The Santander Funding Scheme is now open for its third round of applications for this academic year.  This fund facilitates mobility for a range of research activity that you may be engaged with and offers different levels of awards – £500 and £1,000.  Full details of the scheme, including criteria and how to apply can be found at:

http://www.salford.ac.uk/santander/santander-universities-travel-award-information-for-staff

The deadline for applications is 27 May2016.

Please contact d.woodman@salford.ac.uk if you have any questions.

The European Commission Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive agency (ECEA) recently announced a call for proposals for its Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Scheme.

The scheme offers up to 5 years funding for projects that:

…promote sustainable development and ultimately contribute to poverty reduction by increasing the availability of trained and qualified high-level professional manpower in Africa […]  The programme’s specific objective is to improve the skills and competences of students and staff through enhanced intra-African mobility. Strengthening cooperation between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Africa will increase access to quality education and will encourage and enable African students to undertake postgraduate studies in the African continent. Furthermore, mobility of staff (academic and administrative) will enhance the international cooperation capacity of HEIs in Africa.

Target fields of study include:

• Agriculture and Food Security
• Engineering including Infrastructure and Energy
• Education Sciences
• Health Sciences
• Marine Sciences and the Blue Economy
• Social Sciences and Governance

Consortia will consist of African HEIs with a technical partner from an EU country.

The deadline for the call is 15 June.

For further information see the call document or contact your funding team representative :

ELS, CSE – Stephen Parkinson, s.d.parkinson@salford.ac.uk, ext. 52265

SAM, SHS, SBS – Dr Deborah Woodman, d.woodman@salford.ac.uk, ext. 55876

NMSWSS – Dr Chris Coey, c.coey@salford.ac.uk, ext. 55385

SoBE – Stephen Parkinson or Dr Chris Coey

The European Commission Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive agency (ECEA) recently announced a call for proposals for ‘support for refugee integration‘ projects.

Funding will be directed towards:

…a limited number of high quality consortia formed by bodies working in the creative and cultural sectors that will create and test initiatives designed to support the integration of refugees in the participating countries and share their results.

Specific objectives of projects should be to:

• help refugees socialise and express themselves without necessarily speaking immediately the host country language.
• be learning platforms in a wider sense, fostering respect and understanding for diversity, intercultural and civic competencies, democratic values and citizenship.
• give EU citizens the opportunity to discover, learn from and understand the values and cultures of refugees and – in the process rediscover and enrich their own.
• support the showcasing and co-creation of cultural and/or audiovisual works across Europe.
• offer the possibility of collaboration with organisations in other sectors in order to stimulate a more comprehensive, rapid, effective and long-term response to this global challenge.

The deadline for this call is 28 April.

For further information see the call document or contact your funding team representative :

ELS, CSE – Stephen Parkinson, s.d.parkinson@salford.ac.uk, ext. 52265

SAM, SHS, SBS – Dr Deborah Woodman, d.woodman@salford.ac.uk, ext. 55876

NMSWSS – Dr Chris Coey, c.coey@salford.ac.uk, ext. 55385

SoBE – Stephen Parkinson or Dr Chris Coey

The European Commission Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive agency (ECEA) recently announced a call for proposals for its EU Aid Volunteers initiative Deployment.

The call is designed to fund the deployment of volunteers to target countries, in order to:

…provide needs-based humanitarian aid aimed at strengthening the capacity and resilience of vulnerable and disaster-affected communities in third countries by focusing on disaster preparedness, disaster risk reduction and enhancing the link between relief, rehabilitation and development (LRRD). In addition, these projects may also strengthen the capacities of implementing sending and hosting organisations participating or intending to participate in the EU Aid Volunteers initiative, including in tools and methods of early warning for disasters.

There are two rounds of funding, with deadlines for proposals on 17 May and 1 September.

For further information see the call document or contact your funding team representative :

ELS, CSE – Stephen Parkinson, s.d.parkinson@salford.ac.uk, ext. 52265

SAM, SHS, SBS – Dr Deborah Woodman, d.woodman@salford.ac.uk, ext. 55876

NMSWSS – Dr Chris Coey, c.coey@salford.ac.uk, ext. 55385

SoBE – Stephen Parkinson or Dr Chris Coey

Please see here the link to a Secure Societies Network information and networking day which will take place in Brussels on 5-6 April. The event will focus on the recently announced (15 March) H2020 calls on Secure Societies – Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens. Topics that will be covered include:

• Critical Infrastructure Protection
• Disaster Resilience: Safeguarding and securing society
• Fight Against Crime and Terrorism
• Border Security and External Security
• General Matters on Security
• Digital Security

If you are interested in attending please register on the site. Attendance is free.

In anticipation of upcoming calls (opening 18th April), Interreg North-West Europe (Regional Development Fund) is holding a Project Ideas Lab in Frankfurt on 7 April 2016. The day will be an opportunity to gain knowledge about the calls, meet the Interreg team, and to meet and share ideas with potential partners.

You can register for the event on the main page here, and download the day’s agenda here.

Calls for projects designed to explore the contribution of ecosystem services to poverty alleviation have been published by the ESRC and NERC.

Interdisciplinary projects in the region of £50,ooo to £200,000, with a duration of up to 12 months, are sought.

The deadline for applications is 17 May.

The ESRC has announced a Call for Science Learning+ Partnership Grants, to be undertaken in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust and the NSF.

Grants of up to £1.5m for up to 5 years will be awarded to project partnerships between researchers in the US and the UK/Ireland which address the folllwing priorities:

• understanding learning
• engagement in STEM
• skills development
• equity
• diversity
• access to informal learning settings
• and measurement of outcomes

The deadline for applications for is 14 June 2016.

Full details of the call can be found on the NSF website here, along with examples of previously awarded grants.

Please contact your Funding Team representative for further information and advice.

Please see here for UKRO’s alert on the publication of the EU’s Health Programme, copied below:

​​The 2016 Work Programme for the EU Health Programme 2014-2020 was published this week. The calls for proposals will be published on the Participant Portal on 4 March 2016.

The Work Programme includes details of calls for proposals in the following areas:

• Best practices in care provision for vulnerable migrants and refugees;
• Knowledge and best practices on reducing underage drinking and heavy episodic drinking;
• Knowledge and best practices on measures to prevent illicit drug use;
• Addressing the chronic disease challenge 2;
• European Reference Networks;
• Rare diseases – support for new registries;
• Donor selection and protection.

The NHS European Office will be holding a free webinar on the calls, including a presentation from the European Commission, at 11am on 22 March. To participate, register online.

The relevant pages of the Participant’s Portal can be found here.