This is an invite-only AHRC IAA call. See below for more details.
This IAA call is only open to researchers and cultural partners who participated in the Culture Innovation event.
1. Summary
Opportunity Status: Invite only
Funders: 快播视频’s Impact Acceleration Account (an institutional award from UKRI)
Total Fund: Up to ~£50,000 available
Grant size: Up to £10,000 but smaller awards of <£5,000 are also encouraged. Amounts over £10,000 will be considered on an exceptional basis (with the expectation of a 1:1 cash match from the project partners) but please discuss with the IAA Manager in advance.
Opening Date: 25th March 2025
Closing Date: 16th April 2025 5.00pm.
This call is part of 快播视频’s Impact Acceleration Account programme (2022-2026) which is designed to support projects that generate impact by applying research into real world settings with an external partner.
This funding will be part of a closed call and will be inviteonly to researchers and collaborative partnerships developed via the Culture Innovation event on March 25th.
2. Culture Innovation Overview
The IAA and Knowledge Exchange Teams at 快播视频 have collaborated to develop the Culture Innovation IAA call, bringing together cultural organisations around Morecambe Bay who are actively seeking to innovate. Culture Innovation applies creative and cultural methodologies to rethink challenges, foster collaboration, and drive problem-solving across disciplines. This event will explore how culture-led placemaking can serve as a catalyst for sustainability, digital transformation, and health and wellbeing in the Bay, shaping new ways of working across sectors.
The first stage of the Culture Innovation IAA call involves a facilitated investigative and action focused session to map out ambitions between cultural organisations and 快播视频 researchers, exploring new opportunities for creative and cultural organisations to co-produce new projects with researchers. The call for Expressions of Interest to attend this event closed on the 28th February.
For researchers who participated in the Culture Innovation event, please review the information below before applying with your external partner for funding from the AHRC IAA (note, funding will only be available for projects in the arts and humanities disciplines, see guidance below). Researchers should submit the application but should liaise and seek input from their external partner.
Examples of IAA projects:
Design researchers working with RSPB Leighton Moss to install installations with the community that measure light pollution (see here).
English and Creative Writing researchers working with Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery on women’s iconography, including development of educational resources and experiences for schools (see here).
Film Studies researchers working with Global Link to do film-making workshops with refugees.
History and Computer Science researchers working with English Heritage on developing inclusive digital heritage interpretation on Hadrian’s Wall.
English and Creative Writing, and Engineering researchers working with One Tenth Human to develop a theatre production to raise aspirations around STEM (see here).
3. Call Guidance
If you participated in the Culture Innovation event on March 25th and wish to seek funding with your cultural partner to develop your idea/project, please review the information below for further background and guidance around the AHRC Impact Acceleration Account.
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Eligibility
This call is invite-only to researchers who attended the Culture Innovation event on the 25th March.
Though projects should be a genuine collaboration between the cultural partner and the researcher, we require the LU researcher to be Principle Investigator (PI) and to manage the IAA funding. This ensures adherence to 快播视频's financial regulations and original IAA terms & conditions from UK Research & Innovation. However, we can fund collaborative activities with businesses/organisations/charities or other third-parties to enable projects to be delivered.
The PI does not need to have received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to be eligible to apply. However, there should be pre-existing AHRC-discipline based research underpinning the IAA project.
The IAA is not intended to support 'engaged research', nor is it a vehicle for consultancy projects - there must be genuine collaboration, exchange of knowledge, and mutually agreed outcomes and impacts with an external non-academic partner.
Proposals should align to AHRC remits - further details about this are below. An explanation of alignment should be provided within the application. If you are not sure then contact the IAA Manager to discuss, who can confirm alignment or otherwise prior to application.
All proposals must involve working with anexternal, non-academic partner.
The PI may supervise and involve other staff (e.g., RAs or Post-Doctoral Researchers) in the delivery of IAA projects, but they remain the PI.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI)
We encourage Early Career Researchers to apply, under whichever definition is appropriate to your circumstances. The IAA may be able to cover costs related to parental leave, and we have made allowance for childcare costs to also be claimed via the IAA project.
Our data on previous LU IAA applicants has demonstrated that certain groups are less likely to apply for an IAA, and though we won’t ask specific questions about protected characteristics, we do encourage applications from individuals representing any of the following groups:
Individuals who identify as female
Individuals with a declared disability
Individuals are representative of ethnic groups other than white.
Scope
Though we expect a broad range of ideas, activity types, and partner representatives, proposals must:
i) Include activity aligning to at least one of the following activity streams:
Strengthen knowledge exchange through culture change, including through the development of skills for knowledge exchange activity
Strengthen research organisation and researcher–research user engagement
Support knowledge exchange – including at early stages of progressing research outputs and outcomes to the point when they can be supported by other funding
Support new, innovative and imaginative approaches to KE and impact, including processes that enable “fast failure” and appropriate learning
Support activities that enable impact to be achieved in an effective and timely manner, including secondments and people exchange
ii) Evidence alignment to AHRC remits
Your project must align to at least one of the AHRC research areas. For clarity on which discipline areas are eligible, please see the ‘AHRC Disciplines’ available via the (pp 67-74),
In your application you will be asked to state the research area(s) that your proposal aligns to, and to expand on remit alignment in your written application.
iii) Include expected impacts aligned to one of the following themes:
Health & wellbeing
Sustainability and net-zero
Digital transformation
iv) Work with at least one external partner attending the Culture Innovation event.
