1. Advocating for Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities  

Recent ISCF funding calls have been heavily weighted towards science and technology. This fails to recognise the significant value of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities (SSAH) to the UK Economy. There are opportunities for universities to collectively lobby and promote SSAH as part of the business R&D landscape more actively, to seek to redress this imbalance. 

For an individual university considering strategic planning in this area, it was recommended to start by developing a clear picture of strengths and 'unique selling points'. This would be crucial to creating a focused network of potential partners and to being in a position to actively seek to influence future funding calls. 

2. Creating an engagement ecosystem 

There is a need to create diverse networks of actively supported relationships with potential external collaborators ahead of any particular funding application; this could be regarded as an 'engagement ecosystem'. 

The importance of listening to businesses and investing time to create a common language and shared understanding was stressed, as was the advantage of developing a track record of success through smaller scale joint activities.  

3. Planning for successful applications 

The speakers shared several ideas to increase the chances of application success, these included the importance of the prospect of achieving a tangible benefit or innovation that would not otherwise be possible, ensuring that the application would resonate with non-academic members of assessment panels and ensuring that the way that progress and outcomes would be demonstrated is clear.  

4. Specific considerations regarding ISCF  

It is not clear when the details next round of funding calls (Wave 3) will be released. The priorities have been informally announced and at present it is expected that this will have limited SSAH applicability. 

Wave 4 is still to be developed and there is scope to influence the shape of this call thorough active engagement, for example healthy ageing and the impact of AI may form part of Wave 4. 

New hypothecated funds (approximately £2billion) are also expected to be allocated to ISCF and details of this are also emerging. 

The speakers at this valuable event provided significant insight into the thinking around the ISCF and left the audience with useful, practical suggestions for accessing the associated funds. Many of these suggestions would be applicable to other collaborative funding opportunities.   

Further information regarding this event, the ISCF and business engagement is available from the Business Engagement and Partnerships team.