Connect: Issue 76

76

February 2010

www.epsrc.ac.uk

In touch with opportunities from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Changes to grant application eligibility April 2010 Changes to EPSRC grant application eligibility – aimed at alleviating pressure on the peer review system – will be introduced in April 2010.

Submission constraints From April 2010, applicants with:

It will limit repeatedly unsuccessful applicants to submitting only one application (as co-investigator or principal investigator) within the subsequent 12-month period, allowing them to review their approach to submitting proposals.

• three or more proposals within a two-year period ranked in the bottom half of a funding prioritisation list or rejected before panel

In the lead up to the policy change, EPSRC has been working hard to ensure all researchers are aware of the changes, understand the need for them, and have time, if required, to adapt their approach to submissions.

will be limited to submitting only one application within the subsequent 12-month period, and we will ask them to review their approach to submitting proposals.

In January, EPSRC will be sending an advisory e-mail to researchers who would have been affected by the policy had it been introduced on 1 January 2010.

EPSRC chief executive David Delpy said: “The purpose of the e-mail is to inform those researchers who currently meet the submission constraint criteria, and allow them time, before the policy goes live, to consider their submission behaviour.”

He added: “Our goal is to protect peer review. This policy change will help us achieve that and we want to work with the research community in introducing it.”

The number of proposals received by research councils has doubled over the past two decades, placing huge pressure on the peer review system, including reviewers and panels. April’s policy change, developed in consultation with the academic community, will help alleviate pressure on all involved in the process.

AND • an overall personal success rate of less than 25 per cent over the same two years

The policy was announced in April 2009, giving researchers a year to consider and modify submission strategies before it takes effect.

The changes are one of a number of measures aimed at improving the peer review system.

EPSRC will carefully monitor the effects of all new measures introduced to help alleviate pressure on peer review as part of an ongoing process to help maintain and further develop a world-class research base.

Further information: On the policy: www.epsrc.ac.uk/ ResearchFunding/HowToApply/ RUA.htm On your submission history: Grants on the Web http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/ Joint electronic Submission Je-S https://je-s.rcuk.ac.uk/ JeS2WebLoginSite/Login.aspx

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STRATEGIC PLAN 2010

CONNECTING WITH PHYSICAL SCIENCES

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MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES REVIEW 2010

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ASSISTED LIVING INNOVATION PLATFORM

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EPSRC Strategic Plan 2010

Monitoring levels of creativity and adventure within research

EPSRC is continuing to develop its new strategy with input from the academic community, industry and government.

The Strategic Plan 2010 will set out EPSRC’s ambition for the future and how it will deliver UK science and engineering that leads the world.

Set to be published in Spring 2010, the plan will outline the organisation’s high level vision and goals over the next three to five years.

Adrian Paul, EPSRC’s head of Strategy and Planning, said the plan was now at the engagement stage, building on an on-line consultation in the first half of 2009.

He added: “Throughout the autumn we have been discussing the Strategic Plan with our Council and advisory bodies, and with our programme strategic advisory teams. In addition, we have outlined our strategic intentions at specific events and meetings with university and company partners. This has allowed us to take soundings on the strategy and to test our messages for clarity and understanding.”

The new plan will clearly define EPSRC’s position within the context of UK and global research and training. It will set out and respond to key factors that will include economic climate and international challenges.

The Strategic Plan will not detail specific activities, targets, milestones and resources – it will provide the framework within which these will be formed.

EPSRC’s Delivery Plan – set to be published in 2010/11– will be guided by the Strategic Plan and will detail specific activities, targets and milestones, along with resources allocated to each activity.

Contact: Adrian Paul adrian.paul@epsrc.ac.uk

EPSRC is trialling a new system to monitor creativity levels within research proposals as part of its ongoing mission to foster transformative research.

• it will gather data across all programmes and schemes and will allow us to make comparisons

The creativity scores, decided by peer review panels, will not influence funding decisions, but will be used to track creativity trends across the research portfolio.

• it will allow changes and trends to be tracked.

The data will then be used to evaluate EPSRC’s aim to foster transformative and creative research and to allow potential barriers to be identified.

Paula Duxbury, EPSRC, said: “Monitoring the level of creativity and adventure in proposals is not an easy task. It is very subjective and it requires an element of crystal-ball gazing in the assessment of potential. Nonetheless, despite the obvious drawbacks and weaknesses, we want to attempt to do this.”

The basis of the proposed monitoring framework is to introduce a process that will take place during the panel meeting to record levels of adventure and creativity in the proposals at the meeting.

This will take place as a trial at the forthcoming panels, and then reviewed for incorporation into the panel process.

