Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
The EU Funding landscape and the Elephant in the room – BREXIT! UK Research Office (UKRO) annual visit to Leeds Beckett.
Our University membership to UKRO provides us with expert advice, information and resources in our mission to participate in European funding programmes; plus, an additional visit giving us the opportunity to have one-to-one discussions with our UKRO advisor.
Leeds Beckett hosted its UKRO advisor, Jennifer Morgan, on the 1st July 2019. The Research team were very fortunate to have an open and honest discussion on what the future means for us at Leeds Beckett. Particularly, how we can continue participating in the EU’s funding programmes with all the uncertainty that exists with the UK exit changing from the 29th March 2019 to now the 31st October 2019. We have yet to see if this will be the last extension requested by the UK Government.
Our discussions focussed on the opportunities that we could realistically apply to and be part of going forward. Some of these included the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) and the European Research Council (ERC) Grants. The Marie Curie Individual Fellowships call is currently open with a deadline on 11th September. Also, some of the ERC calls are also open; Proof of Concept ERC-2019-PoC has a deadline 19th September, Advanced Grant ERC-2019-AdG has a deadline 29th August 2019 and the ERC Starting Grant call will open in July 2019 and will have a deadline sometime in October 2019. The Research Team are very interested to hear from colleagues that would like to explore and pursue funding applications to these schemes.
Jennifer also went through the ‘underwrite guarantee’ and the ‘Post EU Exit Guarantee Extension’ and how these would help fund existing and new projects funded by the EU. UKRO has developed (and continuously updates) a fact sheet on BREXIT and this may help colleagues to understand the challenges that are being faced by the sector at large.
Horizon Europe which is the EU’s ambitious €100 billion research and innovation programme that will succeed Horizon 2020, was also presented. Unfortunately, the UK’s participation in this depends on the outcome of the withdrawal agreement or a no deal scenario!
Amongst all the planning and preparation from BEIS and the Government on BREXIT matters, there is a real possibility that the world as we know it will change. There are however, opportunities to seize and we can still participate in EU schemes, albeit differently.
For more information and funding details contact the Research Team researchhub@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.
University Research Development Team
The University Research Team have a wide range of experience in securing external funding. We provide guidance, expert advice and hands on support to help you navigate the funding process, whatever stage you are at in your career.
