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ESRC NPIF Accelerating Business Collaboration Funding

Posted on 23 March 2020

In February 2020 we were awarded funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to build the capacity and capability of social science doctoral students and early career researchers to engage with business.

The funding (delivered through the National Prodctivity Investment Fund) will be administered through a partnership between the Universities of York, Leeds and Sheffield ESRC Impact Acceleration Accounts (ESRC IAAs) and the White Rose Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership.

What Opportunities are Available?

Activities will run until March 2021, and the three lead institutions will deliver:

  • Dedicated staff resource to coordinate opportunities and deliver ongoing brokering and support for business engagement
  • Placements and secondments with priority business partners
  • Industry focused workshops and networking activities
  • Funding for knowledge transfer activities
  • Two skills and leadership residentials to upskill doctoral researchers and ECRs to find, manage and maintain successful external partnerships
  • A training programme addressing business engagement knowledge and skills gaps for doctoral researchers and ECRs in the social sciences

Who is this funding for?

PhD Researchers/ECRs

Support is available for any doctoral researcher or ECR, across the WRDTP, whose work is at least 51% social science. Moreover, support is available to doctoral researchers regardless of funding source (i.e. you do not need to be funded by the ESRC/associated with the WRDTP already to be involved in this initiative). The ESRC are not enforcing a strict definition of ECR, however researchers taking part will be asked to demonstrate why they should be considered ‘early career’.

National and Regional Businesses/SMEs/Entrepreneurs

Support is available to partners from the business sector who wish to collaborate with our PhD Researchers and ECRs, via:

  • Placements and secondment opportunities
  • Opportunites to present 'real world' business challenges to an audience of researchers, in order to gain new insights
  • Brokering activties which interrogate the gap between business needs and research expertise, creating new spaces for networking and collaboration

Notes to editors:

For more information contact us at esrc-iaa@york.ac.uk.