Supporting an Essential Platform for the Knowledge Base
David Harman
THE WHOLE EPSRC PICTURE
Values are commitment 2008-11
ENERGY£220M
DIGITAL ECONOMY£103M
NANOSCIENCE THROUGH ENGINEERING£39M
TOWARDS NEXT GENERATIONHEALTHCARE£36M
ESSENTIAL PLATFORM(Research)
£866M
OTHER CROSS COUNCILTHEMES*£26M
SECURING THE FUTURE SUPPLY OF PEOPLE(Training)£592M
TOWARDS BETTER EXPLOITATION(Knowledge Transfer)£482M
*Living with environmental change (£9M)Global threats to security (£6M)Ageing: life-long health and wellbeing (£11M)
PROGRAMMESTRUCTURE
RESEARCH BASE
Public Engagement
Physical Sciences
Materials, Mechanical & Medical Engineering
Process, Environment & Sustainability
Cross-Disciplinary Interfaces
Research Infrastructure & International
Information & Communications
Technology
Mathematical Sciences
Programmes
David Harman
Philippa Hemmings
Annette Bramley
Kedar Pandya
David Harman
Neil Viner
Jane Nicholson
Peter Hedges
What………….is the Essential Platform
› The Essential platform theme is the provision for a core of high quality research across the breadth of the physical sciences and engineering - its about keeping the UK’s knowledge up to date to be ready for current and emerging challenges
Why……………..the Essential platform
› Future health of the UK research base will need research from across all physical sciences and engineering
› Physical sciences and engineering developments contribute not only to the progression of themselves but also are significant contributors to opportunities in other areas
What are the aims ……..to develop a portfolio of activity that is based around
› Investigator led research agendas
› Ambitious, internationally leading research
› Enabling Transformative research – creating space for testing out radical ideas and approaches,
› Encouraging longer term thinking for groups who are contributing at the leading edge
› Encouraging user collaboration where appropriate
How will we support these aims…..…….. By providing funding for
the responsive mode – the space for researcher led ideas
Signposting of emerging areas – encouraging activity in new or important topics
Platform and Programme grants – From April 2008 will be available across the whole portfolio
Researcher leaders of the future through first grants and Challenging Engineering
Helping to stimulate community/researcher led grand challenges
The Responsive mode
› The space for researcher led ideas
Apply anytime Proposals can be from 1 month to 48
months Proposals can included industrial
partners, cross disciplinary activities, funding for international visitors
Main assessment criterion is quality of research
Signposting of emerging areas – What it is…
› Aim is to encourage activity in new or important topics
› Signposting enables the introduction of an element of strategy into responsive mode
Signposting – why ?
To correct an in-balance in the responsive mode portfolio
To generate “the right” proposals in priority or deficient areas, without ring fencing a budget
To encourage the community to change direction
To ‘aid’ certain areas without having a managed call
Signposting – the how
› A signposted area would be identified and communicated to the research community.
› In a similar way to first grants, signposted proposals would be ranked separately in competition with each other, with no requirement to fund any. Quality would be maintained with tensioning against the main responsive mode list
› The area would be signposted for at least 24 months
Encouraging longer term thinking….
› Platform and Programme grants – From April 2008 will be available across the whole portfolio
What is a Platform Grant ?
› Provides leading groups with a base line of support giving the stability and flexibility to permit longer term research and take a strategic view of research
› Award can be up to five years
› Should be staff centric – in the range of 140-180 staff months
› Can include a travel element to enhance international links
Programme Grants
› Support a suite of related research activities
focussing on 1 strategic theme (expectation these will be
primarily multidisciplinary)
› Need to demonstrate Strategic leadership and vision Effective management Added synergy
› Up to 6 years funding
› Tensioned with responsive mode
› No right to follow-on funding
Support researcher leaders of the future
› First grant scheme available – apply at any time within first two years of first appointment as lecturer
› No longer a financial limit on what can be requested
› Challenging Engineering is specifically focused on providing funding and developmental support for engineering researchers at an early stage of their careers.
Headlines
the responsive mode – the space for research led ideas
Signposting of emerging areas – encouraging activity in new or important topics
Platform and Programme grants – From April 2008 will be available across the whole portfolio
Researcher leaders of the future through first grants and Challenging Engineering
Helping to stimulate community/researcher led grand challenges
In Conclusion…
› For the next three years there is space for all scales of activity within essential platform…
› But encouragement to think Longer term Innovatively Collaboratively
Planned Commitment for the Essential Plartform Theme
Researcher led responsive mode40%
Encouraging longer term thinking
34%
Signposting10%
Research leaders of the future10%
Stimluating community led grand challenges
3%
Contribution to cross council themes
3%
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