Partnership and project development (PPD) grant proposals
UK applicants must apply using the Joint Electronic Submission system (Je-S). When applying select:
- council: NERC
- document type: Standard Proposal
- scheme: Directed International
- call/type/mode: Sustainable Mineral Resources in the Philippines PPD.
The PPD call will close on (Je-S) at 16:00 hours (UK time) on 21 January and it will not be possible to submit to the call after this time.
Philippine applicants must apply using the DOST Project Management Information System DPMIS by 21 January at 24:00 hours (Philippine time).
NERC is managing the call on behalf of the UK-Philippine (NERC, DOST-PCIEERD) partnership. UK- Philippine partnerships need to be genuine, collaborative and reciprocal, adding value to that which could be achieved by individual partners working on their own. For each PPD grant application, a lead principal investigator (PI) should be nominated from both the UK and the Philippines and they will act as focal contact points with NERC and DOST-PCIEERD respectively. In Je-S the Philippine PI will need to be listed as a project partner.
Each PPD team needs to develop a single proposal that sets out the work to be carried out by the UK-Philippine partnership to address the strategic objectives of the call. As such, UK applicants are expected to include a copy of the final proposal submitted by Philippine applicants (through DPMIS) with their Je-S application.
The Philippine PI will need to download and share a PDF copy of the application submitted through DPMIS with the UK PI and the UK PI will need to include this as a “Non-UK component” attachment to the lead proposal component. The UK PI is also requested to download a PDF copy of the application from Je-S and share this with the Philippine PI. To download the application, once the Council grant reference number has been issued the UK PI should log back into their document, select the Document Actions button, select Print Document and download a PDF copy. Philippine researchers must submit the UK application as a single consolidated PDF file attachment through DPMIS
The costs of UK institutions should be submitted in Je-S and will be met from the UK funds. Costs for Philippine partner institutions should be submitted in DPMIS and will be met by DOST-PCIEERD.
UK applicants must list the lead Philippine PI and collaborators as project partners on the Je-S form (with each Philippine organisation listed as a separate project partner). The value of the DOST-PCIEERD funding contributions should also be detailed in the project partner in-kind support section of the Je-S proposal form.
For UK applicants, overseas travel and expenses costs incurred by members of UK institutions will be paid at 80% and must be included as costs related to that UK institution. As project partners on a NERC grant, Philippine partner institutes are eligible for minor directly incurred costs to support collaboration.
For this call, minor directly incurred costs could be used to cover fieldwork related T&S costs for Philippine project partners to visit local field sites (for example to collect data/samples) in light of any ongoing overseas travel restrictions for UK applicants. Any necessary Philippine T&S costs can be payable at 100%, should not exceed 10% of the overall UK budget request, and need to be entered as “Exception” on Je-S using the exception tick box. UK organisations will receive up to £50,000 (80% FEC for UK costs and 100% for Philippines costs) of the project, as per standard research council funding rules.
Philippine applicants applying through the DPMIS must list the lead UK project investigator and collaborators as project partners using the DPMIS Proposal Template. The value of UK funding contributions should also be included in the DOST-PCIEERD application and submitted as part of the project’s line-item budget as “UK-NERC counterpart”.
For UK applications, in addition to the standard Je-S proforma, the lead component of each proposal should include the following documents:
- A Case of Support (up to six pages) comprising:
- a common previous track record incorporating all the UK and Philippine organisations involved in the PPD (up to three sides of A4)
- a description of the proposed PPD project (up to three sides of A4) detailing the preliminary ideas for a proposed project to be submitted to the strategic large grant call. This should also include information about where you may be lacking appropriate team members, along with an explanation of how you would go about identifying the key personnel and building the relevant capacity needed for the proposed project. Teams also need to include COVID-19 related contingencies planning, detailing innovative solutions to partnership and capacity building, networking and working internationally.
- Justification of resources (up to two pages) comprising:
- UK costs for all UK research organisations involved. This includes all directly incurred costs, investigator effort, use of pool staff resources, overseas travel and expenses (paid at 80%), any access to shared facilities and equipment (with equipment funded at 50% FEC). Any minor directly incurred T&S costs for Philippine project partners (payable at 100% and not exceeding 10% of the total UK budget) should also be included. Further information on what to include in the Justification of Resources is available in section E of the NERC Research Grants Handbook.
- Philippine costs for all Philippine organisations involved. This should justify the personnel services (PS), materials and other operating expenses (MOOE) and equipment outlay (EO).
