IRC Flexible Fund Round 2 – Call Now Open

The IRC is now inviting proposals for research projects that will provide robust evidence and actionable insights and will help contribute to building a thriving research and innovation (R&I) system.

Areas of interest could include, but are not limited to:

1.  Innovation Adoption and Diffusion
   • Understanding how to accelerate the adoption and diffusion of frontier innovations among businesses
2. Regional Economic Growth
   • Understanding the role of business innovation support, capabilities and capacity in reducing regional inequalities
3. A Resilient R&I System
   • Understanding what makes a resilient research and innovation system, the
   different actors and organisations required, and incentives and approaches needed to build a sustainable system
   • Innovation and Trusted Research – protecting the UK’s intellectual property,
   sensitive research, people and infrastructure
   • Transforming research and innovation environments to ensure that they are
   safe, open and inclusive
4. Discovery Research
   • Overcoming the challenges of evidencing impact of discovery research in research and innovation
5. Open Research
   • Incentivising openness and transparency, supporting the ongoing creation and
   development of positive cultures across the R&I sector
6. Global Mobility
   • Benefits of international mobility for countries and research organisations

Funding

Round 2 of the Open Call for the IRC Flexible Fund has up to £250,000 to distribute to research projects. This call invites applications for small scale targeted projects, and larger scale pioneer projects.

Targeted projects can seek funding up to a maximum of £20,000 (100% fEC), of which 80% will be funded by the IRC. The maximum duration of any project is 6 months.

Pioneer projects apply for funding up to a maximum of £50,000 (100% fEC), of which 80% will be funded by the IRC. The maximum duration of any project is 10 months.

Timescales

• Call opens – 1 October 2024
• Call closes and deadline for applications – 19 November 2024
• Review Panel – January 2025
• Project start – March 2025

Eligibility 

This competition will be carried out in accordance with UKRI Eligibility requirements; ESRC funding rules and Principles of full economic costing.

The Principal Investigator must be a member of the IRC Network.

Full eligibility requirements are provided in the guidance document which is available via the download section of this page.

Grant conditions

Successful applicants will receive a Grant Award Letter which includes the terms and conditions for this call set out in the IRC Disbursement Agreement. Applicants should make sure that these terms are acceptable to their organisation before applying for funding.

The IRC will only make successful awards to those applicants that indicate their acceptance at the date of application of the template Disbursement Agreement. Additionally, any applicant considers the template Disbursement Agreement to be binding & in circumstances where the applicant cannot agree to the terms of the Disbursement Agreement that no bid for a research award should be made.

A copy of these terms and conditions are available via the download section of this page.

Submissions

Deadline for applications: 19 November 2024.
To apply, please complete the IRC Flexible Fund Round 2 form.
For all enquiries about the call, please contact info@ircaucus.ac.uk

Interested in applying for funding? Join us for an online information session on Wednesday 9 October from 2pm-3:30pm. Sign up here.