The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Irish Research Council (IRC) are launching a networking grants opportunity aimed at fostering the development of long-term relationships between social science researchers in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

The deadline for proposals to be submitted through Je-S has been extended to 16:00 on Wednesday 17 June 2020.

Scope and Focus

Current political and economic uncertainty are prominent issues affecting the future relationship of the UK and Ireland. As such, the social sciences have been identified as an important area for collaboration between ESRC and IRC and applications are welcomed from the breadth of the social science community.

The intention is that the networking activities supported through these grants will enable new relationships between UK and Irish researchers to be formed; for existing relationships to be strengthened; and for the overall level of connection between the UK and Irish social science communities to be enhanced. As such, there are no thematic restrictions within this call.

This call intends to provide support for a programme of flexible activity in the area of UK-ROI relations with the broad objective of establishing sustainable collaborations in this area. Collaborations may seek to develop potential future joint research proposals between the UK and ROI.

In the spirit of genuine collaboration, project leadership will be shared between Co-Principal Investigators. Co-Principal Investigators must comprise of one academic based in the UK and one academic based in Ireland. Co-PI’s will share intellectual ownership of the project and be responsible for management of networking activities for their national team.

For the sole purpose of the electronic submission process, the UK Co-PI must be named as the ‘Principal Investigator’ in the application submission form and take responsibility for submission of the proposal (on Je-S). All other investigators (including the Irish Co-PI) must therefore be listed as Co-Investigators. This categorisation will not affect the Irish researchers’ autonomy and leadership of proposed activities.

Budget and Grant Sizes

The overall budget for this call is £200,000 co-funded between ESRC and IRC. Proposals must include a UK component of maximum £10,000 GBP and an Irish component of maximum €11,800 EUR (at 100% non‑standard fEC).  Up to 10 awards are expected to be funded, which will run for 12 months and will generally commence by autumn 2020.

 

Please note: Only UK costs up to the maximum of £10,000 should be included in the Je-S form. All costs associated with the Irish component of the proposal must be included in the Irish Budget Form attachment. For further information, please see the Call Specification document and the call Je-S Guidance linked below.

Application Process

Proposals must be submitted through the UKRI Joint Electronic Submissions System (Je-S) by the UK Principal Investigator’s research organisation: https://je-s.rcuk.ac.uk/JeS2WebLoginSite/Login.aspx

Please note that following the launch of this call, submissions via Je-S will become available on Monday 2 March 2020.

Call Documents are available for download from the sidebar on the right of this page:

• Call Specification
• Je-S Guidance
• Ireland Budget Form
• Frequently Asked Questions

Full details of the commissioning process are provided in the Call Specification.

Key Dates

For further details please contact:

ESRC:

Chris Butcher / Sam Reilly
Email: ukirelandnetworking@esrc.ukri.org
Telephone: 01793 867839

IRC:

Chiara Loda / Thaina M. da Costa
Email: socialscience.network@research.ie

Visit the official link