Funding Deadlines

Research & Public Policy Partnership Scheme 2020

In collaboration with the UK Civil Service Policy Profession, the University is offering awards of up to £2,500 to enable researchers and policymakers to share evidence, experience, and expertise for mutual benefit. Partners may use this new opportunity to enhance relevant skills, build professional networks, and initiate or extend collaboration into co-production of outputs.

For more information please visit University of Oxford website

Nuffield Foundation Strategic Fund

The Nuffield Foundation announced a new £15M strategic fund for ambitious, interdisciplinary research projects that will address some of the most important challenges facing UK society and the public policy agenda in the next decade. Applications in the range of £1-3M are particularly encouraged.

 For more information visit Nuffield Foundation website

Strategic Research Fund

This new fund is intended to support research programmes which are transformative, have potential to be sustainable over the long term using external funds, and so include a succession plan with opportunities for early and mid-career researchers. It is likely to be multi/inter-disciplinary although not necessarily so, and therefore requires collaboration across the division and/ or beyond.

The SRF Board invites the submission of expressions of interest (EoIs) for potential investment cases. All EoIs must be submitted by an academic division. All applicants considering submitting an EoI must contact the relevant divisional office to discuss the proposal in the first instance. Divisions will advise on timescales and divisional process and will support the development of EoIs in consultation with the Strategic Research Development Team in Research Services.

Please consult Research Support website before applying.

ESRC Impact Acceleration Account

The IAA provides flexible funding options for a wide range of Knowledge Exchange (KE) activities. Offering £2,500 to £25,000 for academic-led impact and knowledge exchange projects, these awards support engagement with all sectors, activities at every stage of development, and researchers at any point in their career.
Available schemes are: Knowledge Exchange Dialogues (up to £2,5K), Kick-starting Impact Awards (up to £7.5K), Impact Acceleration Awards (up to £25K) and Top-up Awards (up to £10K).

For more information please visit the SSD website.

Open Society Foundations: Open Society initiative for Eastern Africa

OSIEA plays an active role in encouraging open, informed dialogue on issues of importance in Eastern Africa. Through a combination of grant making, advocacy and convening power, OSIEA is able to support and amplify the voices of pro-democracy organizations and individuals in the region and to strengthen their capacity to hold their governments accountable. This includes efforts to defend and support rights activists and pro-democracy advocates who come under attack for their work.

OSIEA covers 100% of direct project costs, but does not fund travel to attend conferences, seminars or workshops.

For more information please visit Open Society Foundations website

AHRC - Research networking

This encourages discussion and exchange of ideas on a specified thematic area, issue or problem through facilitating a short-term series of workshops, seminars, networking activities or other events between researchers and stakeholders.

It must involve collaboration with at least one other organisation. Grants are worth up to £45,000 each over two years. £30,000 of the funding is for UK participants and £15,000 for any international participants.

For more information please visit the AHRC website

AHRC: Follow-on funding for impact and engagement scheme

These support innovative and creative engagements with new audiences and user communities that stimulate pathways to impact within the area of arts and humanities. Grants are worth up to £100,000 over a maximum period of one year.

Smaller grants of up to £30,000 may be awarded for shorter or higher risk activities, for example testing the feasibility of an idea, exploring new partnerships for knowledge exchange, testing the market or investigating a new business model. Decision making times are reduced for these smaller awards.

For more information please see the AHRC website

The British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship

This scheme provides funding to cover the costs of a 36 month fellowship at a host institution of your choosing. The purpose of this award is to enable the award holder to pursue an independent research project, towards the completion of a significant piece of publishable research.
 
Eligibility 
 
- Applicants must be supported by the UK host institution in which they wish to hold the Fellowship.
- Applicants must be within three years of the award of a doctorate.
- Applicants must be either a UK/EEA national, or have completed a doctorate at a UK university. Applicants who do not fall into one of these categories must demonstrate a 'strong prior association' with the UK academic community. This is typically gained through having been employed in a temporary capacity at a UK university for at least 12 months.

Awards support the salary of the Postdoctoral Fellow to work full-time on the Fellowship, small-scale research expenses (up to a maximum of £6,000), costs towards the time of a mentor (equivalent to one hour per month for the 36 months of the Fellowship) and the host institution's estates and indirect costs.
 
More information can be found on the website.
 
Please consult Postdoctoral Fellowhips webpage before applying.

Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships

The scheme is open to early career researchers, with a research record but who have not yet held a full-time permanent academic post, to undertake a significant piece of publishable work.

The Trust will contribute 50% of each Fellow's total salary costs up to a max of £25,000 per year and the balance is to be paid by the host institution. Each Fellow may request annual research expenses of up to £6,000 per year to further his or her research activities.

Fellowships are tenable for 3 years on a full-time basis. Fellowship must commence between 1 September 2020 and 1 May 2021.

More information about the Fellowship can be found here

Please consult Postdoctoral Fellowships webpage before applying.

KE Seed Fund

This fund provides support for early-stage innovative knowledge exchange ideas. It can also add onto existing projects, to build or develop new KE around current activities, and support documenting case studies. Typically £2,000 to £4,000 per project available.

Applications are welcome at any time.  There are also two “gathered field” Deadlines by which applications will be considered (reviewed and decided) together, and potentially in competition.  Applications received within 3 weeks before a Deadline will be reviewed as part of that “gathered field”.  

More information available on the website

ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowships

The ESRC has issued a call for its the Postdoctoral Fellowship scheme, run through Doctoral Training Partnerships and Centres for Doctoral Training.

The objective of this call is to provide support to those who are within 12 months of completing their PhD, to support them in consolidating their PhD, and preparing them for the next stage of their research careers.
Fellowships are held for one year and are due to start on 1 October 2020.

The total cost for each fellowship can include the following:
• Fellow’s salary costs
• Indirect costs
• Estate costs
• Up to £10,000 of other costs (to include costs such as mentoring costs, travel and subsistence, conference attendance, training, and fieldwork

More information about the Fellowship can be found here

Please consult Postdoctoral Fellowhips webpage before applying.

John Fell Fund

The John Fell OUP Research Fund is open to both academic and service units. All subject areas are encouraged to apply, and interdisciplinary and/or interdivisional projects are especially welcome.

Main awards

For main award applications (more than £7,500), you must hold a post that includes responsibility for developing your own research agenda. If you do not hold an academic post, but the department would support a research application to an external body in your name as principal investigator, then you will normally be eligible to apply.

Small awards

For small award applications (up to £7,500), the same rules apply as for main awards, except that the committee will also consider applications from an early career researcher employed by the collegiate University who aspires to an academic post or fellowship, but does not yet hold such a post, provided that the applicant has the support of their line manager.

For further information and detail regarding applications, please see the funder's website.

ESRC New Investigator Grants

New Investigator Grants form one element of our support for early career researchers and the scheme is specifically aimed at supporting those looking to make the transition to an independent researcher through managing their first major research project.

Grants ranging from £100,000 to £300,000 full Economic Cost (fEC) can be awarded.

Proposals are welcomed across the full disciplinary range of the social sciences and at the interface with the wider sciences, however the social sciences must represent at least 50 per cent of the research focus and effort.

For further information, please consult the funders website.

Please consult Postdoctoral Fellowhips webpage before applying.