Research News

Further Details:

On 7th September 2023, the European Commission and the UK Government announced that they have reached an agreement on the association of the UK to Horizon Europe from 1st January 2024.

On 4 December 2023, the association agreement was adopted in the form of a protocol to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement by the EU-UK Specialised Committee on Participation in EU Programmes.

UK organisations can participate in Horizon Europe calls for proposals on the same terms as institutions from other Associated Countries, including leading consortia and receiving EU funding, from the 2024 Work Programme and onwards. This includes any 2024 calls that opened/closed last year.

The UK Government has published a helpful explainer document, which includes clarifications on many issues related to the UK association.

UK applicants to calls in 2021, 2022, and 2023 Work Programmes remain fully eligible for evaluation by the EU and, if successful, for funding through the UK Horizon Guarantee. The Guarantee has been extended to cover all remaining Horizon Europe grant calls that are funded under Work Programme 2023 irrespective of the call closing or grant signature date. In order to be eligible for the UK Guarantee, UK applicants must continue to apply for funding from the EU as beneficiaries and not as Associated Partners.

Every Horizon call for proposals has a call identification (ID) number, which sets out which programme year it belongs to. This number is set out clearly for each call in the Work Programme and on the EU’s Funding and Tenders Portal. If the call ID includes ‘2023,’ the call is part of the 2023 Work Programme and will be covered by the UK Horizon Guarantee. If the call ID includes ‘2024,’ the call will be part of the 2024 Work Programme.

Further Details:

On 7th September 2023, the European Commission and the UK Government announced that they have reached an agreement on the association of the UK to Horizon Europe from 1st January 2024.

On 4 December 2023, the association agreement was adopted in the form of a protocol to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement by the EU-UK Specialised Committee on Participation in EU Programmes.

UK organisations can participate in Horizon Europe calls for proposals on the same terms as institutions from other Associated Countries, including leading consortia and receiving EU funding, from the 2024 Work Programme and onwards. This includes any 2024 calls that opened/closed last year.

The UK Government has published a helpful explainer document, which includes clarifications on many issues related to the UK association.

UK applicants to calls in 2021, 2022, and 2023 Work Programmes remain fully eligible for evaluation by the EU and, if successful, for funding through the UK Horizon Guarantee. The Guarantee has been extended to cover all remaining Horizon Europe grant calls that are funded under Work Programme 2023 irrespective of the call closing or grant signature date. In order to be eligible for the UK Guarantee, UK applicants must continue to apply for funding from the EU as beneficiaries and not as Associated Partners.

Every Horizon call for proposals has a call identification (ID) number, which sets out which programme year it belongs to. This number is set out clearly for each call in the Work Programme and on the EU’s Funding and Tenders Portal. If the call ID includes ‘2023,’ the call is part of the 2023 Work Programme and will be covered by the UK Horizon Guarantee. If the call ID includes ‘2024,’ the call will be part of the 2024 Work Programme.

Further Details:

The European Commission adopted the main Horizon Europe Work Programme for 2023-2024 on 6 December 2022 and published versions of the individual Work Programme parts in the ‘Reference documents’ section (under the ‘Guidance & documents’ section) of the Funding & Tenders Portal. In April 2024 the European Commission published an amended version of the main 2023-24 Horizon Europe Work Programme, which includes new funding opportunities under some parts of the programme.

There are dedicated Work Programmes for each part of the Horizon Europe Pillars, including the six Clusters and the Horizon Europe Missions. Separate annual Work Programmes are also available for the European Research Council (ERC) and the European Innovation Council (EIC). The 2024 ERC and EIC Work Programmes are available on the Funding & Tenders Portal in the ‘Reference documents’ section.

The ‘Reference documents’ section of the Funding and Tenders Portal also holds the long-awaited complete version of the Annotated Grant Agreement (AGA) for EU grants which was published on 1st May 2024. 

