The Faculty of Science and Engineering has created two funds to support researchers and encourage them to write competitive proposals.

 

Research Support Fund

The Research Support Fund is open to all large research grant applications, normally those where the total value of the grant exceeds £750k. PIs may request that the faculty consider funding additional activity to support the application, with the aim of enhancing the likelihood of application success. A case may be made for any amount up to 40% of the residual overhead value. Applications will normally not be considered if the overhead recovery rate is significantly below the QMUL threshold (i.e. 45% for RCUK grants).

The scheme will be extended to EPSRC First Grant applications, and the support provided here will normally be a PhD studentship.

The PI is able to make a case to the faculty for anything that they can argue will increase the likelihood of funding, including PhD studentships, enhanced levels of match funding for equipment and business development support.

Cases where matched support from QMUL would increase the likelihood of funding should be identified during internal peer review within the School. If the DoR feels that there is a case for support, the PI should contact the RM as soon as possible, certainly at least two weeks before the grant application deadline to allow sufficient time for review.

The PI will be asked to make a case for the support (approx. 1 side A4 as a guide):

-  Details of the support requested (including details of what is requested and the costing).

-  A case for why this support will increase the likelihood of the grant being successfully funded (including the name of any colleagues who have advised on this).

-  Where the offer of matched support will be included in the grant and comments on its visibility to panel members (i.e. will this be mentioned in support letters/the body of the grant or simply a line in the budget which may not have an impact on the peer review panel).

Although additional support will likely improve the quality of the research or lead to follow-on activity, the purpose of this scheme is to increase the likelihood that large grant applications will be successful, so the case should focus on this.

The application will be approved by the DoR and assessed by the Dean for Research and Vice-Principal for Science and Engineering.

 

Research Enabling Fund

For every successful research grant, the Research Enabling Fund allocates 10% of any overhead planned to be earned within the financial year to the PI concerned.

You will be notified of the award annually and you will be given a unique budget code that you can use to charge expenses to.

 

Please note that:

-  This funding can only be used within the financial year. If a balance remains at 31st July, it does not carry over to the next year.

-  The items you spend the fund on must be as per our Financial Regulations – if you are unsure please ask the RM or FFO for advice.

-  If you believe you will not spend your total amount then please do let the RM or FFO know (preferably by the end of March at the latest) and with your permission it may be possible to reallocate part of your total.


Near Miss Scheme for Unsuccessful Grants

The School has introduced a Near Miss Scheme for unsuccessful grant applications. The scheme applies to fellowship or research grant applications providing a total income to QMUL that is costed to be above £100k. Staff whose research grant application marginally fails to be funded will be eligible for an enhanced travel budget. 

A Near Miss is defined as follows:

-          EPSRC grant proposals that are among the first to be rejected [n/2], as shown on the ranked list on Grants on the Web , where n is the number of funded proposals;

-          Fellowship proposals when the PI is invited for an interview with the funder but fails to be awarded;

-          ERC Starting and Consolidator proposals when the PI is invited for an interview in Brussels but fails to be awarded;

-          ERC Advanced proposals when the proposal scores ‘A’ at the step 2 of the evaluation (full proposal evaluation) but does not get awarded. Score ‘A’ is defined as ‘the proposal fully meets the ERC’s excellence criterion and is recommended for funding if sufficient funds are available’.

 

The DoR is responsible for interpreting the above rules and for adjudicating on cases not covered above.

The School will reward PIs meeting the above conditions with an increase in their travel budget of £500 for the next financial year.



Last modified: Friday, 1 June 2018, 3:56 PM