2. Capacity Building

Research Capacity Building Grant

Code: QA154

Title: Research Capacity Building Grant

Approval Date: 19 June 2017. Revised and extended 2019, 2020, 2021, Dec 2023

1.0 Purpose

The University wishes to support academic/research staff who have had or will expect to have 3 years of continuous employment at the time of application at Lecturer or Post-Doctoral Researcher/Research Fellow (R2 and R3) grades; who have had an extended period of leave (14 consecutive weeks or more at any point during their academic career) connected with caring – such as maternity leave, adoptive leave, paternity leave, parental leave, or leave to care for a dependent, critical illness or bereavement. This support is in relation to building and boosting an independent research career and it is intended that this grant will provide support to help mitigate the impact of an extended leave period on research activities.

2.0 Description

The Research Capacity Building Grant is valued at €5,000 and can be applied for via this form. Calls will be issued annually for this grant for the duration of the Athena Swan action plan (2021-2025).

A specified number of grants will be made available annually and will be distributed across the Colleges, proportionate to the College’s size and gender composition. The initial focus of this grant scheme was to support research/scholarship capacity building for staff in STEMM as a priority, in line with the initial Athena SWAN (pre 2015 Charter) agenda. This focus has now been expanded in line with the expanded Athena SWAN Ireland Charter.

The grants will be allocated on a competitive basis including a short proposal, supported by the relevant Head of School/Director of Research Institute. The proposal should state clearly how the grant will help the individual build capacity in their independent research and should be linked directly with the School / College research strategy and with specific, time-lined, measurable research outputs. The proposed outputs and impact should be articulated and monitored in the annual PMDS process, and awardees must provide a written report (one page maximum) within 1 year of uptake of the grant to the Head of School/Director of Research Institute, copied to the Dean in the relevant College and OVPEDI.

The grant may be spent in a variety of ways which will provide a tangible benefit to the research output of the staff member. This will likely vary depending on discipline norms. To-date, this grant has funded attendance at conferences, hosting seminars, visiting research collaborators, hiring Research Assistants, teaching buy-out, content development, graphic design, transcription costs, facilitation services, catering/refreshments for events, consumables for experiments, laboratory materials, publication fees. This is not a prescriptive or exhaustive list. It is intended to highlight the many ways the grant can be used to support the specific research activities of the staff member. Staff who have availed of the Research Grant for Returning Academic Carers’ are not eligible to apply for the Researcher Research Capacity Building grant. Academic/Research staff who have been awarded the Athena SWAN Mid-career Lecturer Research Capacity Building grant in the past may be eligible to apply again if they availed of more than a single period of extended leave (14 consecutive weeks or more).

3.0 Responsibilities