Summary of EPSRC funding for international activities

• Responsive Mode Research Grants
  These grants can be used to support international collaboration. You can include the costs of collaboration, for example, travel and subsistence for research staff to work in a partner's laboratory overseas, as well as the usual UK-based costs like staff, equipment, UK travel and subsistence, and consumables. You can also use funding flexibly, for example, to fill postdoctoral researcher and project student places with candidates from a partner's laboratory.
• Overseas Travel Grants
  Supporting travel and subsistence, and salary costs of the principal investigator. You can use them to travel abroad to learn new techniques, to visit overseas laboratories and gauge the state-of-the-art, or to start new collaborations. They can also be used to travel to European centres to develop collaborations with European researchers for a bid to Framework Programme 7.
• Visiting Researchers
  Provides support for a scientist or engineer of acknowledged standing to visit a UK laboratory for up to a year. Applications must be made by the UK host.

• Bilateral Research Workshops
  N + N meetings can be held to exchange ideas and expertise internationally, with the objective of exploring the possibility of more substantial future collaboration. Roughly equal numbers attend from each side. EPSRC will fund travel and accommodation expenses of UK participants and, for meetings in the UK, core meeting costs.

  It is preferred that a single UK participant co-ordinates the UK side and submits a single standard research grant proposal to cover all the UK side's costs. It is strongly advised that a discussion be held with the relevant EPSRC head of programme before submitting a proposal.

• Networks
  UK-based activities that link research groups and industrial organisations, often across disciplines, to develop new or enhanced collaborations. Funding is available to support workshops, visits, travel and part-time co-ordinators. Networks can include overseas partners.
• Platform grants
  Provides world-leading UK research groups with continuity for key research staff so that they can carry out longer-term and adventurous research with enhanced national and international networking. These grants are available in the areas of engineering, materials and information and communications technologies.

• International Collaboration Sabbaticals
  Supported by the Materials, Mechanical and Medical Engineering programme, this initiative aims to foster long-term "best-with-best" international collaboration between leading UK researchers and their international peers and break down some of the barriers to extended international collaboration.

  The scheme allows UK-based researchers to undertake visits to overseas centres of excellence of 6-12 months in duration, built around a high quality research agenda.

  Funding is available to cover the applicant's salary, travel and subsistence and research costs. Resources can also be requested to cover stays for members of the applicant's family and research team.

Frequently Asked Questions - International Funding

• Q1: What do I do if I want to visit potential collaborators to discuss working together and to prepare research proposals?
  A: Apply for an Overseas Travel Grant.
• Q2: How do I find out what is going on in a particular country and arrange a visit when I do not know all the key groups?
  A: Talk to us – we can put you in touch with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Science and Technology Attachés Network who will be able to identify key groups. You can apply for an Overseas Travel Grant.
• Q3: I want to understand the nature of research in a particular country to see how it fits in with my own research. To do this I need to visit more than one laboratory. Can this be done?
  A: Yes, by applying for an Overseas Travel Grant.
• Q4: A specific topic is interesting and there may be a lot of research being carried out in a particular country. How is it possible for a small group of researchers to visit a series of laboratories, universities and industries to gauge the extent of this work?
  A: You can apply for a small grant to cover costs for you and your team. You may find the Knowledge Transfer Networks useful for linking research to business.
• Q5: We know who we want to discuss collaborations with but we need time to talk about the details and get to know potential partners. What is the best way to go about this?
  A: Apply for a small grant to fund one or more "N+N" type of workshops to get to know each other and to discuss collaborations. You could also use a network grant to link the UK researchers to the overseas group for longer-term discussions.
• Q6: My collaborator is an experienced scientist.  Is it possible to arrange for them to work in my laboratory for upto a year or perhaps have a series of shorter visits over a year?
  A: You can apply for support for a Visiting Researcher, and you may want to consider arranging a programme of visits to other UK laboratories for your visitor to demonstrate other work in the UK.
• Q7: I already have funding for a project and I have a willing international partner who has some funding.  How do we find support for a meeting between ourselves and our groups?
  A: You can apply for a small grant to request travel and subsistence for you and your research assistants to visit the overseas organisation. You may also need to request funding to cover the UK costs of hosting incoming visits if you collaborator comes from a place with currency restrictions. If this is the case, there may well be reciprocity: you pay their costs in the UK and they pay your costs when you visit them.
• Q8: I need funding for my part of a collaborative project.  Is it possible to employ an research assistant from my collaborator's laboratory, possibly even a student? Would I also be able to apply for travel funds for myself and research staff to spent time in my collaborator's laboratory and even to support their group in the UK?
  A: EPSRC grants can incorporate the UK costs for the research project as well as extra elements of overseas collaborations such as those in Question 7. Project studentships are open to any nationality.