Funding Opportunities for KEI

A new fund, which aims to support world-class research and knowledge exchange by LSE academic faculty and researchers. RDP will award up to £20,000 per project. This can include projects with a KEI focus or elements.

The fund is open to all disciplines and research ideas. Priority will be given to research that is aligned with current LSE priorities, namely: environmental sustainability; race equity; and shaping the post-COVID world. Applicants are encouraged to become familiar with the priority themes before submitting. 

The fund will particularly welcome exceptional applications from Assistant Professors and Assistant Professorial Research Fellows. This is in recognition of the diminishing schemes available externally to support faculty and researchers at this level. We aim to provide at least 40% of our funding to staff at this level. 

No call is currently open for this Fund, but you can read more about recently awarded funding. We expect to have an update on new calls in mid-September.

The School plans to award a further £10,000 to each LSE academic department in 2021/22 for use to support any form of knowledge exchange with non-academic audiences. Confirmation of this allocation is expected in autumn 2021, with funding available to spend for a full calendar year following the announcement.

Potential uses include - but are not limited to - activities supporting public and community engagement or the development of new relationships or partnerships with (for example) schools, local agencies, or the private, cultural and heritage sectors. They could also be used to develop colleagues’ KEI-related skills and capabilities.

The funds are intended to provide flexible, responsive support for departmental KE activities. The sorts of things they were used for in previous years included:

• Events held at LSE for non-academic audiences
• Social media campaigns
• Films or animations based on LSE research
• Design of reports or infographics
• Seed-funding for larger KE activities
• Travel to and/or from LSE to facilitate engagement with non-academics
• Any other activity directly engaging with stakeholders and/or end-users of research
• Matched funding for KE activities that have attracted external support
• KE training events and/or materials to develop skills and capabilities within Departments

Departments are able to allocate the funds at their discretion, but are encouraged to support activities led by colleagues without previous experience of knowledge exchange.

Criteria

Departments are free to allocate funds in whatever way they deem most conducive to supporting engagement with their research. The only stipulation is that the funds had to facilitate engagement with people or organisations beyond academia.

Each department is required to nominate an academic contact to meet with the KEI Integrated Service to discuss effective KE and public engagement activities and what support for these can be provided centrally.  A Professional Services contact also has to be appointed to support the financial management of the funds. Funds can be used by anyone conducting research at the School, including PhD students.

A short report setting out how funds have been spent is required to be sent to research.kei@lse.ac.uk following the close of the funding period.