Further Details:

The University subscribes to UKRO’s subscription-based service which provides users with news, insight and advice to help them engage with EU-funded research. Staff who are interested in applying for EU funding are encouraged to register with UKRO to access the latest EU funding and policy news, factsheets and events.

Past events (webinar records and slides are available once you have created an UKRO account) include:

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2024 Call Information Webinar: Sessions 1 and 2

The two webinars will provide attendees with a comprehensive overview of the 2024 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship Call. They will provide attendees with all the information needed to submit a successful application, including the MSCA eligibility criteria, available budget, and submission and evaluation rules, as well as practical advice on proposal writing.

EU Missions Information Days

The Missions part of the main Horizon Europe Work Programme for 2024 (published by April) includes new calls for proposals and topics to support the implementation of all five Missions. This webinar provides information on the new calls for each of the following missions: Adaptation to Climate Change, Cancer, 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart cities by 2030, Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030, A Soil Deal for Europe

ERC 2024 Consolidator Grant: Call Information Webinar

The overall aim of this webinar is to provide participants with practical information about the ERC Consolidator Grant scheme. Participants should gain a deeper understanding of the proposal format and the key issues they are required to address in planning, writing, and costing a proposal. The evaluation procedure and how to approach writing an application will also be explained.

ERC Webinar: Novelties in the 2024 ERC Work Programme

The overall aim of this webinar is to explain some of the key novelties of the ERC Work Programme 2024.

Upcoming UKRO events (registration required) include:

10th June (10:00-12:00) - ERC 2024 Advanced Grant: Call Information Webinar 1 of 2

12th June (10:00-12:00) - ERC 2024 Advanced Grant: Call Information Webinar 2 of 2

These webinars will provide participants with a detailed practical overview of the ERC Advanced Grant scheme. Viewers will gain a deeper understanding of the proposal format and the key issues they are required to address in planning, writing and costing a proposal. The evaluation procedure and how to approach writing an application will also be explained.

2nd July (10:00-12:00) - MSCA Doctoral Networks 2024 Call Information Webinar: Session 1

3rd July 2024 (10:00-12:00) MSCA Doctoral Networks 2024 Call Information Webinar: Session 2

The webinars will provide attendees with a comprehensive overview of the 2024 MSCA Doctoral Networks Call. They will cover all the information needed to submit a successful application to this call, including the MSCA eligibility criteria, available budget, submission and evaluation rules, as well as practical guidance on writing a proposal.

Further Details:

Further Details

By allowing Oxford Brookes University to add your research information to your ORCID record, you can spend more time conducting your research and less time managing it! We’ll need your permission first though, so click on the link below to get started. You will get redirected to ORCID, after signing in, click on “authorize access” to allow Oxford Brookes University to add information to your record.

Grant Permission 

After granting permission, an affiliation entry will be added to your ORCID record. Please note that it may take up to 5 minutes for your ORCID record to be updated.

Why should I allow Oxford Brookes University to update my ORCID record?

• When data in your ORCID record has been added by an organization you trust, you can be assured that it can be reused with a high degree of confidence in a number of different workflows, for example, when automatically filling out a growing number of manuscript submission or grant application forms.

What else should I know?

• Although Oxford Brookes University will only add affiliation information to your ORCID record at this time, the permission you grant us now will allow us to add other information to your ORCID record (such as publications) in the future. We will notify you if we plan to do this.

• Researcher control is central to everything ORCID does. If you no longer want Oxford Brookes University to edit your ORCID record, you can revoke permission at any time. See Revoking Permission for instructions.

• Affiliation information added to your ORCID record is subject to ORCID’s Privacy Policy. Per this policy, you can control the visibility of this information in ORCID. The source data, however, is controlled by Oxford Brookes University and is subject to their own privacy policy.

Further Details:

If you have an event idea for the 2024 Festival, there’s 3 weeks left to share your initial thoughts — why not quickly do it now?

