TRANSIT - Venture Fund

Please note that the funding for this programme has now ended

Why is TRANSIT offering a Venture Fund

Novel cross-disciplinary proposals can be perceived as too high risk or simply too premature to warrant full scale funding. But we still need to evaluate early ideas and to progress the most promising by providing the resources to take them forward through feasibility studies, to generate preliminary results and prototypes. Such evaluation would then provide a basis for well-motivated and strongly justified proposals for consideration by external bodies such as EPSRC and other funding agencies. The University has several mechanisms for pump-priming new research but these are always over-subscribed and often a cash sum is not all that is needed; there is therefore a need for more, and more varied resources to support novel science.

What is different about the TRANSIT Venture Fund?

The TRANSIT Venture Fund offers pump-priming resources for feasibility studies of novel ideas under the TRANSIT remit, and general support to aid cross-department and discipline working.

What can I bid for?

You can bid to the TRANSIT Venture Fund for equipment - such as software licences, specialised hardware or consumables (but not standard computing equipment), events - such as Training, Workshop or Sandpit-type activities which would run on TRANSITday (Friday), for travel money for a visitor to come to York or even simply to buy refreshments for a related meeting that you run on TRANSITday. In exceptional circumstances you can bid for money for personnel but this is not the main focus of the Venture Fund. The key thing is that what you bid for must lead to the development of a trans-disciplinary piece of work, the fund is not to be used to act as a buffer for on-going work, but must lead to the development of new collaborations and ideas. Your bid should clearly show where the idea is going and what your plans are for taking things forward once the funding has been used.

I've got an idea - what now?

You need to gather your costings and make a case, then enter the details into the Venture Fund Application Form (MS Word , 36kb). The application will be reviewed by three people, against the following criteria:
Its relevance to TRANSIT's remit of promoting interdiscplinarity

The potential of the work
Quality of collaboration
Justification for the resources

If your request is for under £100 this review can be a rapid response. In any case, all applications will be reviewed within two working weeks.

For any questions about the Venture Fund, or to check out whether an application might be suitable, contact Jon Timmis (jon.timmis@york.ac.uk).