Published on 19 November 2021
Research Grants User Group Meeting and Researchfish
The next RGUG meeting will take place as a live event on Tuesday 30th November at 11:15am, please use this link to join the meeting. The agenda will include a presentation on the new Large Grant Contributions Fund and updates on EU matters. There will also be a talk about the preparation needed for the annual Researchfish submission. This is mainly aimed at Node Administrators but is also useful for staff who maybe helping PIs with their annual return.
Slides and recording of the previous RGUG meeting in October are available on the RGUG web page. For further information please contact Hannah.Pawson@admin.cam.ac.uk.
Principal Investigator Programme on LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning is an online learning resource available for the staff and students at the University of Cambridge. The Research Office has designed a Principal Investigator Programme for LinkedIn Learning (log in using your Office 365 Online with CRSID and Raven) which comprises of modules to help you navigate your responsibilities of managing a grant or contracted research. The narrated presentations include costing your research project, working with external collaborators and managing your research budget. This resource will help you to implement successful grant management and meet University and funder requirements. The LinkedIn Learning Getting Starting page will guide you through how to login to your LinkedIn Learning account.
EC Update
Gender Equality Plans (GEP) are now part of the eligibility criteria in Horizon Europe for calls with deadlines in 2022 onwards. Details of how the University of Cambridge complies with the GEP can be found on the ROO website.
The European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant and Consolidator Grant calls are now open. On the ROO website you will find links to the UK Research Office webinar recordings for each of these schemes that address the key issues required in planning, writing and costing a proposal.
Reminder - Christmas and New Year Deadlines for Applications and Expenditure Statements
Due to the Christmas vacation the Research Operations Office (ROO) will close from 1pm on Friday 24th December 2021 and will re-open on Tuesday 4th January 2022. Therefore please be aware of the following deadlines and ensure that your researchers are made aware of these arrangements.
- Final Expenditure Statements due over the Christmas closure period must be confirmed to ROO by Friday 26th November 2021. This is to allow statements to be submitted to the funder, prior to the Christmas closure.
- If you have a funder deadline application between Thursday 23rd December 2021 – Tuesday 4th January 2022, applications should reach the ROO by
| 2 working days deadline | Tuesday 21st December 2021 |
| 7 Working days deadline | Tuesday 14th December 2021 |
- If you have applications with a funder deadline in the first week of January, when counting back for 2 or 7 working days, Thursday 23rd December will be the last full working day before Christmas. For example
| Funder deadline | Friday 7th January 2022, 5pm |
| 2 working days | Wednesday 5th January 2022, 5pm |
| 7 working days | Monday 20th December 2021, 5pm |
As a reminder, the ROO asks for a minimum of four weeks’ notice of the intention to submit to a particular scheme. Some funders have very short turnaround times which means that it's not always possible to give the ROO four weeks' notice of intention to submit. In these circumstances, please continue to contact the ROO at the earliest opportunity so that we can assess the resource requirements to support the application. Full details of the deadline policy and the application deadline calculator can be found on the ROO website.
Apollo Repository Upgrade – Friday 26th November 2021
Due to an essential upgrade of the connector between Symplectic Elements and the Apollo repository, the deposit functionality will be unavailable from Friday 26th November 2021 for a period of 7-10 days. All deposits into Apollo (Open Access, Research data and PhD theses) via Symplectic Elements are affected by this work. Apologies for any inconvenience that this may cause. Further details are available from the Research Data website.
CAPE Policy Engagement Perceptions Survey: Autumn 2021
Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE) is a £10 million funded project which has been created to support effective and sustained engagement between academics and policy professionals across the higher education sector. In order to better understand the experiences of staff at universities engaging with policy making institutions CAPE is conducting a survey across the UK. This survey is open to all staff at higher education institutions and all submissions are anonymous.
The survey https://bit.ly/PolicyPerceptionsSurvey should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete and closes on 30th November.
Help Wellcome improve their online platforms
Wellcome’s digital team is looking for people to take part in their user research. They regularly carry out research with people who use their website and grant funding application system, so that they can improve these experiences. Wellcome would like to hear from you if you’re an academic researcher, a PhD student or someone who works in research support. Sessions will be held virtually and may last 30-60 minutes, or you may be invited to a series of sessions. You’ll receive compensation for your time.
To get involved, please contact Aoife Spengeman a.spengeman@wellcome.org with the subject line ‘User research participant’.