The Expression of Interest (EoI) form should take just a few minutes and your ideas help the Festival team find connections across the emerging programme of events, making the most of our collective creativity.

Whether you have a firm plan for activities or not, or simply want to support the effort through sponsorship, the Festival team will work with you to discuss options.

An EoI doesn’t commit you to anything: if-oxford.com/get-involved

💡 Expression of Interest deadline: Wednesday 17 April 2024 

✏️ Event details confirmation deadline: Friday 17 May 2024

🚀 Programme launch: Thursday 22 August 2024

🗓️ IF Oxford 2024 will take place 11 Oct — 3 Nov 2024 (TBC)

Further Details:

The ESRC Festival of Social Science is an annual, national celebration of the creative, engaging and impactful work that social science researchers do to help us understand and influence the world around us, with over 350 events taking place across the UK and online. Each year the University of Oxford’s ESRC Impact Acceleration Account funds a range of public and community engagement activities as part of the Festival. This is led by the Social Science Division’s Research Impact and Engagement (RIE) Team, in collaboration with colleagues at the Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford Brookes University.

Festival of Social Science – call for expressions of interest now open! Calling all social scientists at [University of Oxford/Oxford Brookes University] passionate about sharing their research with the public – the Festival of Social Science needs you! We’re looking for enthusiastic individuals or teams of researchers of all career stages to lead informative and entertaining activities as part of this year’s Festival, running from 19 October – 9 November. With multiple dates, training support, and funding options available, this year there are even more ways that you can get involved! Applications close 26 April 2024. Find out more and apply at: www.socsci.ox.ac.uk/event/festival-of-social-science 

Further Details:

On 18th March UKRI started a consultation on their proposed REF 2029 Open Access policy. Oxford Brookes will be making an institutional response to the consultation. This email is an invitation to any member of staff who would like to contribute to that institutional response.

If you sign up to contribute to the institutional response you will be sent information about UKRI's proposed REF2029 Open Access policy and the consultation by the Scholarly Communications Team. You will then have the choice of making a written contribution or attending an online meeting where you can make a verbal contribution. 

If you would like to contribute to the institutional response please complete this very short form by the 12th April.

Further Details:

Here is what we need you to do when you 'Act on Acceptance':

• Add the basic information about the output to Converis (title, journal, authors, etc). 

• If the article is not going to be published as Gold Open Access with a Creative Commons Licence then also upload the following documents:

  • • The Author's Accepted Manuscript (the final version of the text, after peer review, that is almost identical to what will be published but without the publisher's branding, typography, and copyright notices).

    • Evidence of the date that the output was accepted for publication (e.g. a screenshot or PDF of an email from the journal).

• Click 'Save and Close' (not 'Save'), select 'For validation by library' (which is how the Scholarly Communications team are notified that an output is ready for checking), and click 'Done'.

For more detail on the above please see the guide How to add outputs to Converis / the CRIS for REF, and if you have any questions please contact the Scholarly Communications Team at openaccess@brookes.ac.uk. Please note that the REF 2029 Open Access Requirements will be different to what is described above with the finalised requirements expected to be announced in Summer or Autumn 2024.

Further Details:

Oxford Brookes Unscripted podcast series is an accessible platform to showcase the amazing breadth of high-quality research we do at Brookes, to a growing listener-base of 2,000+.

We appreciate that everyone is busy, and know that people's time is precious, so taking part in an episode of Unscripted takes no more than an hour. 

Taking part is fully supported with pre-production, recording, post-production and promotion all managed within the Knowledge Exchange and Impact team in the Directorate for Research Innovation and Enterprise.

If you are interested please do complete our quick - less than 10 minutes -expression of interest form and one of the team will be in touch. 