Conducting this as part of the peer review meetings will have three principal advantages:

• broad participation should increase the reliability of results

For each research proposal the speakers will rate the levels of creativity and adventure in the proposal. The process will take place during the panel meetings after each individual proposal has been discussed, given an overall score and ranked by the panel. Panels would then be asked to give a rating to each proposal on the above basis. The ratings are awarded to proposals on an absolute basis, not relative to one another.

The data collected will be used to generate trend data to see if there are any significant changes in the level of perceived adventure and creativity.

This data will not be used when ranking proposals at panel and it will have no relevance to the ranking or funding decision.

Contact: Emma King emma.king@epsrc.ac.uk Paula Duxbury paula.duxbury@epsrc.ac.uk

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Physical Sciences In 2009, EPSRC’s Physical Sciences Programme restructured its responsive mode panels and introduced roving panel members.

Physical Sciences panel meetings are now structured into three parallel sub-panel meetings (Chemistry, Materials and Physics).

Roving panel members, academics from across the Physical Sciences remit, observe discussions at each sub-panel, and help draw comparisons in quality across the three subject areas.

Roving panel members do not speak on proposals, but they observe the prioritisation of the top proposals and challenge subpanels to justify their rankings.

Following the sub-panel meetings, a tensioning meeting is held, chaired by the head of Physical Sciences. Panel chairs summarise sub-panel discussions and roving panel members feedback their observations so as to inform EPSRC of relative quality comparisons across the sub-panels.

The sub-panel lists are maintained and do not get combined into one rank ordered list.

Professor Steve Howdle from the University of Nottingham and chair of the July 2009 materials panel, said: “The rovers made valuable comments from across the three different panels that help to check the ranking process is being carried out effectively.”

Roving panel members help draw comparisons in quality across the three subject areas.

In addition to this role, chairs and roving panel members also contribute wider feedback on the panel process itself.

Recently, panels felt that although EPSRC was selecting the right expertise when assigning peer reviewers, the response from

EPSRC calls – stay connected EPSRC Connect no longer publishes a list of calls for proposals. Instead, we are directing readers to our calls web pages, e-mail alert service and RSS feed – see right.

Accessing call information online, is the best way to keep up to date with the latest EPSRC funding opportunities, giving you the greatest amount of time to respond.

And subscribing to EPSRC’s e-mail alert service or RSS feed means you will be notified of all EPSRC new calls as they are published.

Further information: www.epsrc.ac.uk

Chairs and roving panel members also felt panel members would be able to contribute more if they had read other proposals being presented to the panel, and not just those to which they were assigned.

Dr Sarah Thompson from the University of York observed as a rover “that panel members needed to read more of the panel papers, to help them with discussions of proposals and to facilitate the moderating and ranking process”.

Dr Andrew Bourne, EPSRC’s head of Physical Sciences said “I very much value the advice we receive.

We are keen to explore whether the current split of sub-panels versus alternative themes is most appropriate to support the Physical Sciences programme. The issue is being discussed with the community and feedback is welcomed.”

Further information: www.epsrc.ac.uk Contact: Andrew Bourne andrew.bourne@epsrc.ac.uk

calls

CONNECTING WITH

the community was poorer than they would hope to see. Professor Howdle said: “Too many colleagues were not responding and in too many cases the responses were not helpful.” There was a general feeling that if academics were submitting proposals, they should be willing to take part in peer review.

To find out more about EPSRC funding opportunities please visit:

www.epsrc.ac.uk/ callsforproposals or sign-up to e-alerts and RSS feeds.

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February 2010 Issue 76

International Review of Mathematical Sciences 2010: panel members wanted The International Review of Mathematical Sciences will take place in December 2010.

The review, which will be chaired by Professor Margaret H Wright, New York University, will: • assess and compare the quality of the UK research base in the mathematical sciences with the rest of the world; • assess the impact of the research base activities in the mathematical sciences internationally and on other disciplines nationally, on wealth creation and quality of life; • comment on progress since the 2004 International Review.

The review will be undertaken by a panel of internationally-leading experts comprised of academics and industrialists from outside the UK; the panel will visit a number of UK research groups and have access to a wide pool of experts and supporting data to help them reach their conclusions.

The review will cover the breadth and quality of all aspects of research in mathematics and its applications, encompassing all pure and applied mathematics, statistics, mathematical physics and the mathematical underpinnings of operational research – it will also cover research excellence, knowledge exchange, people and research infrastructure. Following the review, the

panel’s report will be presented to the research community, research councils and other key stakeholders to stimulate discussion of the findings and initiate development of an action plan to take the recommendations forward.

We now invite nominations of potential members of the International Panel.

Nominations should be made via an online form at www.survey.bris.ac.uk/ epsrc/msir-panom which will remain open until 5 February 2010. In order to obtain an independent view, we seek individuals working outside the UK. Nominees must be highly regarded by their peers, not only for the depth and breadth of their scientific knowledge, but also for their personal integrity and sound judgement. They should normally be active in their field and it is likely that they hold or have recently held senior positions; they should also be highly effective in team-working situations.

