Funding to Establish a NetworkPlus to Build Research Communities with the UK Financial Services Sector
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is providing funding to establish a high-quality NetworkPlus that will underpin new academic and business partnerships within the financial services sector.
There is currently little interaction between the financial services sector and research-active UK academics, despite the fact that many relevant sector challenges lie in the EPSRC space, including cybersecurity, data, and its analysis. The NetworkPlus is therefore designed to facilitate an easier and more agile entry point for financial services sector businesses to engage with world leading UK academic researchers.
Anticipated outcomes include:
- The creation of more and better partnerships within academia, and between academia and the financial services sector.
- Increased trust and levels of collaboration.
- More investment and engagement between businesses in this sector and academia.
The NetworkPlus investments can undertake a variety of activities to achieve these aims, including:
- Workshops.
- Events.
- Feasibility studies.
- Secondments.
- Horizon scanning.
Applicants are encouraged to tailor their activities to the needs of the area and to be innovative in their approach. Co-creation with the financial services sector will be essential in this regard.
NetworkPlus activities should be UK-wide, drawing on existing, or developing, regional strengths, and involve a broad range of disciplines and non-academic stakeholders from the financial sector.
While the NetworkPlus should have a national focus, it should also look to consider the needs of the local clusters. Collaborative networks should therefore strengthen connectivity and drive new potentially transformative academic contributions. To facilitate this, the NetworkPlus should be open to engaging with all, and should not exclude academic or business partners based on their location.
The EPSRC encourages applications from consortia of research organisations to ensure the team has the appropriate depth, expertise and coverage across the full spectrum of the topic. However, single organisations may apply if they possess the appropriate breadth of expertise.
The principal investigator of the proposal should have:
- A collaborative mindset.
- An excellent track record of collaboration with businesses in the financial services or financial technology (FinTech) sectors.
- Excellent leadership and management abilities.
Only one lead application is permitted from a principal investigator’s (PIs) institution. A maximum of five investigators (including principal investigator and co-investigators (Co-I)) is permitted per application. PIs and Co-Is can only be named investigators on one application.
Standard EPSRC eligibility rules apply. Applicants must be based in the UK and employed by an eligible research organisation.
Funding of up to £2 million (80% full economic cost, meaning that the total value will be up to £2.5 million) will support a single NetworkPlus for a duration of up to five years.
Applicants should first submit an intention to submit form by the 26 October 2021 (16:00) deadline.
Full proposals should be submitted by the 9 November 2021 (16:00) deadline.