The Research Councils are making significant amendments to their collaboration on the peer review and funding of research projects that straddle their remits. The aim is to ensure that no gaps develop between the Councils’ subject domains. This will ensure equality of opportunity for proposals at the interface between traditional disciplines, where many of the major research challenges of our time are located.
The Research Councils already support a great deal of multidisciplinary research, which adopts a single set of imperatives and approaches by fusing established research disciplines together. Many such areas - for example photonics and history of art - reside within the remit of an individual Council and receive funding from one Council alone. Others - including climate change, design, neuroscience and chemical biology - inherently straddle the remit of two or more Research Councils. Projects in these areas have usually been handled by the Council to which they have been submitted, with some collaboration with other Councils on assessment and support.
The Councils also provide tailored support for multidisciplinary research, which enables different disciplinary approaches to be harnessed towards a common research challenge. These investments range from major cross-Council programmes in areas such as genomics, e-Science, the rural economy, energy and ageing, to bi-lateral initiatives such as systems biology.
In its investment framework for Science and Innovation , the government has highlighted the need for an enhanced culture of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research in the UK, and for a Research Council peer review and funding infrastructure that is supportive of such work. In this context, the Councils have substantially revised their protocol for assessing and funding research that straddles their remits, which will build upon their collaborative working to date.
The protocol aims to:
- Ensure that the Councils’ structures provide no discouragement to research at the interface between disciplines.
- Ensure that there are no gaps between Councils’ remits and that interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research is effectively supported by the Councils, either independently or in partnership.
- Ensure that peer review is fair, appropriate and avoids ‘double jeopardy’ for projects that straddle disciplinary and Council remits.
- Minimise consideration by applicants of Council remits.
- Neither advantage, nor disadvantage, single discipline research.
It will be founded on strong communication between identified Research Council contacts and be integral to existing processes, thereby ensuring consistent, timely and robust decisions.
All responsive-mode research grant applications that extend beyond a single Research Council’s remit will be assessed by peer reviewers from across the relevant domains, thereby ensuring fair and rigorous assessment. Beyond this stage, decisions will be made through a single Council’s peer review process, but any significant element residing within another Council’s remit will be funded by the Council(s) concerned. This will avoid the 'double jeopardy' of additional review, whilst ensuring that funding allocations reflect Research Councils' different missions, imperatives and approaches.
A visual overview of the process is provided below. In summary,
- Applications will be submitted through the Je-S system to the Council that the applicant considers the most appropriate. Details of Councils' remits can be obtained from their web-sites.
- Officers of the Council receiving the application will consider whether the scope of the application, in terms of its imperatives and the approaches proposed, extends into another Council's remit.
- If the Officers consider that the scope extends into another Council's remit, they will contact an identified colleague at the supporting Council(s) concerned.
- The receiving and supporting Councils will determine whether, and to what extent, the application straddles their remits.
- If the application is considered to extend beyond the remit of the receiving Council, the supporting Council(s) will nominate peer reviewers from their own domain(s), who will be asked to provide an assessment.
- The application will then proceed through the receiving Council's peer review process.
- If the application is successful and the contribution of the supporting Council(s) has earlier been agreed to be significant, funding will be provided by all of the Councils concerned.
- Outcome correspondence and awards will be issued by the receiving Council, but any post-award review will involve assessors nominated by the supporting Council(s).
- The Councils will collectively gather, analyse and publish data on the number and performance of applications that straddle their remits, and will annually review the operation of the protocol.
The protocol applies to all responsive-mode research grant applications. Responsive-mode research grants excludes any applications that are submitted in response to a targeted call for proposals in a defined thematic area, for example within a managed or directed programme or against defined strategic objectives. The Councils already collaborate extensively on such programmes, establishing common peer review and funding arrangements that are tailored to the needs of each programme.
For those organisations wishing to discuss their eligibility, a list of contacts for each Council is provided here.