Image by Prof Helene Burningham

UCL Fellowship Incubator Awards

APPLICATION NOW CLOSED

As part of UCL’s commitment to building a healthier, more inclusive and sustainable research culture, we are pleased to invite applications from UCL Early Career Researchers for the UCL Fellowship Incubator Awards.

Applicants can apply for up to £2,000 in funding. We expect to fund up to 30 projects.

The aim of this award is to enable research-related activities that will improve the applicant’s academic CV in some way. In keeping with the Researcher Development Concordat, researchers should be allowed independent professional development time within their substantive contracts; at UCL, we have recognised the need to also resource this time with funding. We hope these awards support our ECRs to have an opportunity to follow a range of careers, both within and beyond ‘the academy’.

Eligibility

Primary applicants must be:

  • An early career member of teaching or research UCL staff (Grades 7-8).

Secondary applicants are optional and can be:

  • An early career member of teaching or research UCL staff (Grades 6-8).
  • A research student, i.e. MRes, PhD, Professional Doctorate.

N.B. If you were awarded funding through this scheme last year, your application this round will be deprioritised. Please include reasoning why you are applying again in the ‘other information’ box.

Funding scope

The aim of this funding is to enable research-related activities that will improve the applicant’s academic CV in some way – for example, by supporting work that leads to a publication, or helps with a Fellowship/ other funding application.

The application should demonstrate:

  • Value for money
  • How the funding will lead to new projects/ Fellowship applications
  • The potential impact of the project for the applicant and for UCL.

Eligible Costs

The proposed costs should be appropriate for the proposed plan of work and justified within the application. These include:

  • Consumables: any materials needed to support a research project or related activity.
  • Staff time: Unitemps or a similar payment structure may be used to support a research assistant or other support time for research or knowledge exchange. The applicants’ own salary/stipend cannot be supported.
  • Other: We are willing to consider other costs not mentioned here if ample justification is given.

Indirect costs are ineligible.

Please note there is a separate strand of seed funding run by Innovation & Enterprise to support Knowledge Exchange / Innovation activity.

All funds should be spent by 1st July 2023; however, funds will be transferred to departments and spent locally wherever possible, so the budgeting and expenditure deadline responsibilities will transfer to the department. Any flexibility regarding expenditure deadline would therefore need to be discussed with your departmental administrators.

In addition, we recognise that activities may continue well beyond this date, for instance if data collection is ongoing, or if stakeholder engagement meetings have been scheduled for later in the year. Successful applicants will therefore be asked to provide brief (<500 words) progress reports at two timepoints (see below, ‘Reporting on outcomes’).

How to apply

To apply, applicants must complete the online application form by no later than 10am (GMT) on Tuesday, 7th March, 2023. We have tried to make the application process as simple as possible. Along with some personal details, you will be required to:

We have tried to make the application process as simple as possible. Along with some personal details, you will be required to:

  1. Provide a link to your UCL IRIS profile (N.B. we are using this in place of a CV so please ensure your profile is up-to-date; more info on how to update IRIS is available online).
  2. Give a brief (up to 500 words) project proposal summarising how you will use the funding if successful.
  3. Give a brief description (up to 300 words) of how the project will provide a development opportunity for you.
  4. Add a brief justification, and breakdown of how and when the funds will be used.

Incomplete applications or those which do not follow the guidance provided will not be considered.

Reporting on outcomes

A condition of the awards is that successful applicants will commit to giving two short (max 500 words) progress reports on their project and its impact at two timepoints

  • 31st July 2023: initial impact report
  • 31st July 2024: any longer-term impacts (this is to capture things like fellowships awarded or longer term career goals achieved)

Important dates

  • Deadline for applications: 10am GMT, 7th March, 2023
  • Applicants informed of outcome: early April 2023 (aiming for pre-Easter break)
  • Date awarded funds should be spent by: 1st July 2023*
  • Progress report 1 deadline: 31st July 2023
  • Progress report 3 deadline: 31st July 2024

*This is to allow departments to ensure the funds are spent before the end of the financial year; however, the funds will be available until 31 July – it is up to departments to manage funds and ensure they are spent correctly and in a timely fashion.

Any questions?

If your questions are not answered above, please contact docschool@ucl.ac.uk and the Doctoral School or Research Culture teams will get back to you.


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Image at the top: Prof Helene Burningham, Department of Geography, UCL Research Images Competition 2018