The cross research council responsive mode (CRCRM) pilot scheme has been developed to support emerging ideas from the research community that transcend, combine or significantly span disciplines, to ensure all forms of interdisciplinary research have a home within UKRI. It will support ideas which are not routinely funded, or perceived not to be funded, through existing UKRI responsive mode schemes.
The CRCRM scheme is aimed at funding new, high-quality and creative interdisciplinary ideas emerging from the research community outside current disciplinary boundaries.
The scheme will complement the existing individual research council responsive mode schemes by funding excellent bottom-up ideas that span disciplinary boundaries without a natural lead council to apply to.
It aims to fill an identified gap in the UKRI funding portfolio and will ensure we can fund the best ideas without disciplinary or domain constraints.
The scheme will only support projects that span at least two research council disciplinary remits. Interdisciplinary research is about reciprocity across the disciplines, with the disciplines involved being changed or transformed by working together.
This requires genuine collaboration and co-creation of the research and should not have people or disciplines ‘bolted on’ at the end of the project development.
The scheme will use a novel assessment approach that moves away from traditional ‘written’ peer review to avoid each disciplinary element being assessed individually, which can disadvantage interdisciplinary proposals.
A trained Interdisciplinary Assessment College (IAC), comprising members with experience of working in or supporting interdisciplinary research, has been appointed for the assessment of applications to the scheme.
Through this novel assessment process, we anticipate that we will identify and support new interdisciplinary research projects that, through current routes, may struggle to secure support.