum website.

Funding

UK-based participants can apply for the following costs:

• principal investigator salary and associated overheads
• co-investigator salary and associated overheads
• international co-investigator costs
• research assistant salary and associated overheads
• minimal costs for subcontractors where expertise or knowledge is required: any organisation can be named as a ‘subcontractor’, but its contribution to the project must be fully explained and all costs must be justified
• travel and subsistence costs
• other directly incurred costs relating to the proposed research that are eligible according to the AHRC research funding guide

UK budgets cannot include costs for project PhD students.

The FEC of the UK elements of a project can be up to €250,000. AHRC will fund 80% of the FEC.

How to apply

You must apply on Belmont Forum Grant Operations (BFgo) website. Please carefully review the funding opportunity documents on the platform when preparing a proposal.

We recommend you start your application early.

Deadline

Your application must be received by 8 September 2023 at 7:00pm UK time.

How we will assess your application

After eligibility checks by respective funding agencies, your application will be assessed by an international assessment panel in October or November 2023 with outcomes communicated in December.

Full details on the process and the assessment criteria can be found on the Belmont Forum website.

Contact details

Get help with developing your proposal

For help and advice on costings and writing your proposal please contact your research office in the first instance, allowing sufficient time for your organisation’s submission process.

General queries

General queries can be directed to the Thematic Programme Office at cultural-heritage-climate-2023@anr.fr and cch@nwo.nl

Specific queries for AHRC

Email: hcca@ahrc.ukri.org

Additional info

Joint Programming Initiatives (JPIs) were established to pool national research efforts and foster the implementation of the European Research Area (ERA) to address grand societal challenges. JPIs are flexible intergovernmental partnerships with the aim of better aligning the research and innovation investments spent at the national level. They involve countries that voluntarily agree to work in partnership towards common visions encapsulated in strategic research and innovation agendas and implemented through joint activities.

The Belmont Forum is a group of funding agencies from around the world that support transdisciplinary, globally-representative research groups and coproduction or participatory methods to address various global environmental change topics. Topics are addressed through collaborative research actions (CRAs) and the cultural heritage and climate CRA is among three research funding opportunities that will be launched in 2023.

The funding opportunity results from a White Paper jointly developed and published in March 2022 by the two JPIs and from joint workshops held in June and September 2022 aimed at identifying and incorporating research priorities from Africa, the Americas and Asia.

Supporting documents

In addition to the attachments and documentation specified on the Belmont Forum website, all proposals seeking AHRC funding must also include an AHRC budget template and justification of resources. This template must be completed in GBP.

Budget and justification resources template (DOCX, 31KB)

Please note that this is supplementary to and does not replace any other budget information you are required to submit for the funding opportunity.