CALL FOR PAPERS

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the 4th Annual Southern PhD Economics Conference (ASPEC) which will be held from 20-21 June 2024. The PhD conference is supported by the economics departments and schools of nine universities:

• University of Bath

• Oxford Brookes University

• City University of London

• University of East Anglia

• Royal Holloway

• Middlesex University

• University of Reading

• University of Southampton

• University of Sussex

The conference committee is accepting papers from PhD students and postdocs on any topic that falls within the discipline of economics. This will be a two-day conference and will be held in person at Oxford Brookes University. Consideration will be given to those who can present their work in person.

Paper Submission

Submit your extended abstracts or full papers to: aspec2024@gmail.com. The deadline of submission is 1st May 2024 and decisions will be communicated on 15th May 2024.

Conference Registration Fee

The conference fee is £30 and should be paid by deadline May 20th, 2024. It covers access to all sessions, buffet lunches, conference coffee breaks and conference material. Conference fees will not cover the participation in the voluntary dinner planned on the 20th of June.

For more information visit the conference website here.

Further Details

Timetable

• Early December 2023 - UKRI data refresh in Researchfish system

  • New awards added to Researchfish

    • Grants that started after 1st October 2023 are not expected to start submitting outcomes until the 2025 submission period and will therefore not be added to Researchfish this year (unless they have unusually short duration, or there is an exceptional need to report earlier)

  • Response codes updated based on award age/scheme-specific reporting requirements

  • Active award details refreshed to match our back-office records, for example:

    • PIs assigned to awards

    • Start/end dates of funding

    • Title/Summary/Abstract text

  • All response code 1, 4 and 5 awards added to the 2024 Submission Period

  • Research Organisations will be emailed to confirm once the data refresh exercise has been completed

• December 2023/ January 2024 – Research Organisations to review their awards and submit response code change requests

  • A template for submitting response code change requests will be sent to Research Organisations in early December

  • Change requests to be submitted as per current Response Code Guidance document, covering for example:

    • PIs who qualify for a one-year exemption (response code 2)

    • PIs who are no longer at your institution (response code 4)

    • Awards that you feel qualify to be closed or transitioned to voluntary reporting (response code 3 or 5)

  • To ensure the necessary changes are made in Researchfish in time for the pre-submission period emails being sent to PIs, requests must be submitted to UKRI by 19th January 2024

• Late January 2024 – PIs emailed with advance notice and guidance regarding the 2024 submission period

  • All PIs who hold at least one response code 1, 4 or 5 award emailed

• 5th February to 14th March 2024 (4pm) – 2024 Research Outcomes submission period

• 5th March 2024 – Mid-submission period reminder email to PIs

  • Sent to PIs (excluding those who have already made a submission)

Communications schedule

Dates shown below are approximate and could be subject to change:

• 11-Dec (approx.): Research Organisations emailed to confirm data refresh exercise has been completed in Researchfish

• 13-Dec: New PIs emailed with Researchfish invitation and instructions on how to set up their Researchfish account

• 15-Jan: Research Organisations emailed with details regarding 2024 submission period

• 30-Jan: All PIs who are expected to make a submission (response codes 1 and 4) emailed with details regarding the 2024 submission period

• 30-Jan: All PIs who can make a non-mandatory submission (response code 5) emailed with details regarding the 2024 submission period

• 31-Jan: PIs holding Official Development Assistance (ODA) awards emailed with guidance specifically relating to ODA outcomes reporting

• 31-Jan: PIs holding Grow and Hubs awards emailed with details regarding the ‘GCRF Collective Fund’ additional questions that needs to be completed

• 8-Feb: Research Organisations emailed with submission period update

• SUBMISSION PERIOD: Weekly compliance reports emailed to Research Organisations

• 5-Mar: Mid submission period reminder sent to PIs (excluding PIs who have already made a submission)

Wording templates for each of the above communications will be shared with the Research Organisations in early December.

Studentships

UKRI has traditionally asked for a submission of research outcomes from holders of doctoral studentships from the third year of their studentship, and for three years after it ends.  For the 2024 Research Outcomes submission period, we are pausing the collection of studentship data and will not be adding any new students to Researchfish.

