Funding opportunities and bid development

Innovation Ignition Fund

OPEN

Deadline: 8 November 2024

The University of Liverpool’s Enterprise Team presents the Innovation Ignition Fund, a £25k prize fund for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) to develop projects with real-world impact. Open to PhD students and postdocs, the fund supports innovation and commercialization, offering prizes between £2.5k and £10k, along with IP and commercialization support.

Key Details:

• Eligibility: PhD students and postdocs within 10 years of completing their PhD.
• Funding Period: 01/01/2025 - 31/04/2025
• Funding Uses: Project costs, external consultants, market research, and customer discovery activities.

Information sessions for applicants

The Enterprise team will host 2 webinars in the leadup to the application deadline, which will provide a summary of the fund, what is expected and advice for a successful application:

• 9th October 1-2 pm, online via Microsoft Teams
• 15th October 2-3 pm, online via Microsoft Teams

Individual drop-in sessions for one-on-one discussion with a member of the Enterprise Team are also available.

How to Apply: For an application form, please contact the Enterprise Team at uol-enterprise@liverpool.ac.uk. Proposals will be reviewed based on feasibility, impact potential, and value for money.

To register for one of the webinars or for further queries please contact Ruth Tittle in the Enterprise Team, Ruth.Tittle@liverpool.ac.uk 

Policy Support Fund

CLOSED

Deadline: 12pm on 13 September 2024

This fund will be used to enhance the capacity of staff at the University to undertake research in collaboration with policymakers to better understand and respond to local, regional, national, and international challenges. This includes working with local, regional, national, and international structures (including parliament, central government, devolved administrations, local government, health and education bodies, the justice system, third sector organisations, and other regulatory organisations) to deliver policy impact.

Relevant research activity includes:

• New research activity working in partnership with policymakers, particularly to better understand local, regional, national or global challenges
• Extending existing research activity
• Facilitating the use of existing research and the exchange of knowledge between universities and policymakers
• Activity aimed at improving the dialogue between universities and policymakers
• Activity and training to better equip academics, including postgraduate researchers and early career researchers, to communicate effectively with policymakers
• Partnerships and collaborations aimed at supporting evidence-based policy making
• The exchange of people, e.g. staff secondments, contributing towards professional doctorates in policy, joint PhDs, etc.
• Work with practitioners, service users and stakeholders that have the potential to contribute to evidence-based policy interventions

The Pandemic Institute: Recover Funding Call

CLOSED The Pandemic Institute (TPI) launches its second funding call, thanks to a generous donation from Aviva to fund research into how we recover from pandemics and emerging infections.

This investment by Aviva aims to build strong, sustainable, resilient communities that are better prepared for future crisis events on the scale of COVID-19 pandemic. The work to be supported will sit within the Recover pillar, one of five strategic themes of focus for TPI.

This funding scheme is seeking to support activity that covers the following four topics:

• Resilience planning with local communities, for example ‘What was the real impact of the pandemic through the experience of communities, including sections of the community whose voices are often ignored or not heard?’
• Understanding the impact of mortality and morbidity in crisis situations, for example ‘Did the pandemic create a mortality jump or cause a mortality shift in different countries?’
• Sustainable business models in a post-pandemic worldfor example ‘What is the effect of the pandemic on insurance market sustainability?’
• Pricing pandemics: new mathematical models for insurancefor example ‘How can we estimate medical costs during a pandemic or catastrophic event?’

The Pandemic Institute launches £225k Aviva-sponsored funding call - News - University of Liverpool

Wellcome Institutional Translational Partnership Award (ITPA)

CLOSED . The ITPA and HLS co-fund the Translational Research Access Programme (TRAP) which provides pump priming funding with the explicit intention of promoting translational research via new collaborations between the University of Liverpool and its local healthcare community, primarily to address health issues of the Liverpool City region

Up to £100k per project, up to two years in duration.

Two calls per year, £600k per year available.

Wellcome Institutional Translational Partnership Award (ITPA)

Early Career Researcher Dragon’s Den Translational Award

CLOSED 
The ITPA has a pilot Early Career Researcher pump priming fund with the explicit intention of promoting translational research 

Contact: Research and Impact Officer, FHLS Research and Impact Directorate, Rosie Corbin r.corbin@liverpool.ac.uk

Up to £15k per project, up to one year in duration.

CLOSED Pump priming funding to accelerate the transition from discovery science to the early stages of therapeutic/ diagnostic development

(n.b. HLS will not know until later this year whether it has been awarded funds to run a 2021/22 competition).

CLOSED The Research, Partnerships and Innovation Directorate (RPI) are delighted to announce the launch of the new harmonised Impact Acceleration Account (IAA), designed to fund innovative projects capable of accelerating impact, improving industrial collaboration and fostering greater entrepreneurship.

This award, funded by multiple UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Impact Acceleration Accounts (IAA) totalling just under £2 million across three years, will be used to support various impact creation activities.

The submission deadline is 5pm on Wednesday 30 November 2022.

It is intended that the IAA awards will:

• Continue to support impact via typical acceleration pathways
• Fund more opportunities facilitating translation of novel interdisciplinary research outputs
• Help develop partnerships with industry and public sector bodies
• Foster new engagements leading to collaborative work with industry and non-commercial external organisations to solve real world problems
• Include building capacity, driving entrepreneurship culture and training and professional development activities.

For Early Career Researchers

Lean Launch is a game-changing 10-week online customer discovery programme that allows researchers to rapidly test whether there is a market for their commercialisation idea, product or service from the comfort of their workplace/home.

The Lean Launch Programme offers a 10-week online market programme that is designed using lean start-up methodology.

Lean start-up takes the scientific method and applies it to business ideas. Researchers will learn how to use this approach to test what potential customers think about commercialisation idea, product or service.

The project provides £2.5k for market discovery activities, and £1.2k towards Business Advisor support.

The programme offers a pathway towards a further £30k of ICURe funding plus follow-on funding support.