National University of Singapore-Imperial Collaboration Fund

For the 2024/25 funding round, Imperial and NUS have agreed on an Open Theme approach. Applicants interested in in pursuing future funding in Singapore should consider the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2025 strategy as areas of focus:

• Manufacturing, Trade and Connectivity
• Human Health and Potential
• Urban Solutions and Sustainability
• Smart Nation and Digital Economy

In this financial year, Imperial and NUS are committed to award up to ten successful Imperial and NUS teams, to develop and reinforce lasting contacts with the very best researchers in their field.

Funds can be requested to support one or more of the following activities:

• Exploratory research, travel costs and other activities that often do not receive financial support at the earliest stages. Imperial funds can also be used to support small-scale experiments or the development of prototypes;
• Outward/inward visits for academics, research staff and students to investigate the potential for, initiate, follow-up, or work on a collaborative project or training opportunity, and for other stakeholder engagement;
• ‘Hackathon’ or other collaborative day or week-long events involving staff and students from both institutions to explore new risky and ‘blue skies’ research directions and ideas;
• Longer stays for students or research staff (up to maximum 2 months) to learn new techniques, analyse results or undertake other activities;
• Set up of new networks to promote the exchange of ideas, best practice, and other research goals;
• Networking events such as workshops and seminars to bring together researchers to foster new links or strengthen existing collaborations.
• Facilitation fees for online workshops (to encourage innovative ways of online interaction
• Payment for student assistance (to encourage student engagement in projects)
• Research consumables/datasets, etc.

This above list is not exhaustive. NUS and Imperial are open to innovative ideas that support both Imperial and NUS academics to initiate and pursue collaborations that ideally lead to new science and to future applications for external funding.

Budget requests should be no more than £5,000 from Imperial and S$8,500 from NUS per project for a project duration of one year. Funds can only be spent on activities that fit the purpose of this call.  Applicants should itemise their budget using the tables in the application form.

Existing staff time including the Co-PIs time cannot be costed to the project. Each Institution’s contributions will be used exclusively to fund its own researcher and their research expenses and will not be co-mingled. The award of any funds from either Institution will be subject, in each case, to the internal processes and procedures of such Institution. All travel activities must comply with the guidelines of the respective universities.

Please refer to the list of fundable/ non-fundable items below:

This is an Open Call.  At NUS, the fund is open to full-time academic staff only, with at least 75% time at NUS and a contract period that outlast the project period. At Imperial, applicants must be staff with a permanent academic contract, or an independent fellow eligible to apply for external funding.  Proposals must be submitted to the application portal via this link. Only applications submitted before the deadline will be considered.

One proposal per Principal Applicant per call is permitted.

Each application should have one Principal Applicant based at Imperial and one Principal Applicant based at NUS and should contain:

• A written case for support (maximum 2 pages) to include:
• A description of the relevant research/training conducted by the Imperial-based individual/group in recent years;
• A description of the activities and collaboration proposed;
• Explanation of how the activities proposed will generate demonstrable added value to the PI / Research Group / Department / Faculty / College
• A description of the opportunities available for leveraging funding, especially from overseas sources;
• A financial summary: Each application should provide information on the requested costs using the budget section of the application template (see ‘Funding Requested’).
• Two-page CVs of the Imperial and NUS PIs.
•  Applicable only to Imperial Applicants: A WorkTribe statement is not needed.

Researchers from other institutions may also participate as a Co-Investigators and at their own expense.

Applications must be completed using the NUS-Imperial Collaboration Fund Application 2024-25 and within the page limit stated.

This is a joint call, and an application should be jointly submitted by the Imperial and NUS PIs. As Microsoft Form only allows people within the organization to upload files, NUS PI should upload the joint application and two-page CVs in a single pdf file on behalf of the Imperial-NUS team at the NUS application portal before it expires on 8 November 2024 Singapore Time.

• Joint grant call opens: 8 October 2024
• Deadline for the submission of joint application: 8 November 2024
• Release date of the results: 20 December 2024
• Start date of the awarded projects: 1 January 2025
• Project Completion: 31 December 2025
• Final Report: 31 January 2026

At Imperial, all eligible applications will be considered for funding by the Academic Director, Imperial Global Singapore with assistance of the Imperial Global Singapore Strategy Committee and the International Relations Office. At NUS, all eligible applications will be considered for funding by the Office of the Deputy President (Research & Technology),

Each side will rank the proposals based on excellence of research, fit to call, value for money, potential strategic value of the partnership (including potential for opportunity to leverage additional funding) and the impact the award would bring to the applicant, based on their career stage and any existing networks or support.

NUS and Imperial will then jointly decide on the final agreed selections.

Expected Outcomes 

Researchers are encouraged to achieve at least one of the following outcomes by the end of the project period: 

1. Researchers/students from one institution shall carry out research in the other institution for more than three months in total; or
2. Researchers from one institution shall give at least one specialized lecture in the other institution; or
3. Jointly hold a physical/online workshop at either institution; or
4. Jointly apply for national/international competitive grant or other sources of external funding; or
5. Other outcomes of equal value.

Accessing Funds

At Imperial, Faculty Finance Officers will be informed of decisions and will arrange the set-up of an award account code, where all project related expenditure should be charged.

At NUS, please liaise with your Faculty research office on the reimbursement process.

Reporting

Principal Applicants who are successful in receiving an award are required to provide a report within 4 weeks of the end of the award period, to both globalseedfunds@imperial.ac.uk and dprbox52@nus.edu.sg, using a template provided.  The narrative element of the report should provide details of the relevant activities supported and how these have addressed the objectives of the call. The financial element of the report serves as a Final Expenditure Statement and should detail the award amount and the award spent.  Responsibility remains with the PI to ensure all spend has been charged to the correct award code.

Imperial is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring, promotion and research funding decisions we will evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the impact factor of the journal where it is published. More information is available at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-evaluation/.