Knowledge Exchange funding opportunities
There are a number of eternal and internal schemes available to help fund your Knowledge Exchange activities:
University of Glasgow Funding
Sustainable Glasgow - Call for Proposals. Funding available for projects that have potential to make significant contributions to the city's sustainable vision. Full details >>
Glasgow Knowledge Exchange Fund - the University has established a new KE / Impact investment fund to ensure that appropriate pathways to impact are developed and that organisations / individuals capable of influencing and creating impact from new knowledge are properly supported to do so.
First Step Awards:The First Step Awards are brought to you by the the Encompass team at the University of Glasgow. In order to stimulate academic and industrial engagement, financial support of up to £5,000 per project is available for small projects between the University and Scottish SMEs.
Research Council Funding
Industrial Partnership Awards: This scheme provides science-led, responsive mode grants where an industrial partner contributes in cash at least 10% of the full economic cost of the project and BBSRC funds the remainder of the grant at 80% full economic cost. The company partner should be registered in the UK or have a UK manufacturing or R&D site.
Enterprise Fellowships: Enterprise Fellowships are funded by the BBSRC and delivered by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, with the intention of enabling researchers to focus on commercialising research that has been largely funded by the BBSRC. The funding provides for business training to help the development of a business plan, a year's salary and access to mentors, business experts and professional advisors.
Follow-on Funding Pathfinder Scheme: The Follow-on Funding Pathfinder Scheme provides funding of £7k to £10k for projects up to 6 months duration with the intention of carrying out preliminary commercial activities.
Follow-on Fund: This funding scheme supports proof of concept at the early stage of commercialisation. Grants are typically £80k to £150k over 12 months.
MRC
Discipline Hopping Grants (with BBSRC, EPSRC, NERC and STFC): Discipline Hopping grants enable established engineers or physical scientists to work in biological, clinical or population health research. Alternatively, established life scientists can apply for funding to work with physical scientists or engineers. The grants provide around £100k funding for projects with a duration of 3 months to 1 year.
STFC
IPS Awards: This scheme supports the flow of technology from STFC-funded research to industry or academics in other disciplines towards commercialisation. Projects of up to 36 months are funded up to £150k per annum.
Mini-PIPSS: Mini-PIPSS follow the same format as the PIPSS Awards but are focused on smaller projects. Funding of up to £150k is provided for projects up to 12 months.
IPS Fellowships: The PIPSS Fellowships provide an opportunity to spend up to 4 years focused on transferring technologies developed by STFC-funded research to industry and other academic disciplines. These Fellowships are expected to be a collaboration between funding and non-funding partners, where STFC provides up to 50% of the total cost.
Joint Grant Scheme: The Joint Grant Scheme is a partnership between the STFC and the Ministry of Defence's Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (Dstl) developed to identify areas of mutual interest and to foster collaboration on research into technology in these areas. Applicatns must have a technical sponsor from the MoD, Dstl, Met Office or AWE. Grants are normally 50% of the total cost for proposals up to £500k.
Government Funding
Innovation Vouchers: Scottish universities can now apply for up to £15k. This funding can be used to offset the costs for a wide range of activities to support SMEs in the development of new products and processes, new services, improving production processes, and experimental testing and measuring. If you are interested in more information regarding the Innovation Voucher scheme, please contact Stephen Marshall.
Proof of Concept: The Proof of Concept (POC) programme supports the pre-commercialisation of leading-edge technologies emerging from Scotland's universities, research institutes and NHS Boards. Funding is provided for a maximum of 6 months with Scottish Enterprise paying 100% of eligible project costs. If you are interested in POC Funding please contact Mel Anderson.
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs): KTPs enable businesses to work together with the University on a specific project, bringing knowledge and expertise into your organisation to help solve important technical or business problems. The University employs a KTP Associate, who is a recently qualified graduate or technician, to work within your business to manage the project, apply their own knowledge, and ensure that University expertise is available to your business. For more information, please see our KTP Partner Portfolio.
SMART:Scotland: This scheme provides financial assistance to SMEs to help support projects that represent a significant technological advance for the UK sector or industry concerned, which can include working with the HEI sector. Funding includes support for Feasibility Studies, which run from 6 to 18 months with a maximum grant of £70k, and Research and Development Projects, which run from 6 to 36 months with a maximum grant of £600k.
Technology Strategy Board: The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) promotes innovation and exists to help connect and catalyse. Much of the TSB's work is in spreading knowledge, understanding policy, spotting opportunities and bringing people together to solve problems or make new advances. They also invest in and manage a range of delivery mechanisms and programmes to drive technology-enabled innovation.
European Funding
Seventh EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) : The European Union's main instrument for funding research, FP7 will run until 2013 and has a total budget of over €50 billion. Please see our internal FP7 site for more information on applying.