Although the division is offering this pilot scheme to all departments, it will be at the discretion of each department to determine how they wish to promote it to their faculty members. For instance, a department may choose to limit participation to specific options, such as Research Assistance or Administrative Support, exclusively.
The PI must get in touch with their departments as the first point of contact should they wish to apply to this scheme, the departments can then support them to apply for one of the following options (depending on what the department is offering).
- Request funding for research assistance to help them write large grant applications.
- Request funding for EA/administrative support so they can focus on writing grant applications.
- Request a teaching buyout of up to 0.4 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) for a duration of up to 10 months, in departments that can/ will support such buyouts. a) In order to facilitate the teaching buyout, the departmental research office can liaise with their Graduate offices to ask for a pool of Graduate Teaching Assistants available in their departments that can cover for them during the buyout period. If their department does not maintain a GTA pool, the PIs are responsible for seeking a GTA as their replacement. b) Alternatively, in cases where a department receives applications from 2 or 3 PIs from within the department to apply for the pilot scheme in the same round, the department may also choose to hire a Lecturer at 1 FTE to provide cover for all of them during the departmental teaching buyout period, however, priority will be given to ‘Graduate only’ departments to hire a lecturer as it is more difficult for those departments to find GTAs.
In addition to the options above, the scheme may also be used to supplement existing departmental incentives schemes that support MCRs to apply for large research grants if the departmental schemes comply with the terms & conditions of UKRI Talent & Research Stabilisation. In such scenario, the departments must liaise with the Senior Research Facilitator, Social Sciences Division before submitting applications.
Note: For College buyouts, departments will need to coordinate directly with the Colleges; the Division will not facilitate these arrangements.