Overview

Aim and objectives of Fellowship Scheme

A key aim of the Fellowships is to support collaboration and projects with non-academic partners, including local, regional, national and international organisations (including central government and their agencies, devolved administrations, local government, health and education bodies, the justice system and other regulatory organisations), businesses and communities (including formal and informal community groups).

We want to support different ways of working with users of research to bring about a positive change in our world;

To enable the aims of the university’s ‘Knowledge Exchange and Impact Strategy’;
To be an agile, flexible scheme that supports greater planning of KE and impact activities;
To support new KE and Impact activities or further develop work already underway, connecting in to other sources of funding and support as and where appropriate;
To champion transdisciplinary and innovative ways of working across the institution;
To develop individual KE and impact skills and experience in relation to how researchers work with research users;
To contribute to raising the profile of Sussex regionally, nationally and internationally.

What we’re looking for in the KEI Fellowship application

The Fellowship scheme is open to researchers working in all disciplines and at all levels. Early career researchers are especially encouraged to engage with the scheme.

We are interested in projects that support participatory or co-produced research projects by “making change together” and generating ‘value’.

Applications should meet the definitions of ‘Knowledge Exchange’ and ‘Impact’ and contribute to at least one of the four strategic aims of the Sussex Knowledge Exchange and Impact strategy outlined below:

Knowledge Exchange: ‘two-way flow of knowledge (skills, expertise, technology and/or information) between the univerity and users of research’.
Impact: ‘the effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health,the environment or quality of life, beyond academia.’

Strategic Aims

To maximise opportunities to transform practice through our entrepreneurial research, innovation and enterprise work
To become embedded as valuable knowledge partner in enabling change in place
To inform, challenge and influence public policy
To lead on and influence local, regional, national and international discourse concerning the efficacy, sustainability and impact of proposed solutions for the UN SDGs

Why this Fellowship model?

The Fellowship can be used to build on new activity or ones already underway; for new strands of activity related to existing research and projects, exploring innovative ways of working, and to build capacity for future activity. We especially encourage using Fellowships as a way of planning the sustainability of your work.

The Fellowship is a way of demonstrating the value, both externally and internally, of your approach to KE and Impact;
A Fellowship offers you a flexible resource to support a specific activity or project, especially as part of a journey to build sustainable impact;
Offers mentoring and coaching to support you to apply the learning to your research;
Can be used alongside other funding to help you scale up your KE and Impact work e.g School-based HEIF and the AHRC-IAA.

What’s on offer?

Three categories of fellowship are available:

Public and Community Engagement

(£5K)

Policymaking

(£6K)

Innovation

(£15K)

Develop relationships with research users and potential users to inform their approach to community interventions.

Actively work with research users to deliver an activity linked to improving or changing/enhancing the impact a community might make.

Work with ‘Policy at Sussex’ to support the development of policy-relevant research and build your capability to make policy impact.

Explore new ways to work with research users and potential users to improve your understanding of the environment in which public policy decisions are taken - in order to more effectively co-develop an approach to public policy decision-making which draws on your research.

Exploring commercialisation as a pathway to impact.

Establishing new paths to achieving research impact through its adoption on a commercially sustainable basis.

Work with internal experts and external partners to develop novel products and services that maximise the adoption of your innovation in the most economically sustainable way.

Eligible activities types:

Facilitating value generating opportunities in research

Relationship development, engagement, development of communication materials to tackle societal or business issues, and co-create knowledge and/or creative outputs with external partners(e.g. events/ briefings/video/podcasts/social media activity)
Shaping and informing national/local public policy or regulations and their implementation
Working collaboratively with policymakers, particularly to better understand and address local, regional or national challenges
Facilitating and extending the use of existing research and the exchange of knowledge between universities and policymakers
Collaboration and Partnership with non-academic stakeholders e.g. activities demonstrating collective problem-solving with external stakeholders
Innovation in product development (new services and goods) to provide solutions in the market place
Improvements in public health, justice and public safety, the economy or the environment
Scoping or pilot for a proof of concept: demonstrating the extent to which a research area will be explored. A small-scale market research project to test its effectiveness before investing more time and money into a large-scale project

Skills and human capital development

Capability Building e.g. Workshops, training and knowledge transfer/exchange events
Activity and training to better equip academics, including early career researchers, to communicate effectively with policymakers.
Partnerships and collaborations aimed at supporting evidence-based policymaking
The exchange of people – e.g. short term placements, exchange schemes and policy-focused external Fellowships.

Commercialisation

Exploring commercialisation as a pathway towards Impact
Enabling your innovation to be widely adopted and self-sustaining, including establishing new enterprises and generation of revenue from commercialization
Participating in activities that support early engagement with more entrepreneurial ways sustaining your impact work e.g. ideation workshops, early accelerator programmes
Developing a consultancy offer to take to external market
Generation of IP, patents and licensing that establish expertise and have potential to contribute social/economic value

Supporting the community/public engagement

Growth focused - Contributing to the development of place including regional social and/or economic regeneration, community project building, and environmental sustainability
Inclusion focused - changes to public knowledge, awareness, behaviours or emotions, policy development to support change in place
Generating and shaping discourse on important issues to facilitate solution development and change (e.g., as defined by the UN SDGs)
Volunteering and pro-bono work that contributes to the local/regional communities in the resolution of issues

Knowledge networks and diffusion

Raising awareness and understanding of important issues and discoveries, generating emotional connection with issues of importance, learning from stakeholders (alumni/professional networks, staff, general public)
Staff exchange/placements with explicit knowledge exchange

Impact Planning and development

Developing activities that inform impact or demonstrate change and collective designing, delivering and disseminating of activities.
Early to long term activities that involve interactions / relationship building with users of research within the market place(business, public, charity and citizens) who have a role in developing a researcher’s longer term impact plans.

Research and knowledge exchange

Overview