Jul 2014
COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
This document is a collection of funding opportunities for researchers, including information that also features in the
weekly School newsletter. It is updated monthly and available online through
http://staffnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/reso/.
RESEARCH COUNCILS ........................................................................................................................................... 3
EPSRC Funding Opportunities ........................................................................................................................... 3
International Research in Security (IRIS)................................................................................................................... 3
Contrails: finding understanding and countering crime in the cloud ....................................................................... 3
Collaborative Computational Projects: Networking and Core Support .................................................................... 3
EPSRC Fellowships ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
EPSRC First Grant ...................................................................................................................................................... 4
EPSRC Overseas Travel Grant (OTG) ......................................................................................................................... 4
BBSRC Funding Opportunities ........................................................................................................................... 4
BBSRC’s Anniversary Future Leader Fellowships ...................................................................................................... 4
BBSRC’s Anniversary David Phillips Fellowships ....................................................................................................... 4
CHARITY ORGANISATIONS.................................................................................................................................... 5
Royal Society.................................................................................................................................................... 5
International Exchanges Scheme .............................................................................................................................. 5
Brian Mercer Award for Innovation .......................................................................................................................... 5
Other Charities ................................................................................................................................................. 5
Stand Up to Cancer Fellowships................................................................................................................................ 5
LMS Computer Science Small Grants - Scheme 7 ..................................................................................................... 6
Insight informatics in health care improvement ...................................................................................................... 6
GOVERNMENT ..................................................................................................................................................... 7
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships ..................................................................................................................... 7
DSTL’s Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) ....................................................................................................... 7
CDE Innovation Network Call: Information processing and sensemaking................................................................ 7
EUROPEAN COMMISSION HORIZON 2020 ............................................................................................................. 8
European Research Council (ERC) calls .............................................................................................................. 8
Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) calls.................................................................................................... 8
FET-OPEN - Novel Ideas for Radically New Technologies ......................................................................................... 8
FET- PROACTIVE - Towards Exascale High Performance Computing ........................................................................ 9
INTERNAL .......................................................................................................................................................... 11
EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account – 7th call ....................................................................................................... 11
OTHER ............................................................................................................................................................... 11
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Please contact the research support office if you are planning to develop and write a research
proposal: researchsupportcsm@manchester.ac.uk.
There is information about support for grant writing, submission and successful examples at
http://staffnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/reso/ and through EPS. The EPS blog The Word contains
features News, Events and comment relevant to Postgraduate Researchers, Research Staff and
Supervisors or PIs.
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RESEARCH COUNCILS
EPSRC Funding Opportunities
International Research in Security (IRIS)
EPSRC is inviting proposals from UK academics for projects which will support visiting Fellows from
India, Israel or Japan to carry out cyber security research in, and build collaborative links with, the
UK.
Closing date: 28 Aug 2014
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/calls/iris/
Contrails: finding understanding and countering crime in the cloud
Working with the Metropolitan Police Service and the National Crime Agency, EPSRC and ESRC are
jointly requesting proposals for a research Centre which will improve understanding of, and
responses to, criminal activities and behaviour in the cloud.
Closing date: 4pm 16 Sept 2014
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/calls/contrails/
Collaborative Computational Projects: Networking and Core Support
This EPSRC Invitation for Collaborative Computational Projects (CCPs) aims to bring together the
major UK groups in a given field of computational research to tackle large-scale scientific software
development projects, maintenance, distribution, training and user support. The call is for existing
and new CCPs. Up to £2M funding is available for 7-10 CCPs, for up to 5 years. Research must fit
within the EPSRC remit.
Two types of support are available through this call:
 Networking and Widening Participation Activities
 Core Support (applicants MUST discuss their requirements for core support with STFC
before applying for this call)
Closing date: 4pm 07 Oct 2014
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/calls/collcompprojects/
EPSRC Fellowships
EPSRC Fellowships are available across the early and established career stages. For ICT, fellowships
are currently open to following priority areas:
 Many-Core Architectures and Concurrency in Distributed and Embedded Systems
 Towards an Intelligent Information Infrastructure (TI3)
 Photonics for Future Systems
 New and emerging areas in ICT
 Working Together
The next ICT prioritisation panel at which new fellowship proposals will be considered will be in
early December 2014. Proposals should be submitted a minimum of 4 months before the panel
meeting to allow sufficient time for processing and peer review.
No closing date for the submission of applications.
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EPSRC First Grant
The EPSRC First Grants scheme is one of the mechanisms that provide support for new academics
at the start of their careers. The grants are capped at £125,000 (calculated at 100 per cent full
economic costs - with EPSRC contributing at 80 per cent fEC) and a maximum duration of 2 years.
To be eligible for a first grant, you must have been appointed to your first academic lecturing
appointment in a UK university within the previous 36 months or still be within the probation
period associated with your new appointment. This applies to the date that EPSRC registers your
proposal, not to the date when a funding decision is made.
No closing date for the submission of applications.
EPSRC Overseas Travel Grant (OTG)
The Overseas travel grants (OTG) provide funding for international travel and subsistence. You can
use them to visit recognised centres outside the UK to study new techniques and to travel from the
UK to start or develop international collaborations. Centres to be visited may be overseas
universities or industrial organisations. In addition to travel and subsistence, the principal
investigator can request funds to cover their salary and indirect costs. Estates Costs cannot be
claimed if the period overseas exceeds six months duration. Funding is NOT available through this
scheme solely to support conference attendance. Consumables and equipment (e.g. laptops) are
not covered under this scheme.
No closing date for the submission of applications.
BBSRC Funding Opportunities
BBSRC Anniversary Future Leader Fellowships
The Future Leader Fellowship is a new programme for Early Career Researchers (incl. final yr PhD students
and PDRAs) with no more than five years’ research experience who wish to undertake independent research
and gain leadership skills. It is expected that 8-15 fellowships will be awarded for 3 years each and at a value
of up to £250k.
Closing date: 2015 tbc (26 Jun last yr)
http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/fellowships/anniversary-future-leader-fellowship.aspx
BBSRC Anniversary David Phillips Fellowships
There are up to five 5-year David Phillips Fellowships available for scientists who have demonstrated high
potential and who wish to establish themselves as independent researchers.
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Applicants should not exceed 10 years in active postgraduate research studies and postdoctoral
research employment
Applicants should have no less than 3 years of active postdoctoral research experience
Closing date: 4pm 05 Nov 2014
http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/fellowships/david-phillips.aspx
Other RCUK Funding Opportunities
Upcoming Digital Transformations Small Grants Call
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The AHRC will be launching a Digital Transformations Small Grants Call during September 2014. This call
will be for Digital Transformations relevant projects to apply for funding of up to £50k FeC. Within this call
there will be a focus on projects that demonstrate research collaborations between Arts and Humanities
disciplines. Projects will be expected to commence between April and October 2015.
Call opens: Sept 2014
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funding-Opportunities/Research-funding/Themes/DigitalTransformations/Pages/Current-Funding-Opportunities.aspx
CHARITY ORGANISATIONS
Royal Society
International Exchanges Scheme
This scheme is for scientists in the UK who want to stimulate new collaborations with leading
scientists overseas through either a one-off visit or bilateral travel. This scheme is not intended to
support continued research between a UK applicant and co-applicant who was a former colleague
or PhD student or to support other existing or recent collaborations between the applicant and coapplicant. Rather, the scheme is intended to stimulate new collaborations between scientists in the
UK and overseas.
Closing date for 2014/R2 applications:
1 July 2014
Closing date for 2014/R3 applications:
28 October 2014
Closing date for 2014 France (CNRS) cost share round:
1 July 2014
Closing date for 2014 China (NSFC) cost share round:
21 October 2014
Closing date for 2014 Ireland (RIA) cost share round:
28 October 2014
Closing date for 2014 Taiwan (NSC) cost share round:
28 October 2014
http://royalsociety.org/grants/schemes/international-exchanges/
Brian Mercer Award for Innovation
For scientists who wish to investigate the feasibility of commercialising an aspect of their research,
the Royal Society Brian Mercer Feasibility Award is available (up to £30k for up to 12 months - no
closing date).
Other Charities
Stand Up to Cancer Fellowships
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), on behalf of Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) and
Cancer Research UK, is accepting applications for SU2C-Cancer Research UK Translational Research
Fellowships that will offer up to $315,000 each in research funding.
