ESRC Society Today

The ESRC is committed to helping UK researchers to overcome barriers to international collaborative research. We are pleased to announce agreements with research funding agencies in several countries, which will facilitate bilateral collaborations between UK social scientists and researchers in one of these countries.

Agreements have been reached with the following funding agencies, follow the country link below for more detailed guidance about the specific bilateral agreement and application procedures:

• AUSTRALIA: The Australian Research Council (ARC)
• AUSTRIA:  Fonds zur Forderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF)
• BRAZIL: (Sao Paulo State): FAPESP The State of Sao Paulo Research Foundation
• FINLAND: The Academy of Finland
• FRANCE: L'Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR)
• GERMANY: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
• HONG KONG: The Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong
• ICELAND: Icelandic Centre for Research (RANNIS)
• IRELAND: Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS)
• NETHERLANDS: Nederlands Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO)
• SOUTH AFRICA: National Research Foundation (NRF)
• SWEDEN: Vetenskapsrådet (VR) - the Swedish Research Council

The bilateral agreements do not represent a separate stream of research funding, but enable international collaborations to be submitted to the open standard and small grants competition. The agreements only apply to standard and small grant proposals. Unless specified otherwise, the normal rules of the standard and small grant schemes apply to proposals submitted under bilateral agreements.

The general provisions of the bilateral agreements are as follows:

• Researchers in both countries submit proposals to their respective funding agencies, in accordance with the normal procedures of each agency. 
• Applications to the ESRC should be made via the Je-S System. In submitting the proposals through Je-S, applicants should consult the bilateral Je-S guidance (PDF), and the web page for the individual agreement, listed below. The guidance notes have been amended to reflect recent changes to the Je-S System.
• For agreements with a submission deadline, proposals must reach both agencies by that date. For open agreements (currently Austria (FWF)) proposals should be submitted within one week of each other, preferably on the same day.
• FWF (Austria) and FAPESP (Sao Paulo State, Brazil) have agreed on a single International Common Application Process.
• Proposals must be clearly labelled as a bilateral collaborative proposal. For the ESRC, the title field in Je-S must begin with: 'Bilateral (partner country):' followed by the title. If your application is not labelled correctly, there may be severe delays in processing your proposal.
• The substance of the submitted research proposal should be the same, though there will be some variation due to the different forms used by each funding agency.  At a minimum, a common case for support must be written for both application documents.  this case for support must be no longer than 5,000 words, which supersedes the usual limit of six pages. Separate cases for support, with an additional statement describing linkages, are no longer acceptable. Further details on completing the application form may be found on the web pages for individual agreements.
• The ESRC and partner agencies share the task of peer reviewing, so applicants should ensure that a reviewer can assess the value of the entire collaborative research project from either application document.
• Financial resources requested from each agency should conform to the normal funding regulations of each agency. On the Je-S form, the resources requested should refer only to resources needed by the UK component of the project.  A brief summary of the resources being requested from the partner agency should be included in the 'Justification of Resources' attachment.
• Each agency makes its own decision on whether proposals should be funded, and both agencies must agree to fund a proposal for a collaborative project to go ahead. As they are reviewing almost identical materials in support of an application, a common decision regarding funding is usually reached between agencies.
• In general, the ESRC will attempt to process bilateral applications within its normal targets. Given the complexities of co-ordinating decsion-making between two funding agencies, however, slightly longer processing times are not uncommon. In particular, small grants are unlikely to be processed in 14 weeks, and will often take as long as standard grants. Applicants are advised to take this into accounting when determining start dates for projects.
• Funded projects will be managed in accordance with the normal rules and procedures of each funding agency.          

Unless specified in the pages for individual agreements, the above provisions apply to all agreements. For further information on the agreements, please contact international@esrc.ac.uk