The GO Fund (Grantham Opportunities Fund) enables researchers to obtain funding to develop interesting projects that have a strong cross-disciplinary sustainability focus and are designed to propose practical solutions to complex problems.
The first round resulted in projects across a variety of areas, such as the launch of the Soil Care Network, which unites a community of 200 established and early career scholars from a variety of disciplines who work on soils. The second round awarded 14 researchers with funding to develop their projects, such as research solutions addressing the challenge of health system resilience for climate change or a ground-breaking workshop that brought together leading scholars from various disciplines within the realm of social sciences.
The Grantham Centre is pleased to announce a further round of the GO Fund for projects with a cross-disciplinary sustainability focus. Typically, such projects will not yet be developed enough for UKRI grant applications. Applications will be accepted from ECRs, seasoned researchers, and PhD students, or any combination of those. We are looking for projects that have a realistic prospect of making a contribution and will very likely lead to further work in that space.
Successful applicants will be awarded funding of up to £10,000 which should be spent by 31st December 2024. The funding can be used to cover the arranging of meetings, travel costs, and associated items, but not staff costs or stipend top-ups. Hardware would not normally be an eligible cost. When applying, do not use the University’s costing tool – just list the direct costs you plan to incur. PhD students wishing to apply must discuss their ideas with the academic supervisor(s) before submitting a proposal.
We would not normally fund air travel where there were rail alternatives, and we will not fund projects associated directly with the oil and gas sector, nor the tobacco industry. Priority will be given to those who have not been awarded monies from this fund previously.
The recipients will be required to acknowledge the support of the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures in any papers produced from the work and should submit a final project report by 31st January 2025.
Please note that the Principal Investigator has to be from the University of Sheffield but other collaborators on the project can be from other institutions.
Applications should be made using this Google Form and must be submitted by 1200 hours on Monday 18 December 2023. Successful applicants will be notified in January 2024. The assessment panel will comprise Grantham Ambassadors Professor Wyn Morgan (as Chair) and David Kennedy CB, and Dr Richard Bruce (Grantham Centre Chief Business Advisor).
Your application should include:
– A short descriptive title for the project
– A full description of the project and its aims (max 850 words)
– A short explanation as to why should we fund this project (100 words)
– Details of the Principal Investigator and other members of the team
– A full breakdown of the funding required
For enquiries regarding the scheme, please contact the scheme manager Dr Richard Bruce at r.bruce@sheffield.ac.uk.