- A common Outline Data Management Plan (up to one side of A4) if data are to be collected as part of the PPD. The NERC Data Policymust be adhered to, and an outline data management plan produced as part of proposal development. NERC will pay the data centre directly on behalf of the programme for archival and curation services, but applicants should ensure they request sufficient resources to cover preparation of data for archiving by the research team.
- Project Partner Letter(s) of Support (up to two sides of A4 each) is required from each named project partner:
- For UK partners, this letter should confirm that the support and facilities required to enable the associated collaborations will be made available.
- For Philippine partners, the Je-S system also requires “letters of support”. Please submit blank documents for each partner as no formal letters of support are required.
- CVs for each of the named Philippine collaborators (maximum two pages per person) should be combined into one document as attachment type ‘Non-UK Components’.
- Completed DOST-PCIEERD Proposal Proforma as attachment type ‘Non-UK Components’. The Philippine PI will need to share a PDF copy of the application submitted through DPMIS with the UK PI.
Each component proposal (including the lead) will additionally require:
- CV for each named UK PI, Co-I, research staff post and visiting researcher (maximum two pages per person)
- PIs wishing to use NERC facilities will need to submit a mandatory ‘technical assessment’ with their proposal (excluding HPC) as detailed in the “Additional Information Section”. NERC Services and Facilities must be costed within the limits of the proposal, and agreement that they can be undertaken within the timeframe of the spend must be provided by the facility. This means a quote for the work which the facility will provide. A full list of the Facilities requiring this quote can be found on the NERC website.
UK applicants must ensure they leave enough time for their proposal to pass through their organisation’s Je-S submission route before this date. Any proposal that is incomplete, or does not meet NERC’s eligibility criteria or follow NERC’s submission rules (see NERC Grants Handbook) will be rejected.
All attachments, with the exception of letters of support and services/facilities/equipment quotes, submitted through the Je-S system must be completed in single-spaced typescript of minimum font size 11 point (Arial or other sans serif typeface of equivalent size to Arial 11), with margins of at least 2cm.
Please note that Arial narrow, Calibri and Times New Roman are not allowable font types and any proposal which has used either of these font types within their submission will be rejected. References and footnotes should also be at least 11 point font and should be in the same font type as the rest of the document.
Headers and footers should not be used for references or information relating to the scientific case. Applicants referring to websites should note that referees may choose not to use them.
Applicants should ensure that their proposal conforms to all eligibility and submission rules, otherwise their proposal may be rejected without peer review. More details on NERC’s submission rules can be found in the NERC research grant and fellowships handbook and in the submission rules on the NERC website.
Please note that on submission to council all non-PDF documents are converted to PDF, the use of non-standard fonts may result in errors or font conversion, which could affect the overall length of the document.
Additionally, where non-standard fonts are present, and even if the converted PDF document may look unaffected in the Je-S System, when it is imported into the research councils grants system some information may be removed. We therefore recommend that where a document contains any non-standard fonts (scientific notation, diagrams etc.), the document should be converted to PDF prior to attaching it to the proposal.
No associated studentships can be requested under this call.
For Philippine researchers, please follow the DOST Grants in Aid Proposal Format found in the e-Proposal portal. All instructions for submission are also available at this portal.
All required supplementary files such as workplan, endorsement of the Head of the Agency, gender and development scoresheet, scientific basis/theoretical framework, letter of intent/letter of cooperation from interested adopters of the project results and risk management plan should also be attached through this portal by 24:00 (Philippine time) on 21 January. A copy of the complete proposal in PDF form should then be sent to the UK PI ahead of the Je-S closing time of 16:00 hours (UK time) on 21 January.
For Philippine applicants, only proposals from eligible entities that meet all of the eligibility criteria as stipulated in the guidelines for the Grants-in-aid programme of the Department of Science and Technology and its Agencies will be evaluated against the evaluation criteria.
Proposals to be submitted and or funded under this announcement must demonstrate the advancement of science and technology alignment to this call.
Proposals (including all project documents submitted) must be written in English and comply with the proposal submission instructions and requirements set forth in this announcement, otherwise these proposals will be rejected.
Proposals must be received by the DOST-PCIEERD on or before the proposal submission deadline specified in this announcement. Applicants are responsible for ensuring that their proposals reach the DOST-PCIEERD by the submission deadline. Proposals received after the submission deadline will be considered late and returned to the sender without further consideration unless the applicant can clearly demonstrate that lateness was due to mishandling on the part of DOST-PCIEERD.
