Pre-announcement: Locally Unlocking Culture through Inclusive Access

4 weeks ago

Swindon, United Kingdom NERC - the Natural Environment Research Council Full time
Opportunity status: Upcoming Funders: Funding type: Grant Total fund: £400,000 Maximum award: £100,000 Publication date: 30 July 2024 Opening date: 16 September 2024 9:00am UK time Closing date: 10 April 2025 4:00pm UK time

Apply for funding to form a community-driven research network to enhance access to culture. Funded networks will create partnerships across communities, researchers, and policymakers, to promote urban cultural renewal.

You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding.

The full economic cost (FEC) of your network can be up to £100,000 and AHRC will fund 80% of the FEC.

Networks must start by 1 April 2026, and will be funded for 12 months.

This is a pre-announcement and the information may change. The funding opportunity will open on 16 September 2024.

Before applying for funding, check the following:

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has introduced new role types for funding opportunities being run on the new UKRI Funding Service.

For full details, visit .

Who is eligible to apply Leadership team

Applications should be led by a strong, interdisciplinary leadership team who can articulate a clear shared vision for the network. You should ensure partnerships within the leadership team are equitable, inclusive and support innovative interdisciplinary approaches.

Project co-leads from cultural, cultural policy and other relevant sectors, as well as representation from people with expertise by experience, must be included as part of the leadership team. These co-leads from outside of academia can be costed at 100% FEC where justified. This should be utilised to ensure equitable representation and remuneration for different partners.

For administrative purposes it is necessary to identify a single project lead who must be affiliated with the lead research organisation. The project lead and their research office will be ultimately responsible for administration of the grant.

However, the balance of activity and management across the leadership team and partner organisations can be shared flexibly and however you see fit as a collective. As an example, you could adopt a shared leadership approach with project co-leads included. Your approach to management, leadership and decision making must be clearly specified in your application.

Your network application should be submitted by the project lead but must be co-created and co-designed with input from all partners involved. This co-creation should be evidenced in the application.

Project lead

Standard AHRC eligibility criteria will apply to this funding opportunity for UK principal investigators and research organisation.

You must be a resident in the UK and be hosted by an eligible research organisation (higher education institutions or recognised independent research organisations) as stated in the .

Project co-leads based at eligible research organisations

Standard AHRC eligibility criteria will apply to this funding opportunity for UK project co-leads based at eligible research organisations.

You must be a resident in the UK and be hosted by an eligible research organisation (higher education institutions or recognised independent research organisations) as stated in the .

Project co-leads not based at eligible research organisations

Project co-leads not based at eligible research organisations must also be included in the leadership team, for example:

  • practitioners from cultural, cultural policy and other relevant sectors
  • people with expertise by experience
  • community organisations
  • community researchers
  • third sector and voluntary organisations
  • policymakers
  • local, regional and national government, including metropolitan combined authorities
  • private sector

Where justified, the time of these project co-leads can be listed under ‘Exceptions’ and will be funded at 100% FEC. 100% FEC ‘Exceptions’ costs are only for staff time and cannot include estates and indirect costs.

The combined costs for UK-based project co-leads not employed by eligible research organisations must be a minimum of 10% of the total FEC of the grant application. If the combined cost for UK project co-leads not based at eligible research organisations is below 10%, you must clearly articulate why and how partners from outside academia are equitably included within the project. The combined cost cannot exceed 30% of the total FEC.

The intention behind this requirement is to ensure partners from outside of academia are appropriately included and funded within applications.

We recognise that some partners may be employed by a government-funded organisation. To avoid the double counting of public funds in the costings, no salary costs will be covered for project co-leads from government bodies where the person’s involvement in the project falls within their regular duties. Government organisations can only charge to the grant any additional costs they incur as a result of being involved in the project.

Please note that if there are international project co-leads in your application, the combined costs for project co-leads not based at eligible research organisations, and any international project co-leads must not exceed 30% of the FEC. You should consider what balance of project co-leads is needed and explain this clearly in your application.

Project co-leads not based at eligible research organisations should submit a statement of support from their organisation (if they are based at an organisation) as part of your network application. This will be used to assess how effectively and inclusively the proposed network brings together individuals from across relevant sectors.

Early career researchers

We particularly encourage applications from early career researchers (both as project leads and project co-leads) and regard this programme as an important pipeline for growing interdisciplinary researcher capacity in the UK. Support for leadership from early career researchers and showing that you have the right skills at the right level should be clearly explained in your application.

If the project lead is an early career researcher, as , a mentor must be included within the application. This mentor must be clearly outlined in the resources and cost justification section of the application form.

For mentoring cost, an hour per month of the mentor’s time should be built into the budget as a directly allocated cost and entered in the application form in the other directly allocated costs section. Estates and indirect costs for this one hour can also be charged to the grant.

Institutions may provide additional mentoring support alongside other forms of leadership or career development support for early career applicants.

Applicants at other stages of their career can also include mentorship in the application if it is felt it would support the project leadership and benefit delivery of the proposed work.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.

We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:

  • career breaks
  • support for people with caring responsibilities
  • flexible working
  • alternative working patterns

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