The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) launched the second phase of the New Horizons High-risk speculative research ideas in Engineering and ICT call on 9 November. This funding opportunity is limited to one submission per applicant as principal investigator or co-investigator.
The New Horizons funding route is intended to stimulate creativity within the research community to give researchers time and space to test out their speculative ideas.
The full economic cost of your project can be up to £250,000. Your project can last up to two years.
In order to apply, we kindly request that you let us know if you are interested in submitting by completing this online form by 3 December. This will help us gauge demand and organise support accordingly.
Depending on the number of expressions, there may additional demand management measures put in place.
Next steps
Thank you to all colleagues who have so far registered their interest in submitting to the EPSRC New Horizons call on High-Risk speculative research ideas in Engineering and ICT. We hope that the pitching sessions being organised at Faculty level have been useful.
We have received an extremely high number of Expressions of Interest which will require additional steps to help us manage the demand, including a peer review process. This is to ensure that applications submitted are fit with the call remit and funder expectations, whilst also receiving suitable development support where required from Academic colleagues, Research Development and Pre-Award teams.
The next steps are as follows:
7 December 16.00:
- Submit EPSRC Expression of Interest by completing the mandatory EPSRC Intention to Submit Survey
- Applicants submitting as a PI on Bath-led or a Co-I on non-Bath led proposals must have confirmed their intention to submit with their Pre-Award Development Officer or via pre-award@bath.ac.uk (This step is mandatory. Failure to notify Pre-Award means that support for costing preparation cannot be guaranteed. The Pre-Award team has kindly put together some helpful guidance on costing for this project.)
14 December 16.00: Deadline for submission of PAM costings, with indication that PAMs must include “New Horizons” at the start of the title. Note that this call requires outlines costings (select outline costing type in PAM), and do not require ethical approval at this stage.
14 December to 11 January (excluding University’s discretionary holidays): Initial checks and feedback to applicants on costings
11 January 16.00: Deadline for submission of application for internal peer review which should including outline costings. Deadline to request HoDs approval for costing via PAM. Email applications to resdev@bath.ac.uk.
11 to 18 January: Peer review of submitted applications
1`8 January: Panel meeting with decisions to applicants no later than 19 January
20 January 16.00: Submission of complete Je-S form for last checks (Proposals submitted to Pre-Award in Je-S after this point will be reviewed last and may not receive a full review before submission)
25 January: Deadline for submission to the EPSRC
Designed in consultation with the Faculties of Science and Engineering and Design, the timetable allows more time and directed support for proposal development.
As we hope you will appreciate, the level of interest for this call increases the demand on both academic and professional services staff. We would therefore like to encourage colleagues to carefully consider their interest and suitability of their project. The Research Development Team is available to provide advice on this and to support the development of your application. For more information contact: resdev@bath.ac.uk.