As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, for the 2020-2021 academic year, the University of Liverpool’s University Research and Impact Strategy Committee have agreed to pool and simplify funding across all HEIF funded pump priming schemes*. This will enable these investments to be targeted more directly to work with partners to address large scale, global challenges. Target challenges will be reviewed annually.
Aims
The aims of the University of Liverpool Partnership Recovery and Resilience Fund will be to fund projects to:
Work with partners to respond to the following significant global challenges:
- Long-term impacts from the COVID-19 crisis, for example social inequalities, environmental opportunities, health, cultural impacts
- Accelerating towards a Net Zero Carbon future with a local or global impact
We encourage applications in both areas from across the full spectrum of disciplines.
Deliver outcomes and impact:
- Clear route to developing larger scale collaborations with non-HEI partners, generating external applications and bringing in further resources to work with partners to solve these big challenges
- Are highly likely to lead to measurable impact creation, with projects designed to collect sufficient evidence to create future case studies for REF and KEF exercises.
Scope
Partnership Recovery and Resilience Fund – strategic projects
Larger grants between £10-£40K (projects up to £50,000 may be considered if pre-agreed with the fund managers) are available that are focussed on chosen significant external challenges, which will likely have future external funding opportunities available. The foci for the 2020-21 call are research collaborations with non-HEI partners to:
- Address the long-term impacts from the COVID-19 crisis globally, nationally and/or in the Liverpool City Region, working with partners to help accelerate economic recovery and /or address the health, social, environmental, economic, digital innovation, cultural, inequality and future policy challenges that have arisen due to the pandemic.
- Accelerate towards a Net Zero Carbon future– tackling the impacts of climate change, air quality and moving to a low carbon future at an international, national, regional or local level. We encourage approaches from a science, society and/or solutions perspective.
For these larger projects the core purpose is to “pump prime” activity to catalyse future grant applications. This will support PIs and partners to access additional resources to continue to do crucial work to respond to the challenges of Net Zero Carbon and recovery from COVID-19.
We are looking for a level of ambition and seeking to measure this by a multiplier of at least 25 across the portfolio of projects. It is accepted that division between grant and other forms of return may vary amongst disciplines and as such projects would not be excluded solely on the basis of this desired outcome and a portfolio approach will be adopted.
What activities are eligible?
Projects can include any of the following activities, so long as the overall impact of the project meets the aims stated above:
- Impact development and acceleration
- Secondment opportunities
- Partnership development
- Publicity and promotion
- Market research / market assessment
How to apply
The application has to come from an academic via an internal process, so anyone within the business community who are interested to take part, are advised to speak with a University of Liverpool academic to discuss this opportunity. Please do let us know if you need any assistance with this.
The closing date is 5pm on Monday 14th September 2020.
More information can be found here
*Predecessor schemes include Knowledge Exchange, Impact and Public Engagement Voucher Scheme (KEIPE), the Industrial Strategy Pump Priming Fund (ISPPF), and the Industrial Strategy Travel and Quick Response Fund (ISTQR).