Nominees may be UK nationals.

As a guide, please note that if an individual is currently involved in a research project within the scope of the review, either as a researcher or as a collaborator with a UK institution, then a conflict of interest would occur and they should not be nominated.

However, if an individual is on an advisory body, e.g. a steering group, or has been involved in previous similar reviews, then this could represent potentially valuable

Access to nano equipment As part of the EPSRC programme ‘Access to Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Research Equipment’, the NanoAccess@ Cardiff project provides UK academics free of charge access to the following nano fabrication and characterisation equipment at the Manufacturing Engineering Centre, Cardiff University:

• Dual-beam FIB/SEM system for ion beam lithography and characterisation • Step and Flash® (S-FIL) Nano Imprint Lithography (NIL) system, Imprio® 55 • Nanometrology equipment (AFM/STM and 3D Interferometric Profiling Microscope) • Electroforming system for producing Ni masters and parts

experience and they may therefore be nominated. In all such cases this relevant information should be included on the nomination form before it is submitted.

The international panel will be chosen from the list of nominees by a UK Steering Committee chaired by Professor Tim Pedley and including representatives from the London Mathematical Society, the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, the Operational Research Society, the Royal Statistical Society, the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, the Industrial Mathematics KTN (Knowledge Transfer Network) and the Institute of Physics.

Nominations are being sought from the research community and other key stakeholders in the review. Please raise awareness of this opportunity within your organisation as appropriate to ensure that we receive a wide selection of nominees.

For reference, the 2004 International Review is available from the CMS website at www.cms.ac.uk/irm/irm.pdf

Contact: Ben Ryan MathematicsIntReview@epsrc.ac.uk tel: +44 (0) 1793 444169

• Thermal nanoreplication equipment (hot embossing and injection moulding) • Manufacturing of UV and thermal nanoimprinting masters (photolithography, reactive ion etching, laser machining, AFM lithography)

Further information about the capabilities of these systems is available at: http://nanoaccess.cf.ac.uk/

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Assisted Living Innovation Platform Seven more projects are being funded as part of the Technology Strategy Board’s Assisted Living Innovation Platform with support from EPSRC. This follows the platform’s second funding competition called ‘A smart care distributed environment’.

The projects, which have been allocated £7m in joint funding, will explore the need to develop telecare and telehealth solutions that are interoperable and can take advantage of new digital communications technologies, broadband and wireless.

People are living longer, and the number who will have long-term conditions is set to increase. However, the number of economically active people who can finance health and social care is falling.

Today’s care models are unsustainable, and this is a major concern for the social care and health services in the UK. EPSRC is working with the Technology Strategy Board through its Assisted Living Innovation Platform to deliver a wide ranging programme enabling those with long-term health conditions to live independently.

The innovation platform also includes the Department of Health, the National Institute for Health Research and the Economic

ICT theme days New activities and opportunities in ICT are being planned following discussions with researchers and industry.

During the first half of 2009, EPSRC’s ICT team held theme-day workshops based on each the five ICT research sub-programmes (Communications,

and Social Research Council who invest jointly with industry in the development of technologies and services that will enable individuals to receive support at home.

The first nine projects funded by the platform resulted from a collaborative R&D competition in September 2007, and represented over £6m of joint funding from the Technology Strategy Board, Department of Health and EPSRC.

Computer Science, Electronic Materials & Devices, Photonic Materials & Devices and People and Interactivity).

Each of the theme days brought together relevant research communities to discuss perceptions of UK research. The workshops, held in different locations around the UK, were attended by key people from both leading university groups and industry within each field.

Facilitated sessions focussed on the specific needs of each community in order to develop opportunities that can be taken forward. Following the workshops, some opportunities have already emerged through existing mechanisms such as programme or network grants.

The projects focus on user-centred design and home-based systems.

The total funding, including investment from the companies involved, was more than £12m.

Further information: www.innovateuk.org/ ourstrategy/innovationplatforms/ assistedliving.ashx

In addition to this, the ICT team is now planning follow-on activities around common issues raised during the theme days. These activities include workshops to scope the future of photonic systems research and public engagement in ICT disciplines.

Reports detailing the outputs of each of the theme days have been published on the website and distributed to the community.

