The Global Challenges Research Fund challenges-research-fund Catherine Burns, Research Support Office

Global Challenges Research Funding UK Government ‘Tackling Global Challenges in the National Interest’ International development in low and middle income countries Budget £1.5bn over 5 years (Unallocated ‘Collective’: £691m) Capacity and capability, address problems, respond to crisis RCUK Themes: Health, Clean energy, Sustainable agriculture, Conflict and humanitarian action, Foundations for economic development, Resilient systems, Mass migration and refugee crises UN Sustainable Development Goals

Where We Are: 14 funding calls released since June across the Research Councils UoE submitted circa 120 applications across 3 Colleges Funding Awards: ESRC IAA, BBSRC IAA, EPSRC Block Funding Current Calls: RCUK GCRF: Growing Research Capability to Meet the Challenges Faced by Developing Countries (under institutional demand management) MRC and BBSRC GCRF: Networks in Vector Borne Disease Research EPSRC: Tackling global development challenges through engineering and digital technology research MRC: Networks for vaccine R&D

Official Development Assistance (ODA) Economic development and welfare in countries who receive Development Assistant Committee (DAC) flows address a development need focus on developing countries problems embed in project e.g. link to impact intent credible ESRC ODA Compliance Statement: 1.Which country / countries on the DAC list will directly benefit from this proposal? 2.How is your proposal directly and primarily relevant to the development challenges of these countries? 3.How do you expect that the outcome of your proposed activities will promote the economic development and welfare of a country or countries on the DAC list?

Capacity and Capability “Capacity building, e.g. training, placements, two-way exchanges (within appropriate immigration frameworks), may be an integral part of foundation projects” MRC Building research capacity through research process Clearly identify capacity building activities, for example: placements or exchanges opportunities for those with relevant skills who have not previously worked on development relevant research projects to orient their research towards global issues support and mentoring for more junior team members co-design of research and implementation with developing country partner staff

Partnership and Impact Role: The principal requirement is for substantive, targeted and high quality collaborations or partnerships, demonstrated through clear leadership roles, and balance and proportionality in partners’ roles and responsibilities. Context: All partnerships, including international ones, should be based on mutual respect and understanding for different cultural, ethnic, social and economic beliefs and practices. Process: The exploitation of new knowledge does not just occur at the end of a research project, but is rather embedded throughout the research process itself, so we expect such stakeholders to be included and involved in both the early design and on-going conduct of research projects. ESRC Secondary Data Highlight Notice

DoR reflections on GCRF IS call….. It is important to identify a realistic pathway(s) to impact (including a realistic pathway to ODA country adoption); this is best achieved by identifying specific ODA partners with whom you will work/develop the impact on the appropriate timescales. It is important to identify a clear need for the research within the ODA country, and convince that the ODA country or countries are clearly the primary end users of the research Specific plans for engagement with the ODA partner (including where possible scheduling meetings and including costing for travel) are most convincing Do not forget the need to satisfy the research requirements of the funder (i.e. the need to demonstrate a significant core of Engineering and Physical Science activity in this case).