It is mandatory that you have an external (non-academic) partner for this funding scheme. We welcome projects with cash match where available. For projects citing cash match (not in-kind) from your external partner(s), a signed collaboration agreement will be required outlining payment terms and intellectual property ownership. A template of this agreement can be supplied to the partner as part of the preparation of the proposal as this will potentially save time later.
Duration
Projects must conclude by December 2025.
Eligible Costs
Grants can be up to £10,000 but smaller awards of <£5,000 also encouraged. Amounts over £10,000 will be considered on an exceptional basis (with expectation of 1:1 cashmatch). Please discuss with the IAA Manager prior to application if >£10k.
Full Economic Costs are not applicable/eligible (i.e. estates and indirect costs, permanent staff time etc.)
We are looking to support the new direct costs of projects through this call – so additional Research Assistant/Post-Doctoral Researcher time, travel, consumables, payments to facilitate partner involvement and small items of equipment. Any equipment purchases must be <£10K.
Other support costs to enable project delivery (such as childcare costs for working away etc.) are allowable.
We expect that projects will include costs for the cultural/creative partner to facilitate their involvement and/or artists to deliver work. If you are proposing to pass a portion of your IAA grant to a third party (i.e. the cultural/creative partner) then VAT will be incurred. Ensure you include allowance for any VAT on ‘taxable supplies’ – see .
For artists costs, you should be guided by the creative/cultural partner but may also want to make reference to:
How to apply
There is one funding level offered via this invited IAA call:
Seed funding for up to £10,000 per project, intended for short 3-6 month duration projects to enable initial researcher and external partner collaborations or for critical, emerging opportunities.
To apply, please submit an application via the , which will be circulated to researchers and cultural organisations attending the Culture Innovation event. The online form has additional guidance embedded within it. To review the questions to be asked and the associated guidance you can review a PDF here: Culture Innovation IAA Call .
Please note, you will be required to upload Head of Department approval emails via the online application form.
To support applications we may also run an online webinar w/c 1st April.
Applications will need to be submitted by the deadline of 5.00pm, 16th April.
Proposals will be scored against the weightings outlined in the application form, ranked, and then funding allocated based on available funds and panel discussions. For this call, we have reviewers outside the University.
AHRC Panel (24th April): Sarah Tooze (FASS Engagement & Partnership Manager), Nathan Jones (LICA Engagement Director), Sharon Phillips (快播视频 & District CVS), Julie Brown (Executive Director, Imitating The Dog).
Panel secretary: Jamie Hodge (IAA Manager)
To maintain their impartiality, panel members are asked to not provide detailed advice to prospective applicants. For example, they can advise informally about the IAA scheme (though be mindful of capacity) but cannot review drafts or heavily influence proposal development.
As this is a closed call, the IAA Manager is happy to field enquiries and provide more detailed advice to applicants. Please contact j.p.hodge@lancaster.ac.uk.
Outcomes are expected to be communicated by C.O.P on 25th April. Detailed feedback will follow but won’t be provided immediately.
This call will be managed by Jamie Hodge (IAA Partnership Development Manager).
Q1: Can I, as a researcher or cultural partner, be on more than one project?
Yes - you can be on more than one submission. Just be mindful of whether any projects should (or could) be combined with perhaps different strands of activity to reflect the differences. We'd prefer to fund a smaller number of larger projects that contributed to a common aim (see below if this increases the budget beyond £10k).
Q2: Is their flexibility in the £10k limit?
Yes, particularly if projects have combined and/or involve multiple partners and researchers. As above, we would prefer to fund projects that are of increased scales of activity and collaboration. Please just explain in the proposal as justification and contact j.p.hodge@lancaster.ac.uk to advise on exceeding the £10k limit.
Q3: What is the difference between the themes and the discipline areas?
The three themes for this call are: "health & wellbeing | sustainability & net zero | digital transformation". Projects should align to one of these themes. The project also needs to draw on research related (by at least 50%) to one of the AHRC discipline areas listed in the AHRC funding guide PDF, . Funding for this call is from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) so we need to make projects are sufficiently aligned to their remit to full our obligations and terms & conditions of the grant. If you have any questions about AHRC alignment contact j.p.hodge@lancaster.ac.uk as it can sometimes be hard to discern (but we can also interpret these remits flexibly).
Q4: Who can submit the application?
The online form is only accessible to LU staff. This is because they will need to upload approvals and ultimately manage the funding. Because the funding comes from the Research Councils, we also need to ensure there is a researcher involved (actively) in the process, and that there is some research underpinning the activity. This is why we expect the researcher to lead on the funding application. You can see a PDF of the application under 'How to Apply'.
See press releases below related to IAA projects across AHRC and EPSRC:
