Calling all researchers! Big ideas – big opportunity!

The University is seeking out the next big ideas in research and it’s looking to University researchers at all stages of their careers to step forward and share their big idea at a unique event.

The Research of the Future event will take place over two days: Monday 1 July from 12 noon, including an evening meal, and Tuesday 2 July from 8.30am to 1pm at the Millennium Galleries and Leopold Hotel. It’s an opportunity for University researchers to turn their big ideas into a reality, supported by their peers, mentors and support funds.

The event will provide a forum in which the University’s most promising researchers will work together, with a few invited partners from outside the University, to formulate major new research agendas for the future, research activities that are both highly ambitious and that will be recognised internationally for excellence.

The lead speaker will be David Bott, Director of Innovation Programmes at the Technology Strategy Board, and the University is working with KnowInnovation to develop a stimulating and inspiring agenda that moves beyond the conventional workshop forms of activity.

At the end of the event the following resources will be allocated to the projects or ideas that are judged most deserving and appropriate for further support:

• A £20,000 Proof of Concept grant
• An interdisciplinary PhD student network award, which will provide stipends and consumables budgets for three students
• A £5,000 ideas generation support fund

This event, which forms part of the University’s 2022 Futures initiative, will provide an excellent opportunity for those who want to work collectively to develop new, ambitious, long-term research programmes. Applications are welcomed from all faculties and organisers are actively seeking a balanced mix of participants from different disciplines and different career stages. Participants from the University will be selected by a competitive process, with some places reserved for post doctoral researchers and research fellows.

If you’d like to attend, download and complete the Expression of Interest form at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/2022/events/researchofthefuture

You’ll need to email this along with a two-page CV to 2022@sheffield.ac.uk. The closing date for doing this is 4pm on 30 May 2013. Successful applicants will be notified before 10 June.