EPSRC block grant for ECR capital equipment

Internal awards are available for capital equipment to support the career development of early career researchers (ECRs) working within the EPSRC remit research areas. The equipment might benefit ECRs in any of the following ways:

• benefit a single or group of ECRs through provision of new capabilities not otherwise available to them
• provide ECRs with increased or dedicated access to equipment, leading to gains in productivity and/or providing the time needed to develop novel experiments as a route to new avenues of research
• leverage gains in productivity or capability from existing facilities, for example by adding new functionality needed by a particular ECR to carry out research, or by increasing throughput and thus freeing up time for additional users
• accelerate establishment of labs and facilities for ECRs recently arrived at Oxford
• facilitate research independence for ECRs progressing within Oxford
• facilitate access to equipment as a means to encouraging equality and diversity (for example through providing dedicated access to equipment where caring responsibilities make it difficult to get sufficient access to existing facilities during peak times)

Awards are available for early career researchers to cover the cost of capital equipment items over £10,000 and up to a maximum of £400,000 (inclusive of VAT). It is expected that the number of ECRs benefiting from the equipment, and the scale of that benefit, is proportionate with the cost of the equipment (ie items towards the higher end of the scale must show significant impact on ECRs).

Equipment must provide clear support primarily to early career researchers, with benefit to the wider academic community a secondary benefit. The award holder must be an early career researcher.

In the context of this call early career researchers are defined as those who are currently eligible to apply to, or have been eligible to apply to in the past eight years, EPSRC New Investigator Awards, First Grants, Early Career Fellowships, Career Acceleration Fellowships, Challenging Engineering and Healthcare Technology Challenge Awards.

Equipment must support research that is very clearly centred in EPSRC’s remit.