UKRI Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres

Proposals are invited for Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres, with £22.5m funding available to research sustainability.

Following on from the UKRI Circular Economy workshops in June 2019, UKRI has now made £22.5m available to support five Circular Economy Centres for up to four years (at 80% FEC).

These Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres will conduct interdisciplinary research that accelerates understanding and solutions to enable circularity of a resource flow (materials, material systems, products and/or services), including consideration of (multi-) sector contexts. UKRI welcomes and encourages applications led by and involving any discipline.

The UK has potential to grow and prosper sustainably by transitioning to a more circular economy, where resources are processed with sustainability, waste minimisation and efficiency in mind, and where product lifecycles are optimised to generate more economic and social value before recycling and/or reuse. However, this transition requires clear, evidence-based, implementation pathways, with broad underpinning research evidence. It must provide not only technical, technological and scientific advances, but also the social, behavioural, cultural, ethical, environmental, economic, legal and regulatory understanding required to support a successful transition.

To address this, the £30 million UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Interdisciplinary Circular Economy programme will be delivered by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and Innovate UK. This fund will support the creation of up to 5 interdisciplinary research centres, and a Coordinator who will lead an integration hub.

For more details on the funding available for Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centres, click here.

 

Applications are also open for the post of Coordinator for the hubs: this can be done by one full-time applicant, but is also open to academics that job share, have a part time contract or those currently committed to other large existing grants (centres, hubs, programme grants, Centres for Doctoral Training, etc.) which are due to end with enough time to enable the applicant to be able to fulfil the Coordinator role. Applications are also welcome for two Co-Coordinators. Click here for details of the post.