Research Grants
Deadline(s): 30 September and 1 February
Full Member Research Grants are available to
- contribute towards the specific costs (e.g., travel for research, consumables, etc) of research projects proposed by full members of the Society.
- establish fixed-term working groups to discuss and take forward specific developments or topic areas within geomorphology. Fixed-term working groups are intended to address areas in which rapid developments are taking place, or in which key issues are arising which would be aided by increased communication between small communities of interested researchers. Working Groups will normally comprise 5-15 members but meetings will be advertised and open to all BSG members. The BSG will provide funds to facilitate meetings, aid dissemination and publication of group research activity, and will fund up to 3 fixed-term groups at any one time.
- set up and maintain long-term geomorphological monitoring. Applications for funds to support long-term geomorphological monitoring should demonstrate that this will provide crucial information that is presently unavailable. It is expected that data collected during monitoring will be made available to members of the BSG and applicants will need to demonstrate how they will facilitate this.
- establish working groups to undertake the preliminary work required to develop proposals for Research Council thematic programmes and/or responsive-mode grants
It is expected that awards will only exceed a value of £1000 in exceptional circumstances. Current success rates (data from 2012 and 2013) are 25%.
Eligible costs would normally include such items as the costs of field visits, purchase of data, items of equipment, etc. Applicants are advised that the Society does not make awards on a full economic costing basis, and that the following costs are not eligible: salaries, core funding or overheads to institutions, bench fees, charges to access laboratory facilities at your home institution (though the Society will support the direct costs of laboratory consumables where these are fully justified), and conferences. Applicants must fully justify any resources requested. Where funding is sought for dating costs, other bodies such as NERC should be approached first, unless the date is needed urgently or is for a single sample and therefore unlikely to attract NERC support.
Applicants should outline the full cost of the research, taking care to fully justify any resources requested from the BSG. Applicants are also required to provide details of how any additional costs associated with the project (i.e. those not requested from the Society) will be met, indicating how the request for support relates to any existing projects. Value may be added to proposals if applicants can demonstrate matched or partial funding from other sources. Where competition for grants is strong and applications are of equal scientific merit, preference may be given to applications for funding that can clearly lead to a grant application to, for example, a Research Council or other major funding agency.
All successful applicants are required to
- acknowledge BSG (Wiley-Blackwell) support where relevant (publications and conferences),
- provide a written report to the Research Subcommittee (which may be published in Geophemera),
- regard Earth Surface Processes and Landforms as the primary outlet for publication of papers and special issues.
- regard the RGS-IBG Book Series as an outlet for publishing authored monographs or edited volumes.