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You can find internal research funding opportunities on this webpage.

Strategic research support programme

Our Small Grants Scheme for Early Career Researchers fund is one of the University’s most popular internal grant schemes, with applications invited from our ECR community for funding of up to £5,000 per project. We particularly invite proposals that:

  • Involve interdisciplinary collaboration between ECR staff in different Faculties and Institutes.
  • Pilot study research with the aim to build on this for future research projects.
  • Further development on an existing funded research project.
  • Aim to embed Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) within the research design.
  • Aim to achieve research impact (through scholarly output, public engagement, influence on policy or similar).

Applicants need to meet the eligibility criteria, including the definition of an Early Career Researcher:

  • The Research Impact and Engagement fund of up to £5,000 is available per project aims to ensure that the ‘real world’ impact potential of the University’s research is fully optimised, and that our research impact is robustly evidenced. All proposals must demonstrate how the planned engagement and impact activities link to existing or ongoing research produced by staff at UON. This could be research produced recently with the impact in the early stage of development or to enhance the impact of an existing research project.
  • The Public and Community Engagement & Participatory Research grants fund of up to £6,000 is available per project will support a wide range of projects. These projects might involve outreach work, patient-involvement, collaborative research, citizen science, participatory arts, lifelong learning, community engagement, and engagement with partners. In addition, the fund can support projects that focus on community-based learning and widening participation. Our overall aim is to support projects that better connect the research and work of the University with our communities.

Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise Support programme

This programme of funding seeks to support the development of knowledge exchange and enterprise across the institution, and to build capability to work with research users, policy makers and communities to bring about meaningful change in society.

The funding can be used to build on new activity or ones already underway; for new strands of activity related to existing research and projects, exploring innovative ways of working, and to build capacity for future activity. The following 5 categories of funding are available:

  • KE Voucher (up to 8k): This can be used to cover academic time and to access an intern to develop a project. The intern/placement is a student role. The £8.0k is the total allocation for the KE activity for the company. The companies will be SME’s, based in Northamptonshire and employ around 50 employees.
  • Enterprise (£7K): Support the development of enterprise ideas, students, and staff within the University, are invited to transform their idea into a business up to the value of £7k.
  • Innovation and Commercialisation (£15K): Exploring commercialisation as a pathway to impact. Establishing new paths to achieving research impact through its adoption on a commercially sustainable basis. Work with internal experts and external partners to develop novel products and services that maximise the adoption of your innovation in the most economically sustainable way.
  • Problem Solving (£3K): We are looking for innovative ideas that address real-world problems that exist in industrial, commercial, and social sectors. This includes private, public, and third sectors. This seed funding is for feasibility, proof of concept, and pump-priming for further funding and project growth.
  • Infrastructure: One-off cost for software/staff capacity building, for KE, e.g., formal training, mentoring, sharing best practice and engagement in relevant networks and communities.

To gain access to the funding call, use your usual staff University login details and then click on Sign in via your institution (University of Northampton).