Further information: www.epsrc.ac.uk/ ResearchFunding/Programmes/ ICT/RC/default.htm

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February 2010 Issue 76

EPSRC Contacts For further programme information: www.epsrc.ac.uk Head of Materials, Mechanical and Medical Engineering Mark Claydon-Smith 01793 444440 mark.claydon-smith@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Information and Communications Technology Liam Blackwell 01793 444217 liam.blackwell@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Energy Multidisciplinary Applications Rachel Bishop 01793 444241 rachel.bishop@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Peer Review Susan Morrell 01793 444462 susan.morrell@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Digital Economy John Hand 01793 444394 john.hand@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Next Generation Healthcare Claire Wagstaffe 01793 444586 claire.wagstaffe@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Nanotechnology Christopher Jones 01793 444163 christopher.jones@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Knowledge Transfer John Baird 01793 444047 john.baird@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Mathematical Sciences and Public Engagement David Harman 01793 444304 david.harman@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Energy Research Capacity Jason Green 01793 444208 jason.green@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Engineering for Sustainability Philippa Hemmings 01793 444378 philippa.hemmings@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Cross Disciplinary Interfaces Kedar Pandya 01793 444317 kedar.pandya@epsrc.ac.uk Head of User Led Knowledge and Skills Alan Thomas 01793 442806 alan.thomas@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Infrastructure and International Jane Nicholson 01793 444065 jane.nicholson@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Physical Sciences Andrew Bourne 01793 444358 andrew.bourne@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Research Careers Strategy Lucy Brady 01793 444147 lucy.brady@epsrc.ac.uk Maggie Wilson 01793 444333 maggie.wilson@epsrc.ac.uk Head of Business Relationships Emma Feltham 01793 444321 emma.feltham@epsrc.ac.uk Associate Director Research Capability Neil Viner 01793 444310 neil.viner@epsrc.ac.uk Associate Director Mission Programmes Alison Wall 01793 444360 alison.wall@epsrc.ac.uk Associate Director Research Base Programmes Clive Hayter 01793 444440 clive.hayter@epsrc.ac.uk Associate Director Economic Impact Vince Osgood mbe 01793 444084 vince.osgood@epsrc.ac.uk Senior Manager International Edward Clarke 01793 444438 edward.clarke@epsrc.ac.uk Senior Manager Public Engagement Katherine Miller 01793 444196 katherine.miller@epsrc.ac.uk IDEAS Factory Contact Susan Morrell 01793 444462 susan.morrell@epsrc.ac.uk

IMPACT! Exhibition – how could research change our future?

EPSRC is working with the Royal College of Art and NESTA, on a mixed media exhibition to explore the relationship between science and society.

The IMPACT! Exhibition, part of EPSRC’s IMPACT! campaign, will be held from 16-21 March 2010 and pairs 16 EPSRC-funded research teams with designers from the Royal College of Art. The teams are working together to produce work that explores and communicates the potential impacts of research on society, healthcare, culture and the economy. This work will then be exhibited to a public audience. The designers may use any art medium, including videos, photographs, interactives, prototypes, props and system diagrams and illustrations.

To find out more about the people involved, their ideas and their concepts, visit the exhibition blog, www.impactexhibition.org.uk.

On this site you will be able to see the exhibition take shape over the coming months.

EPSRC’s IMPACT! campaign aims to communicate the impact research has on the world around us and how engineering and the physical sciences are vital to our future.

To be added to the IMPACT! exhibition mailing list contact Helen Bailey.

Contact: Helen Bailey, helen.bailey@epsrc.ac.uk Further information: www.impactexhibition.org.uk or www.impactworld.org.uk

New study days for 2010 EPSRC has announced a new series of Swindon-based study days for 2010.

The days give UK university staff a good understanding of EPSRC strategies and procedures, including how research proposals are peer reviewed. They also include a mock prioritisation panel.

Previous study days have proved successful, with highly supportive feedback from attendees who clearly appreciated the opportunity to learn about EPSRC and its peer review process.

For current grant maintenance and grant assessment queries

In 2010, content will be updated to cover recent changes in peer review, new requirements for impact plans and steps taken by EPSRC to safeguard the peer review process.

Engineering Chris Elson 01793 444504 chris.elson@epsrc.ac.uk Technology Valerie Hibberd 01793 444560 valerie.hibberd@epsrc.ac.uk Science Jan Tucker 01793 444046 jan.tucker@epsrc.ac.uk

Places are available to staff from all UK universities except those where specific alternate arrangements have already been made.

EPSRC, Polaris House, North Star Avenue, Swindon SN2 1ET Telephone: 01793 444000 www.epsrc.ac.uk Editor: Christopher Buratta, christopher.buratta@epsrc.ac.uk Circulation amendments: connect@epsrc.ac.uk © Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council 2010.

ISSN 1476-6485 Material may be reproduced providing the source is acknowledged.

Study days will be held on: 23 February, 27 May, 26 August and 22 November.

Requests to attend study days should be made via your research office, and these requests or specific queries should be made by email to: EPSRC_study_days@epsrc.ac.uk Further information: www.epsrc.ac.uk/studydays 6