The grants provides 4 yrs of research fellowship support (from Feb 2015) to the most talented and
promising US and UK early-career investigators (with less than 2 yrs post-doc experience), who
have completed their PhD or clinical training and demonstrate clear potential to become leaders in
their fields. Research projects must be translational in nature and address critical problems in
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cancers with the potential to deliver patient benefit.
Fellows funded through this initiative will gain translational research training in top US and UK
research institutions, allowing them to develop their own ideas and preparing them to establish
and lead their own research groups, towards becoming outstanding leaders in their own fields.
Proposals must include plans to promote new significant transatlantic collaborations and active
exchange of knowledge and expertise between the US and UK.
Applicants must identify one qualified host laboratory and mentor, both in the US and UK. The work
must be performed in two phases, one in the US and one in the UK. Mentors should be established
leaders in cancer research with a track record of success in mentoring postdoctoral or clinical
research fellows.
Closing date: 28 July 2014, noon (ET)
http://www.aacr.org/home/public--media/stand-up-to-cancer/stand-up-to-cancer-researchfunding-opportunities.aspx#cruk
LMS Computer Science Small Grants - Scheme 7
The London Mathematical Society (LMS) supports short visits for collaborative research at the
interface of Mathematics and Computer Science. Up to £500 is available either for grant holder
visits to another institution within the UK or abroad, or by a named mathematician from within the
UK or abroad to the home base of the grant holder. The applicant should be a mathematician based
in the UK and non LMS members will need to ask an LMS member to support the application.
Please note that applications will not be considered between mid-April and mid-November.
Closing date: 15 November 2014.
http://www.lms.ac.uk/grants/computer-science-small-grants-scheme-7
Insight informatics in health care improvement
The Health Foundation, an independent charity working to improve the quality of health care in the
UK, has launched its £1.6m Insight 2014 funding programme. Insight 2014 is an open call for
original research ideas on informatics in health care improvement.
Researchers are invited to submit ideas on the ways that new technologies and data will support
transformational change in health and care in the UK. Each two-year project will receive £250k500k for research completed in the following areas:
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uptake and spread: understanding and improving adoption of advanced ICTs and data
analysis in health care
informatics and integration: of data, of systems, of services
data and care quality: informatics supporting safety and efficiency
better living through information: informatics bringing people and health services together.
Closing date: 12pm 28 Jul 2014
www.health.org.uk/insight2014
IET Travel Awards
IET members can apply for travel grants. There are 12 awards of £500 each available each
year.
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Closing dates: towards the end of every other month (starting in Jan)
http://conferences.theiet.org/achievement/travel/index.cfm?origin=/travel-awards
GOVERNMENT
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) is Europe’s leading programme helping businesses to
improve their competitiveness and productivity through better use of the expertise and technology
that reside within the UK knowledge base. KTP is a UK-wide programme run and managed on
behalf of 13 government funding organisations by the Technology Strategy Board. Each Partnership
is part funded by the government with the balance of the project costs coming from the company
partner.
Each Partnership employs one or more high-calibre associates (recent graduates) for a project
lasting six months to three years, transferring and embedding new knowledge and skills that the
company is seeking into the business. The associate manages and delivers the project. Associates
are jointly supervised by a senior member of the business and an academic or technical specialist
from the knowledge base partner.
The University of Manchester is a participant KTP knowledge base and through contact with a range
of organisations, we better understand their challenges, business requirements and operations. If
you have a project that you think may be suitable for KTP, please contact University’s Knowledge
Exchange team for more information and advice. (ke@manchester.ac.uk)
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships have a two-stage application process involving submission of an
Expression of Interest and then followed by full application.
There is an open deadline for the submission of your expression of interest.
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/business/ke/ktp/
DSTL’s Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE)
CDE Innovation Network Call: Information processing and sensemaking
Good for Text Mining and MLO…This CDE themed competition is looking for solutions to the
challenges arising from the future intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) environment.
Traditional, well-modelled, structured information sources are supported by a growing amount of
unstructured, less well-defined sources. The addition of non-traditional data sources, which have
different error variables and scales, creates the following challenges in sensemaking:
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data association and correlation of both unstructured and structured data
uncertainty propagation and management across multiple data representations
automated hypothesis generation
automated learning to understand complex relationships
autonomous model generation
techniques that cope with large-scale data.
Current government information processing and sensemaking is a human-intensive process with a
high cognitive burden. This process does not easily scale. Through this CDE themed competition, we
are seeking projects to demonstrate solutions as prototype software. They must be designed, from
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the outset, to cope with large-scale data and must run at near-operational speeds.
