Following on from the recent UKRI Circular Economy Centres call, there is now an opportunity to link into the prospective consortia via networking.
The Circular Economy Centres programme will support up to five interdisciplinary Centres for up to four years via this £22.5m call (alongside £2.5m of future funding to enable small and medium enterprise involvement with Centres). The programme is also supporting a Coordinator(s) and integration Hub. Further information is available here: https://epsrc.ukri.org/funding/calls/circular-economy-centres-full-proposals/
A key aspect of the current UKRI Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres – Full proposals Call is each applicant consortium’s proposed plans for interdisciplinary working.
UKRI would like to encourage continued community input into the call, through facilitating interested parties (both individuals and groups where appropriate) to engage with the prospective Centre consortia currently drafting their full proposals and developing the interdisciplinary and commercial aspects of their bids.
The objective is for the funded Centres to be able to start their activities from an optimal position of interdisciplinarity*, further evolving over their lifetime as the landscape changes.
*One expectation within the full proposal call document is that prospective Centre consortia seek to diversify and enhance their project teams in response to panel feedback.
In order to facilitate interaction but minimise unnecessary effort and expense for all involved, EPSRC will not be running face to face workshops but instead will broker interactions between interested parties and the invited bids. UKRI therefore invites you to submit an Expression of Interest (EoI) in engaging with one or more of the prospective Centre consortia, details of the 18 bids can be found here.
These are spread across a wide range of areas including: Biorefining, textiles, food, protein, electronics, construction, nutrients, plastics, seaweed, metals, chemicals and consumer goods.
The purpose of the EoI is to collect the relevant information from interested parties, such that it can be collated at regular intervals (minimum weekly) and passed to the relevant prospective Centre consortium, who are actively encouraged to get in touch and explore opportunities to broaden their consortia. Subject to your permission the EoIs will also be shared with the Circular Economy Coordinators (Fiona Charnley and Peter Hopkinson, University of Exeter), so that they can facilitate discussions. Interested parties can also contact the prospective Centre consortia contacts directly, but are encouraged to use the EoI in the first instance.
The EoI, in the form of a Smart Survey, can be found https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/3X8LY1/here.
The deadline for submitting an EoI is 16.00 on Friday 27 March 2020 though earlier completion is strongly advised (ASAP), to allow for detailed discussion with prospective Centre consortia contacts ahead of the full proposal submission deadline (Intent to Submit – 07 April, Full Proposal Submission Deadline 21 April 2020). After this date interested parties should contact the prospective Centre consortia contacts and/or the Circular Economy Coordinators directly, to explore any further engagement opportunities.
If you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact Mark Tarplee (mark.tarplee@epsrc.ukri.org), who is coordinating this EoI. N.B. Aside from the message ‘Thank you for completing this survey’, you will NOT receive any formal notification of successful completion of the EoI.