 This decision comes as part of our plans to explore the most effective ways for us to gather the research outcome data we require while minimising administrative burden on the organisations and individuals we support.  We continue to value the outcomes of all UKRI-supported research and will be looking to refine and improve our methods of collecting data from studentships in the future. 

Any studentships already on Researchfish will remain on the system for the usual duration and we welcome the submission of any new outcomes on a non-mandatory basis.

UKRI Grant Role Types

UKRI has announced the streamlining of 35 grant roles, previously used across the organisation for its funded projects, into a set of 12 harmonised roles.  A new role called ‘project lead’ replacing the principal investigator title is among the changes.

These new roles are now live in the Funding Service and as they become more embedded in our awarded funding, we will be incorporating the new roles into our communications around research outcome reporting.

Full guidance on the new roles, including how they map to the previous roles in Je-S, is available on the UKRI website:

Roles in funding applications: eligibility, responsibilities and costings guidance – UKRI

UKRI Sanction policy

The data on research outputs, outcomes and impact collected during the submission period remains vital in supporting the case for sustained investment in research and innovation. Please see our Compliance and sanctions policy on reporting research outcomes – UKRI for further information.

UKRI makes best efforts to avoid applying sanctions to researchers. As in previous years, we will work with affected researchers who missed the reporting deadline and provide a further opportunity for them to complete a late submission where appropriate.  Researchers who cannot make a submission because of personal circumstances may request an exemption from reporting.  Full details of our exemptions policy can be found here: Researchfish response codes guidance – UKRI

UKRI very much appreciates the invaluable work of research office staff in helping support the research outcomes collection.

Terms of Use

Please note that Researchfish have updated their Terms of Use and users of the service should ensure that they are familiar with these updated terms before accepting them.

Useful Links

• UKRI support

Email: researchoutcomes@funding.ukri.org

Phone: +44 (0) 1793 444164 (available Mon-Thu 8.30am – 5pm, Fri 8.30am – 4.30pm, excluding bank holidays)

• Researchfish support (for technical issues relating to the Researchfish platform):

Live chat: https://app.researchfish.com/helpwiz/contact (available 9am – 5pm Monday to Friday)

Email: support@researchfish.com

• Details regarding UKRI’s research outcomes collection exercise:

https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/manage-your-funding-award/report-your-research-outcomes/#contents-list

• Principles of use:

https://www.ukri.org/publications/principles-of-use-for-research-outcomes-collected-in-researchfish/

• Response code guidance:

https://www.ukri.org/publications/researchfish-response-codes-guidance/

• UKRI sanction policy:

https://www.ukri.org/publications/compliance-and-sanctions-policy-on-reporting-research-outcomes/

• Hints and tips on making a quality research outcomes submission:

https://www.ukri.org/publications/making-a-high-quality-submission-of-outcomes-to-researchfish/

• Researchfish sign-in page:

https://app.researchfish.com/user/login?destination=awards

How the information provided by researchers is used:

Research outcomes information is collected in line with UKRI’s Principles of Use https://www.ukri.org/publications/principles-of-use-for-research-outcomes-collected-in-researchfish and Privacy Notice https://www.ukri.org/about-us/privacy-notice/

Further information about how submitted information is used data can be found on our website: https://www.ukri.org/manage-your-award/reporting-your-projects-outcomes/#contents-list

Please note: all elements, including free text elements of Researchfish records are published on the UKRI Gateway to Research website https://gtr.ukri.org and may be published through other routes.  Researchers agree to this during the submission process.  We occasionally notice personal/sensitive data included within these free-text elements (for example the contact details of colleagues, unnecessary personal details, or commercially sensitive information).  We neither require nor wish for such information and ask that PIs bear this in mind when preparing their outcome records for submission, including when checking the data provided by others authorised to attribute outcomes to their award.