Circular Economy Hub Flexible Fund Opens for Second Round
The Circular Economy Hub (CE-Hub), launched in January 2021, is the coordinating body for the five UK National Circular Economy Centres. Together, the Hub and five centres form the infrastructure of the £30 million, UKRI-funded National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research (NICER) Programme, which aims to accelerate, upscale and deliver research and innovation and knowledge to move the UK towards a circular economy.
The CE-Hub administers the Flexible Fund to support feasibility studies that will accelerate Circular Economy research, innovation and implementation across disciplines, sectors and value chains. Studies should be innovative, evidence based and applied. Areas of particular interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Metrics and Indicators
- Product and Service Design
- Business Models including citizen adoption
- Digital Technology
- Policy
- Procurement
- Finance
- Skills and the future of work
- Social innovation
Funding is intended to support interdisciplinary, cross-value chain, foresight, speculative and potentially high-impact research to accelerate innovative solutions in collaboration with the NICER Programme. Proposals that consider different scales (including regional and place-based research), new collaborations between sectors and disciplines, have an appreciation for the whole system and involve and/or are led by early career researchers are encouraged.
The focus is on fundamental ideas that have the potential to be developed into future funding applications or concepts that can be implemented to accelerate circular economy implementation. Proposals should therefore address challenges at low Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs 1-3).
Funded projects will be expected to deliver a tangible piece of work that would achieve a specific output such as early stage concept development, decision making tools and methods or demonstrator projects focussing on evidencing the transferability of Circular Economy principles across scales, disciplines and industrial sectors.
Applicants/applicant teams should be based at Higher Education Institutions in the UK that receive grant funding from one of the UK higher education funding bodies, or research institutes with a long-term involvement with one of the research councils as a major funder. Other independent research organisations (IROs) may also be eligible. Projects will also be expected to involve explicit collaboration with industry partner(s), providing direct or in-kind support.
The total funding for the call is £250,000. Grants will be a maximum of 80% of fEC on projects with total costs of no more than £50,000 (ie a maximum award of £40,000). Projects may be between 9 and 12 months in duration. Eligible costs can include investigator/researcher time, necessary travel and subsistence and consumables.
Projects will start on 1 September 2022 and must be completed before the end of September 2023.
Interested applicants are invited to register to attend an online webinar on 21 March 2022, 12:00-13:00.
Applications should be submitted by the 5 May 2022 (16:00) deadline.