Dstl owns or has access to a number of computer environments that process operationally relevant
data. We aim to use the solutions developed through this competition on these environments to
allow rapid pull-through into operational use. Deliverables must include executable source code,
ideally as components in open-source frameworks, e.g. Ozone Widget Framework, so they can
rapidly be evaluated.
Dstl will provide successful bidders with access to a large-scale data set for testing solutions and
provide a licence to an integrated analytical toolkit for network and geospatial analysis.
We are seeking projects of technology readiness level (TRL) 3-5 for 12-month duration. Solutions
will be expected to be developed to a maturity that will allow them to take part in a live
information processing experiment in September 2015.
This competition will launch at the CDE Innovation Network event on Thursday 22 May 2014
(London). Registration required .
Closing date: 5pm 26 June 2014
http://www.science.mod.uk/events/event_detail.aspx?eventid=318
EUROPEAN COMMISSION HORIZON 2020
The two year work programmes detailing the specific areas that will be funded by Horizon 2020 can
be found online at the Participant Portal, which is also the entry point for electronic administration
of all EU-funded research and innovation projects and hosts the services for managing proposals
and projects throughout their lifecycle. If you are interested in learning more about Horizon 2020
funding opportunities, then visit European Commission’s Participant Portal at
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/home.html.
European Research Council (ERC) calls
The European Research Council (ERC) funding schemes are open to top researchers of any
nationality or age who wish to carry out their frontier research in the 28 EU Member States or
associated countries. There are three ERC core funding schemes and two additional schemes.
The deadlines for these ERC calls are as below:
Starting Grants:
03 Feb 2015
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/erc-2014-stg.html
Consolidator Grants:
12 Mar 2015
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/erc-2014-cog.html
Advanced Grants:
Proof of Concept:
21 October 2014
01-Apr-2014 and 01-Oct-2014
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/erc-2014-poc.html
Synergy Grants:
no call in 2014
http://erc.europa.eu/funding-schemes
Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) calls
FET-OPEN - Novel Ideas for Radically New Technologies
The challenge is to make Europe the best place in the world for collaborative research on future
and emerging technologies that will renew the basis for future European competitiveness and
growth, and that will make a difference for society in the decades to come.
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Proposals shall address one of the following topics:
1. FET Observatory: identifying new opportunities and directions for interdisciplinary research
towards new and visionary technology of any kind, combining evidence from FET.
2. FET Communication: collecting, aggregating and disseminating information from the entire range
of FET projects and activities, and using an appropriate mix of channels and formats.
3. FET Exchange: structuring an emerging FET-relevant topic and the interdisciplinary communities
around it.
4. FET Conference: supporting the organisation of the third European Future Technologies
Conference and Exhibition
5. FET Prizes: Identifying suitable areas in which prizes and competitions can boost FET research
and increase its impact.
6. FET Impact: Assessing the direct and indirect impacts of the FET programme on the science and
technology landscape and its perception by individuals and society.
Further information about the call available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020-fetopen-2014-2015-2.html
Closing date for applications: 30-September-2014, 5:00pm (Brussels local time)
FET- PROACTIVE - Towards Exascale High Performance Computing
This call includes two topics:
1. FETHPC-2-2014: HPC Ecosystem Development.
2. FET FETHPC-1-2014: HPC Core Technologies, Programming Environments and Algorithms for
Extreme Parallelism and Extreme Data Applications.
Further information about the call available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020-fethpc-2014.html#tab1
Closing date for applications: 25-November-2014, 5:00pm (Brussels local time)
Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MCSA) calls
Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MCSA) Individual Fellowships (IF-EF/GF)
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF) aim at enhancing the creative and innovative
potential of newer researchers who wish to diversify their individual competence in terms of skill
acquisition through advanced training, international and inter-sectoral mobility. Individual
Fellowships thus provide opportunities to acquire and transfer new knowledge and to work on
research in a European context (EU Member States and Associated Countries) or outside Europe.
