Eligibility

Applications are welcome from any academic member of staff based at one of the 15 SIPR member universities. We encourage interdisciplinary partnerships and proposals can be submitted by a single institution or across member institutions. Additionally, creative ideas which engage practitioners with research are particularly encouraged.  Applicants must have a contract of employment for the duration of the project.

Value

A total of £100,000 will be available, however, the maximum SIPR contribution per application will be limited to £20,000 (including VAT). Applications for smaller relevant projects are also welcomed as are proposals which include co-funding from other sources.

Assessment

To ensure the excellence of all SIPR funded research, SIPR will subject all applications to a robust assessment process in two stages via a review panel and then awarding panel. The review panel will be an independent committee comprising of senior national and international academics, as well as policing personnel (e.g. policy makers and practitioners). Reviewers will be asked to score against predefined criteria including:

• Suitability of investigative team (i.e. Principal Investigator and Co-Investigators’ experience and expertise in the field of study)

• Innovation; (i.e. demand driven and/or meeting a gap in knowledge as well as demonstrating value for money, and credible work plan);

• evidence of strategic alignment (with SIPR research themes as well as research council and policing priorities);

• feasibility (i.e. a project’s ambition and ability to delivery outcomes to budget and within timescales);

• potential benefits/impact (i.e. project legacy and potential to influence police and practice); and

• We particularly welcome applications that form the first/early stage of longer-term work that articulate an intention or potential to build Research and Knowledge Exchange capacity and generate new income.

Applicants will be provided with an opportunity to respond to the initial reviewer comments prior to the applications consideration by the awarding panel. The awarding panel will be responsible for selecting the successful grants.

Application Process

Notifications of Intent to Apply are due by 23:59 on Sunday 28th February 2021. The NOI simply needs to include a 50 word (or less) summary of your proposed project emailed to m.boyle@napier.ac.uk

Full applications are not due until 28th March 2021. Application forms are available to download at the link above or here.

Applicants are required to complete the SIPR application form including the following information:

• Description of team (detailing experience and expertise in the proposed topic and which will include a two-page CV per named investigator);

• Details of the project including background, aims, objectives, partners/ collaborators, methodology, and timeline;

• Detail of how the proposed project aligns with the strategic priorities for SIPR and Policing in Scotland;

• Proposed budget including a brief justification of resources required to undertake the project;

• Clear indication of the expected outputs and impact of the project (i.e. the potential contribution of the project to the development of the evidence, policy or practice);

• Detail on how you propose to capture and measure the impact of the project;

• Details of how the project could build Research/ Knowledge Exchange capacity within the SIPR community and /or could potentially lead to new RKE income;

• A letter of support from Police Scotland (or the relevant external body) should be sought where the project will require access to personnel or data, please ensure you make contact with Police Scotland’s Academic Research Team (AcademicResearch@scotland.pnn.police.uk) as soon as possible to ensure the project’s feasibility.

Criteria

Only one application is permitted from the same applicant for this call.  The Principal Investigator can be included as a Co-investigator in one further application as long as the two applications are not linked.

Projects should be no longer than 18 months in duration, commencing no later than 31^st June 2021 and completed (i.e. acceptance of final research report) by 31^st December 2022.

Successful applicants will be required to enter into a funding agreement with SIPR. Funding will be provided on commencement of the project and again at each reporting milestone (i.e. interim research and finance report and at final research report). The final research report will be published by SIPR and SIPR will be acknowledged in all media and publications resulting from the project.

Applicants will also be required to report where SIPR funding has enabled the generation of external income as well as where SIPR funded research has been included as an impact case study.

Ineligible costs

The ‘Future of Policing’ grant will not cover the following costs:

• Contributions to appeals
• Endowments
• Individual items of equipment
• A shortfall resulting from a withdrawal of or deficiency in public finance
• Sites, buildings or other capital expenditure
• Student tuition fees or stipends

In principle, SIPR does not make awards on a full economic costing basis. However, consideration may be given to applications where limited overheads have been included.  Value for money is a key consideration however, so we do ask that overheads are waived where possible.

For more information, please contact

Monica Boyle – Knowledge Exchange and Business Manager

m.boyle@napier.ac.uk