Wednesday, 13 March 2024

The EHS Research Committee is delighted to announce a seed funding competition aimed at supporting emerging and early-career researchers who are looking to develop new research projects, to ‘pump-prime’ original projects to facilitate application for external funding, and to enhance research-related outputs. This call specifically targets emerging and early-career researchers and has a total allocation of €60,000.

Funding will be allocated through a competitive peer-review process. Applications should be led by emerging or early career colleagues and, where appropriate, involve collaboration with other researchers and/or external partners.

Funds are available for activities to support each of the current four EHS priority research areas – (i) Optimising Health, (ii) Physical Activity and Human Performance, (iii) Professional Practice and Education, and (iv) Social Inclusion

Details on Application Process

Applicants may request sums of between €500 and €7,500 to be used within eighteen months of the award

The EHS Research Committee will oversee the seed funding call. An independent committee will review and score applications using the following assessment descriptors:

(i) Quality and significance of the proposed research (40%)

(ii) Evidence of the Applicant’s track-record of research activity and how proposed work will enhance their academic career development (e.g., publications, external grants, conference presentations or awards) (30%)

(iii) Explanation of how proposed research aligns with and develops at least one of the EHS priority research areas and/or contributes to the implementation of UL@50 Strategy and EHS Strategy Knowledge with Impact (20%)

(iv) Collaborative aspects (e.g., interdisciplinary and/or intersectoral approaches) of proposed research (10%)

Applicants should submit a maximum of three A4 pages (Times New Roman text; font 12; 1.15cm spacing; not including references) using the current version of the application form covering each of the criteria listed above.

Requests for funds should be emailed to ADR.EHS@ul.ie by 5pm on May 13th 2024.

Please title your email ‘EHS Seed Fund 2024 submission’.

General conditions of the call:

  • Applicants must be either multi-annual appointments or on contracts with two or more years to run.
  • In all cases, applicants must be an EHS faculty or research staff member employed by the University of Limerick (UL) for the duration of the award.
  • Applicants must not have received funding from the EHS Seed Fund for EHS Emerging and Early Career Researchers in the previous five years.
  • Applicants may only submit one application as Principal Investigator (PI).
  • Staff employed in adjunct or honorary positions may not be named as the primary applicant.
  • Budget requests** may include:
    • Research assistant salaries
    • Research equipment, materials and consumables
    • Consultancy, dissemination, networking and collaboration, and publication costs
  • Budget requests may not include:
    • Salary supplementation for investigators
    • Staff buyout from teaching
  • Awarded funding must be held in a UL research account.
  • Orders and expenditure must be processed through the UL accounting system.

Specific conditions of the call:

  • Applications with budgets ≥ €5000 must convincingly demonstrate the project will produce a competitive research grant proposal that will be submitted by May 2026;
  • Applications with budgets ≤5,000 must convincingly demonstrate at least one research-related output (e.g., peer-reviewed publication, external funding application) by May 2026;
  • Awardees must deliver a short progress report to ADR.EHS@ul.ie at the project midpoint and a final report no later than one month after the end of the funding period;
  • The onus is on the successful Applicant to submit required reports for auditing and record-keeping purposes;
  • No-cost extensions will not be approved outside of statutory leave entitlements (e.g., maternity leave, carer’s leave);
  • Unspent monies will be recouped to EHS at the end of the funding period (18-months after the receipt of funding)

* Definition of an emerging and early career researcher: For this call, emerging and early career researchers are no more than eight years post PhD award. Where researchers have not been research-active for extended periods of time this should be clearly qualified and documented in their application. Periods of maternity / carer and parental leave (etc.) will extend this time-period (using the same criteria adopted by the European Research Council).

** In line with UL Research Finance policies