Funding news
RCUK announces block grants for universities to aid drives to open access to research outputs
Research Councils UK (RCUK) announced on 8 November the details of the block grant funding mechanism that it is introducing to aid implementation of its policy on Open Access that was announced in July and is due to come into effect in April 2013.
Please visit the RCUK web pages for further information.
Research Support Hub
The Research Support Hub is a combined initiative from the Graduate School, the Research and Strategic Bidding Office and Library and Learning Services at The University of Northampton.
It aims to be a one-stop-shop for researchers – a place to come for the latest research news, funding opportunities, forthcoming events and research support.
You can follow the Research Support Hub by visiting the website at http://researchsupporthub.wordpress.com/ or following its RSS feed.
New Calls for Proposals Launched under Framework Programme 7
The European Commission has issued 52 Calls for Proposals and two prizes under the 2012 and 2013 work programmes of Framework Programme Seven (FP7). The Calls span all four specific programmes as follows:
Ideas
- ERC Starting Grant
- ERC Advanced Grant
People
- Marie Curie Initial Training Networks
- Marie Curie Co-funding of Regional, National and International Programmes
- Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme
Capacities
- Research Infrastructures
- Research for the benefit of SMEs
- Science in Society
- Coherent Development of Research Policies - including the Prize for Women Innovators 2014 and the European Prize for Innovation in Public Administration
- Activities of International Cooperation
Cooperation
Calls have been launched under the following themes:
- Health
- Food, Agriculture and Fisheries and Biotechnology
- Information and Communication Technologies
- Nonsciences, Nontechnologies, Materials and new Production Technologies
- Energy
- Environment (including Climate Change)
- Transport
- Socio-Economic Sciences and the Humanities
- Space
- Security
There are also a number of Cooperation Cross-thematic Calls, including:
- NMP - Nanoscience, Nanotechnologies, Materials and New production Technologies - Coordinated call EU - Japan 2013
- NMP - Nanoscience, Nanotehcnologies, Materials and New production Technologies - CSAs 2013
- Smart Cities and Communities 2013
- ERA-NET Call 2013
- The Ocean of Tomorrow 2013
Full information, including an information package for each Call, is available from the Participant Portal website.
RCUK announces new Open Access policy
Research Councils UK (RCUK) unveiled its new Open Access policy on 16 July 2012. Informed by the work of the National Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings, chaired by Professor Dame Janet Finch, the policy at once harmonises and makes significant changes to existing Research Councils’ Open Access policies.
The new policy, which will apply to all qualifying publications being submitted for publication from 1 April 2013, states that peer reviewed research papers which result from research that is wholly or partially funded by the Research Councils:
- must be published in journals which are compliant with Research Council policy on Open Access, and;
- must include details of the funding that supported the research, and a statement on how the underlying research materials such as data, samples or models can be accessed.
Criteria which journals must fulfill to be compliant with the Research Councils’ Open Access policy are detailed within the policy, but include offering a “pay to publish” option or allowing deposit in a subject or institutional repository after a mandated maximum embargo period. In addition, the policy mandates use of the Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ license (CC-BY), when an Article Processing Charge (APC) is levied. The CC-BY licence allows others to modify, build upon and/or distribute the licensed work (including for commercial purposes) as long as the original author is credited.
The Research Councils will provide block grants to eligible UK Higher Education Institutions, approved independent research organisations and Research Council Institutes to support payment of the APCs associated with ‘pay-to-publish’. In parallel, eligible organisations will be expected to set-up and manage their own publication funds. The Research Councils will work with eligible organisations to discuss the detail of the new approach to funding APCs and to ensure that appropriate and auditable mechanisms are put in place to manage the funds.
Horizon 2020 and Open Access
The European Commission outlined measures on 17 July 2012 to improve access to scientific information produced in Europe. Broader and more rapid access to scientific papers and data will make it easier for researchers and businesses to build on the findings of public-funded research. This will boost Europe’s innovation capacity and give citizens quicker access to the benefits of scientific discoveries. In this way, it will give Europe a better return on its €87 billion annual investment in R&D. The measures complement the Commission’s Communication to achieve a European Research Area (ERA), also adopted on 17 July.
As a first step, the Commission will make open access to scientific publications a general principle of Horizon 2020, the EU’s Research & Innovation funding programme for 2014-2020.
- As of 2014, all articles produced with funding from Horizon 2020 will have to be accessible:articles will either immediately be made accessible online by the publisher (‘Gold’ open access) – up-front publication costs can be eligible for reimbursement by the European Commission; or
- researchers will make their articles available through an open access repository no later than six months (12 months for articles in the fields of social sciences and humanities) after publication (‘Green’ open access).
The Commission has also recommended that Member States take a similar approach to the results of research funded under their own domestic programmes. The goal is for 60% of European publicly-funded research articles to be available under open access by 2016.
The Commission will also start experimenting with open access to the data collected during publicly funded research (e.g. the numerical results of experiments), taking into account legitimate concerns related to the fundee’s commercial interests or to privacy.
HEIF 5 Handbook 2011-2015
To enable as many staff as possible to be involved in the effective use of HEIF 5 between 2011-2015, a guide on 'how to make best use of HEIF' has been produced.
This guide is for all staff of the University of Northampton. It has been written to explain:
- what HEIF is
- how the University intends to use HEIF between 2011-2015
- how staff can access HEIF support
- how we will measure the success of HEIF in the University
- how hEIF will be monitored and what reports are required
HEIF 5 is intended to be an investment fund leading to new activity. Please be creative in your enterprising ideas, while noting the requirement (in most cases) to leverage in external funding.
If you have any questions about the contents of the guide, or would like to suggest amendments, please contact Simon.Denny@northampton.ac.uk