KE Seed Fund
KE Seed Fund - This fund is now closed for 2023/24 as it has been oversubscribed.
It is hoped that the fund will open again in Autumn 2024 for the 2024/25 round - HEIF funding allowing.
At a glance
The KE Seed Fund is an internal grant scheme designed to support Knowledge Exchange activities and projects. It is supported by the University’s Higher Education & Innovation Fund (HEIF) award to ‘support and develop a broad range of knowledge-based interactions between universities and the wider world, which result in economic and social benefit to the UK. ’
Applications from those new to or experienced in Knowledge Exchange activity are equally welcome. Funds (typically £2k to £5k) can be requested to pilot a new project or enhance an existing activity.
You can see examples of previous KE Seed funded projects on Oxford Impact Case Studies website, simply set the research funder to “KE Seed Fund”.
The fund, which has been running for 8 years, has supported a wide range of impactful projects from policy and digital inclusion to health, history, social ventures, business and culture.
Eligibility and key information
The primary applicant must be a researcher or staff member at the University of Oxford. Co-applicants can include other researchers; DPhil students; teaching staff; museum staff; research facilitators and other professional services staff; and external partners.
Typically, the fund received £30,000 - £40,000 in September, and we aim to support between 10 and 15 projects up to July of the following year.
As with other HEIF awards, the fund supports activities on a year-by-year basis. As such, we ask all awards to be spent by Friday 28 June 2024, and activities associated with the award to be carried out no later than Wednesday 31 July 2024.
Applicants should read the following documentation before applying:
Need help or advice about your application? Please email keseedfund@admin.ox.ac.uk
Case for Support
You will need to submit an accompanying 'Case for Support' in PDF format to your IRAMS application, where you can detail your proposed objectives and activities, existing relationship with the external partner, and public project summary.
The template is available below or on the IRAMS application.
Statement of support from external partner
KE Seed Fund guidelines require the projects to have identified an external partner ahead of the project taking place. External partners should be involved in the project from the start, clearly aware and supportive of the application, the proposed activities, and their intended outputs and outcomes.
We ask applicants to provide a brief and explicit statement of support for their KE Seed Fund proposal from their external partners. This can be a short email or a digital document from your partner or their organisation. Please send it to keseedfund@admin.ox.ac.uk.
Timelines
PIs will be notified of application outcomes between 4-6 weeks of departmental approval.
Departmental approval is required before the review process can start, and it is the applicant's duty to make sure that their departmental office has been notified of the application,
Please note that applications will be reviewed on a first come, first served basis. In the event of an influx of applications at any given time, a panel will be called to review applications simultaneously, which may impact decision times.
We will aim to set up the award within a week of panel approval.
All awards must be spent by Friday 28 June 2024 to leave time for financial processing of costs incurred.
Reporting
Awardees are required to provide a final project report which should be submitted by Monday 2 September 2024 via keseedfund@admin.ox.ac.uk.
Questions
If you have any questions, please contact the Knowledge Exchange Seed Fund team: keseedfund@admin.ox.ac.uk
For advice and support on the development of your proposal plans and ideas, please contact your Research Facilitator.
