Collaborative Project Funding: Social Sciences Call

Seed funding for collaborative projects between social sciences and statistics with the Centre for Statistics.

The Centre for Statistics offers the opportunity to bid for small ‘pump-priming’ grants to facilitate the development of interdisciplinary research proposals overlapping between social sciences and statistics.

Award

Circa £18,000 is expected to be available from the Centre for Statistics for this call, to fund three or four small projects.

Deadline for applications is Monday 14 August 2023 (extended deadline).

Eligibility

The proposal must be a collaborative project with statistical aspects at its core and at least two Schools must be involved.

The proposal must demonstrate novelty, in statistical methodology or in applications.

Proposals must demonstrate a high likelihood that the investment will help establish a long term research collaboration, such as a future PhD studentship or a grant application. The intention is not to fund the completion of an existing piece of work, a short one-off project or purely speculative research. The resources requested must represent good value for money. 

Applying for funding

Proposals must be submitted by email to the Centre for Statistics Director (directorcfs@ed.ac.uk) no later than Monday 14 August 2023.

Submitted proposals will be judged by the board of the Centre for Statistics. Applicants will be notified of results three weeks after the deadline.

If awarded funding, discussions will take place as to the most effective way to distribute funds between units.

Proposal format

Please submit up to four sides of A4, detailing:

• The activity that the funding will cover

• A description of both the statistical aspects of the projects and novelty of the project (e.g. novel statistical methodology to be developed, or novel aspects of application of existing statistical methods to a new application).

• A clear description of how this work will progress as a joint project (e.g. by assessing its feasibility, or otherwise strengthening the case for a future grant application).
• A description of the longer term (2-5 year) vision for the development of the research collaboration.
• How success will be measured e.g. submitting a proposal to an anticipated future grant call, PhD scholarship and/or publications.
• The resources requested. For example, proposers can request funding for:
  • someone's time to assess the feasibility of a project
  • bringing a third party to provde missing expertise
  • travel

Please note that only direct costs can be covered, but there are no other restrictions. Funding requests must be justified and it must be clear that there are no other sources of funds to available to support this activitiy. Any funds awarded are not strictly grants, and will not be measured as such.

Conditions of Award

If successful and awarded seed funding, please note the following conditions of award.

• A report on the outcomes of the funding must be delivered to the Director at the end of the project.
• Any publications that arise from work supported by this seed funding should acknowledge support from the Centre for Statistics.
• Grant applications arising from work supported by Centre for Statistics seed funding should include requests for support for collaborative activities within the University Edinburgh that can be advertised as Centre for Statistics events.