About

The Research Culture Fund is a small, flexible funding scheme designed to support academics, researchers and professional services staff to develop and deliver initiatives that contribute to positive research culture across MPLS departments.

The scheme is supported by the Research England Enhancing Research Culture Fund.

Funding is intended to enable pilot activity or the development of existing initiatives that would not otherwise be possible through core departmental budgets.

The fund offers two tiers of awards to support activity at different scales:

• Four awards of up to £500 for small-scale or exploratory initiatives
• Four awards of up to £4,000 for larger-scale or more complex collaborative projects

 Funded activity should address one of the following areas:

• How research is carried out
  (e.g. research integrity and ethics, reproducibility and open research practices, data management and sharing, collaborative and team-based research, environmental sustainability)
• How diverse contributions to research are recognised and valued
  (e.g. visibility of different roles and career stages, inclusive networks and communities, recognition of team contributions, representation and voice in decision-making, research leadership)
• How research careers are supported and developed
  (e.g. mentoring and peer support, career and professional development, diverse career paths, workload and wellbeing, support for funding applications)

Examples of small-scale initiatives funded in the previous round include a Women in Engineering Mentorship Programme, a cross-departmental career development event, criteria and guidance for recognising engaged research in research careers, and training internal mediators for the divisional Resolution Service.

Where relevant, proposals should support departmental readiness for the Strategy, People and Research Environment (SPRE) element of REF 2029 by strengthening how research culture activity is embedded, evidenced and evaluated.

Funded projects are expected to produce a short project report, which will be included in the Research Culture Toolkit Inspiration Bank to support wider learning across the University.