Deadline: 10 January 2013
Open to: World’s best researchers willing to test new innovative ideas to enable developing countries and their partners in sub-Saharan Africa to use groundwater in a sustainable way for the ultimate benefit of the poor.
Grant: Up to £150,000 per project/total budget up to £1.5m is available
Description
The Unlocking the Potential of Groundwater for the Poor (UPGro) research programme is funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). UPGro is an international programme funding interdisciplinary research generating evidence and innovative tools to enable developing countries and their partners in sub-Saharan Africa to use groundwater in a sustainable way for the ultimate benefit of the poor.
This call for UPGro 2012 Catalyst Grants provides an opportunity for the world’s best researchers to develop and test new innovative ideas for addressing the programme’s aim of enabling sustainable use of groundwater for the benefit of the poor. It is also an opportunity to facilitate the development of new interdisciplinary teams that bring together developing and developed country scientists.
Objective
The goal of the UPGro 2012 Catalyst Grants is to provide small amounts of short term funding to develop new methodologies, metrics, tools, etc and undertake pilot studies. This will provide an opportunity to develop new interdisciplinary teams, bringing together developed and developing country scientists, and to test the viability of innovative methods which can be used to develop new knowledge to enable developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa to benefit from the use of groundwater in a sustainable way.
The successful research projects will test the viability of innovative ideas that might be fully researched as part of future research consortia. It also provides an opportunity to establish new associations across disciplines and bring together developing and developed country scientist.
UPGro 2012 Catalyst Grant Applications:
- should include clear hypotheses and objectives that determine the design of the project, including specifying the need for the research and the relevance (whom it will benefit); can work across the three main themes or focus on one, but the priority should be on addressing a particular research problem well;
- should include clear rationale for the methods proposed;
- should bring together developing and developed country scientists or clearly outline how these partnerships will be formed;
- should deliver outcomes that will benefit the poor people living in sub-Saharan Africa;
- should aim to be interdisciplinary in nature.
Where can research be conducted?
The results of the research should focus on impact in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The primary focus of the research is in Low Income Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, research may be undertaken in Middle Income Countries (MIC) in sub-Saharan Africa where there is a clear impact of the research on the poor. Where appropriate, research may usefully draw lessons from experiences of groundwater management in other regions and look at their applicability to priority areas in Africa.
Grant
The UPGro 2012 Catalyst Grants will provide funding of up to £150,000 for a maximum duration of one year. It is a requirement of funding that projects start between 1 April and 30 June 2013. This budget limit refers to the total (100%) financial costs incurred to undertake the project (including overheads and any NERC facility costs). This is known as the full economic cost. In administration of the grant, standard NERC terms and conditions will apply.
Application procedure
The first stage of the application process involves production of outline proposals. Applicants must complete the UPGro Catalyst Grants 2012 outline proposal form and submit it together with all other required documentation in order to be eligible. Applicants are encouraged to submit their outline proposals in black and white and as a PDF document. Information requested includes:
- names and institutions of key members of the research team,
- proposed start date and length of research grant,
- research objectives and hypotheses,
- core project deliverables,
- details of additional external support/funds
You should submit a short case for support (maximum 2000 words). This should describe the proposed research and research location, and the way that the research is likely to deliver development impact.
Details:
- All outline proposals received will undergo eligibility checks and may be rejected at this stage if they do not meet eligibility criteria.
- All outline proposals which pass the eligibility checks will be assessed by a Sift Panel consisting of science and development experts and convened by the UPGro Secretariat. This panel will assess (on the basis of the material submitted) which proposals have the greatest potential to meet the objectives of this UPGro Catalyst Grant call. This recommendation will go to the UPGro Programme Executive Board (PEB) who will then invite the successful teams to submit full proposals.
- Successful applicants who are invited to produce a full proposal will be informed shortly after the Sift Panel (c. early-February) and will be provided with information on how to submit a full Catalyst Grant proposal at that time.
- Only one Outline Proposal is required per project.
- Outline Proposals must include:
• a completed outline proposal form
• a case for support
• an outline budget and justification
Budget outline and justification
Whilst you are not expected to produce a full budget at this stage, you will be required to complete the ‘Indicative Budget’ table as part of the outline proposal form, broken down by expenditure type. The core areas of expenditure we will ask you to report at this stage are:
- Staff
- Travel and Subsistence
- Equipment
- Consumables
- Overheads
- Other Costs
These costs should be reported as UK and non-UK expenditure. Changes of up to 10% in the budget submitted at the outline proposal stage will be accepted at the final stage without discussion with the Secretariat. Should the budget for your final application be more than ±10% of that submitted with your outline proposal, please contact the Secretariat upgro@nerc.ac.uk to discuss this prior to submitting your final application.
Application deadline
Outline proposals must be submitted electronically by email to the UPGro Secretariat at upgro@nerc.ac.uk by 16:00 (4pm) UK local time (GMT /UTC) on 10 January 2013. Late submissions WILL NOT be accepted.
Contact
Any questions regarding Outline Catalyst Grant Proposals should be sent to upgro@nerc.ac.uk.
For complete information read the full call for proposals or visit the official website.