Funding mechanisms

The ESRC IAA has a number of funding mechanisms to support colleagues in KE and impact generating activities, including support for events and engagement sessions, as well as funding for short projects and KE partnerships. The individual mechanisms are outlined below:

‘Flexible Impact and KE Engagement Fund’ can support early-stage engagements with multiple stakeholder groups, including private, public and third sector organisations, and community groups.  The activities supported should aim to develop future, deeper engagements with these stakeholders, build trust, and highlight how innovation and knowledge could be of benefit, taking their individual needs into consideration.

‘KE Partnerships’ can support the secondment of Strathclyde personnel into a partner organisation, which could include private, public and third sector organisations, and community groups. Support can also be provided for the secondment of partner organisation personnel into Strathclyde, as well as a hybrid of the inward-outward-secondment model. KE Partnerships aim to develop a deeper, strategic relationship with our partners and users of our research, to stimulate knowledge and innovation adoption by non-academic beneficiaries.

‘Bridging the Gaps (BTG) Fund’ can support new, long-term collaborations across disciplines and across career stages. The fund aims to alleviate the barriers to collaborative, inclusive impact and innovation projects, and stimulate innovative approaches to collaboration. This mechanism will fund cross-disciplinary and diverse research teams (for example engaging underrepresented groups), to work together on a societal challenge and/or other relevant knowledge exchange and impact development projects. There will be a particular focus on equality, diversity and inclusion, and responsible innovation. 

‘Events and Engagement Fund’ can support events, workshops and other engagement sessions, including, though not limited to:

‘Knowledge into Practice’ events to support direct engagement with decision makers, research users and stakeholders across sectors, applying evidence produced through research. These events will create opportunities to bring diverse stakeholders (communities, researchers, policymakers, industry) together to explore how evidence across disciplines can be shared and applied to pressing policy challenges.

‘Living Labs’ to co-design interdisciplinary, innovative projects that can respond to collaboratively identified challenges and future concerns to improve societal outcomes.

‘Open Innovation Pop-ups’ for ad hoc encounters between business, public and third sector organisations, user and community stakeholders, and Strathclyde researchers. This activity seeks to open the innovation process to the participation of different communities and groups. These could be located on the Strathclyde campus or within communities, for example, in a shopping centre, museum or hospital.

Further information on how to apply, including the application forms can be found on the staff portal.