Individual, trans-national fellowships awarded to the best or most promising researchers for
employment in EU Member States or Associated Countries, based on an application made jointly by
the researcher and host organisation in the academic or non-academic sectors. Individual
Fellowships (IF) comprise of either European Fellowships (EF) or Global Fellowships (GF). European
Fellowships are held in EU Member States or Associated Countries and are open to researchers
currently within and outside Europe. The country where the European Fellowship is held is subject
to the rules of mobility. Global Fellowships are based on a secondment to a third country and a
mandatory 12 month return period to a European host.
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Expected impact of Individual Fellowships:
Development of the best and most promising researchers active in Europe, in order to
enhance/maximise their contribution to knowledge-based economy/society.
Strengthen the contact network of both the researcher and the host organisation.
Contribute to realising the full potential of researchers and to catalysing significant development in
their careers in both the academic and non-academic sectors.
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Eligibility:
Must be an Experienced Researcher: at the deadline for the submission of proposals, have a
doctoral degree or at least 4 years of full-time equivalent research experience
The researcher may be of any nationality for European Fellowships; whereas the researcher must
be national or long-term resident of a MS or AC to be eligible for Global Fellowships
The researcher must move or have moved (transnational mobility) from any country to the MS or
AC where the beneficiary is located.
The researcher must not have resided or carried out the main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the
country of the host organisation for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the
deadline for submission of proposals.
Value and Duration:
The EC contribution on a 2 year IF to UK is currently €183k and increasing to €195k for an
experienced researcher with family.
Financial support is provided for a period of 12-24 months (full-time equivalent).
For Global Fellowship there is a first outgoing phase between 12 and 24 months, and an additional
mandatory 12 months return phase, so the total duration is between 24-36 months
Closing date for applications: 11-Sep-2014 17:00:00 (Brussels local time)
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020msca-if-2014.html
H2020 Societal Challenges
Personalising Health and Care
The Horizon 2020 societal challenge of ‘health, demographic change and wellbeing’ (SC1) for the
years 2014 and 2015 includes 34 topics in the ‘personalising health and care’ focus area call.
The personalising health and care call aims to create opportunities for real breakthrough research
and radical innovation in response to these challenges, by supporting the translation of findings
into the clinic and other health and care settings to improve health outcomes, reduce health
inequalities and to promote active and healthy ageing.
Topics in the call are divided into 7 areas which reflect the need for a translational and integrated
approach to the challenge, providing support both to longer and mid-term research as well as to
shorter term innovation activities. Topics in the areas of ‘understanding health…’ and ‘improved
health information and data exploitation’ provide underpinning, longer term support to topics in
the areas of ‘prevention…’, ‘diagnosis…’, ‘treatment..’, ‘advancing active and healthy ageing’ and
‘delivering integrated, sustainable and citizen centred care’.
Topics for the two-stage call include:
 PHC-04: Health promotion and disease prevention: improved inter-sector co-operation for
environment and health based interventions
 PHC-16: Tools and technologies for advanced therapies
 PHC-22: Promoting mental wellbeing in the ageing population
 PHC-24: Piloting personalised medicine in health and care systems
 PHC-11: Development of new diagnostic tools and technologies: in vivo medical imaging
technologies
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Closing date stage 1: 14-Oct-2014 17:00 (Brussels local time)
Closing date stage 2: 24-Feb-2014 17:00 (Brussels local time)
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/calls/h2020phc-2015-two-stage.html#tab1
INTERNAL
EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account – 7th call
The 7th IAA call for proposals is expected in the autumn. Funding is for research based on EPSRC
funded research:
 Relationship Incubation (up to £10k available) Engaging with businesses and business communities
to sow the seeds of new collaboration and enhance strategic engagement
 Concept Development and Feasibility Studies (up to £30k available) Support for the very early
stages of transforming research outputs into commercial opportunities
 Exploitation Secondments (up to £60k available) Flexible support for secondments between The
University of Manchester and businesses and other organisations
Closing date: 12 pm 2 Jul 2014
http://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/news/display/?id=12071
OTHER
Toshiba Fellowship Programme
The Toshiba Fellowship is an excellent opportunity for post-doctoral researchers to gain a rare
experience of working in a leading technology company’s R&D labs in Japan for 1 yr initially,
allowing them to conduct new research within their field and learn about key R&D techniques, as
well as about different country and workplace cultures. Note you must register your interest in
good time to receive the paper applications.
Closing date: 2015 tbc (06 Dec last yr)
http://www.toshiba.eu/eu/Toshiba-Fellowship-Programme/
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