University of Surrey - EPSRC Capital Award Emphasising Support for Early Career Researchers (ECRs)

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Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are vital to the success of any research university, shaping future research programmes and strategy through the novelty of their ideas, through the leading techniques and methods they employ and by helping create a vibrant and dynamic research culture through their participation in the wider activities of their departments, faculties and the University itself. To have the best chance to develop into internationally regarded research leaders, these ECRs need the right support from their Universities. That support includes provision of, or access to, the state-of-art equipment which is often necessary to conduct the highest quality research. Access to World Class Laboratories with state-of-the-art equipment can represent an important distinctive capabilityOf course, having novel ideas and access to equipment are not the only factors that will determine how successful a researcher will be in developing their careers. Increasingly, success comes from being able to work in multidisciplinary teams focused on tackling complex and difficult challenges. Thus, ECRs also need support in developing their networks and encouraging collaborations with other academics and with the user of research in industry, government and the third sector.With this award of £150k from the EPSRC, the University of Surrey intends to ensure that we extend the equipment capabilities available to researchers in general and to ECRs in particular. We are looking for a step-change difference in our capability. To achieve this we will make a maximum of three awards ensuring that resources are not spread too thinly. In addition, we will match the EPSRC funds with a University investment making £300k available in total. The Principal Investigator (PI) for each award will be an ECR. The Head of Department within which the PI is based will provide technical support for the equipment throughout the grant period and at least 6 hours per week for the PI to engage on the project.The University will also award the equipment through a process that will encourage collaboration both within the University and beyond. We will do this first be specifying that awards will only be made to a collaborative team of investigators within which there must be at least one other eligible ECRs beyond the Principal Investigator. We will also insist that between 10% and 30% of the time available on the equipment should be made available to the wider research community beyond the collaborative team. This will not only provide an incentive to develop new networks but will also serve to encourage new research programmes as the community approach our team with research ideas of their own.