Skip to main content

Microgrants

Grants of £100 to £500 to cover one-off research costs.

Microgrants

The UACES Microgrant scheme is aimed at supporting research for our PhD Research, Early-Career and Individual Members. 

The microgrants scheme will provide grants of between £100 and £500 to UACES members to assist them to cover the costs of undertaking their research. The grants are designed to recognise the challenges facing researchers at this time.

Deadline 31 Mar 2024

What can be covered?

Examples of eligible costs could include:

  • Travel costs to attend a conference, visit an archive or conduct an interview
  • Registration fees for a conference
  • Professional training which would not otherwise be covered by a member’s workplace
  • Costs to hire a research assistant to work on a discrete project (hourly rate of pay must be at least equivalent to 10.90 GBP per hour [UK real living wage] or at rates set by your university if these are higher.)
  • Costs of creating an online community (eg building a website or blog platform)
  • Childcare in order to attend undertake academic work. NB this funding cannot be used to pay for childcare you use regularly but rather for specific additional care
  • Costs of a Zoom/Skype/Microsoft Teams subscription to conduct research
  • There are many other possible ways to use this funding – we look forward to hearing your innovative ideas

There will be 3 deadlines per year for microgrant applications: 31 March, 31 July and 30 November. Decisions will be announced on 1 May, 1 September and 7 January each year.

 

Eligibility:

  • The applicant must be a member of UACES (PhD Researcher, Early Career or Individual)
  • The total amount applied for must be between £100 and £500.
  • The microgrant must be for a clear and targeted purpose – this scheme is not designed to supplement a larger funding bid.
  • Microgrants are designed to cover activities that have not yet been undertaken. You cannot apply for a retrospective grant.
  • Once the work funded by the microgrant has been completed the awardee will need to supply UACES with all receipts related to the grant and a blog post to be published on our Ideas on Europe site prior to reimbursement.
  • Microgrants will only be available to members where they are unable to get this financial support from their institution or university.
  • Microgrants will not be available to support the work of UACES-funded research networks.
  • Microgrants cannot be used to supplement the funding provided for Graduate Forum DTA and research conference attendees.
  • The research being undertaken must be in the area of contemporary European Studies

 

Assessment criteria:

Applications will be judged on the following criteria:

  • Clarity and focus of the project
  • Quality of the project
  • Level of need – ie how much other funding does the researcher have access to?
  • Value-added provided by the microgrant


How to apply:

Please send us a CV (no longer than 4 pages) and a covering letter (no longer than 2 pages) outlining:

  • The area you are currently researching
  • Why you need the microgrant
  • How you will use the microgrant
  • How it will contribute to your research
  • What the particular value-added will be for you of obtaining the microgrant
  • A clear budget for what the microgrant will be spent on (this can be separate from your letter)

Please send your application to admin@uaces.org. If you have any questions about the microgrants scheme you can send these to the same address.

 

How others used their grant

Read how others used their grant and how it benefitted their research on the UACES blog.