Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Please see our new Research Councils: major changes and budget announcements page for the latest updates about changes to grant programmes, grant administration, financial management of awards, and the impact of moves to the Shared Services Centre.

Background information on the ESRC

Areas supported Research and training in social and economic issues
Types of funding Graduate, Postgraduate, Research, Knowledge Transfer, International
Funding Guide See Research Funding Guide. Please also see ESRC's Guidance for Applicants.
ESRC funding opportunities On the ESRC website
On ResearchProfessional.com. You will need to log in or click on Campus Access to view these
ESRC Research Income at Oxford Income at Oxford 2010/11: Oxford received £6.5M (14th largest research funder of the University)
Applications and Award Activity at Oxford 2010/11: 107 applications submitted to the value of £20.1M. 37 new ESRC awards accepted worth £5.8M, including financial amendments to existing awards (University financial year Aug-Jul)
Success Rates 2010/11 - by volume of applications
National average: 16%. Oxford: 10%.  (ESRC financial year Apr-Mar)
See the ESRC's Research Statistics webpage
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Preparing your application

  • It is essential that you refer to the Funding Guide and any specific guidance issued with the funding call or opportunity. Contact the Council directly for further guidance.

  • If you are thinking of putting together a grant application, please get in touch with your Departmental Administrator, Research Officer or Research Facilitator as soon as possible (and at the very latest four weeks before the deadline), so that they can provide advice and assistance with the preparation of your proposal. The sooner you get in touch, the more they will be able to help.

  • Resubmission policy: In autumn 2011, the ESRC published new guidance related to its resubmissions policy. Under the revised policy ESRC does not allow the resubmission of any previously unsuccessful proposals, unless the applicant has been explicitly invited to do so.

    A new proposal should involve a significant change of focus from any previous proposal applicants have submitted to ESRC, and will likely be accompanied by a different set of costings to deliver the project. Proposals which demonstrate only minor amendments from previous submissions, for example specific changes based on previous peer review feedback alone, will be counted as resubmissions.

    ESRC expects new proposals to have fresh or significantly modified objectives and/or an entirely revised methodological/analytical approach to a research question. Any proposal which does not meet either of these criteria will be judged a resubmission.

Further information

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Using the Je-S system for grant applications

Je-S is the Research Councils' web-based Joint Electronic Submission system for grant applications and award administration. All applications must be prepared and submitted via Je-S.

If you are new to Je-S, you will need to create a user account - please refer to Step 1 in our Application Process section. Your co-investigators will also need an account. Please note that you can also grant access to co-investigators or other colleagues so that they can view and edit the application directly in the system.

Please refer to the links below for more information about using Je-S at the application stage.

Further information:

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Preparing a Case for Support

  • This is the part of the application where you will describe your proposed project and why you should be funded to carry it out.
  • Ensure that your case is well-structured and addresses the issues or questions raised in the call.
  • Familiarise yourself with the assessment criteria that will be used - and the weighting given to each.
  • When writing your proposal be aware of who will ultimately be reading and assessing it. This will not just be subject experts but also generalists sitting on review panels, as well as (in some cases) research users.
  • Use the advice and expertise of colleagues, especially those who have had successful proposals - it can be helpful to ask colleagues who are both expert and non-expert in your field to read and comment on your application.
  • As with all aspects of your application, don't overlook 'minor details'. The wrong font size or exceeding page limits will result in your application being returned by the funder - and sometimes not considered at all.
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Ethics

  • The Je-S forms ask whether there are any ethical implications arising from the proposed research. This might include research involving human participants.

Further information

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Pathways to Impact

  • Applicants to ESRC funding calls and schemes are required to complete an up to two-page Pathways to Impact section in the application form
  • The Pathways to Impact section allows researchers to identify the potential scientific, societal, economic or cultural impacts of their research
  • Researchers must ensure that any confidential information is described in the Impact Statement or Plan rather than in the Impact Summary

Further Information

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Data Management Plans

Applicants to ESRC who plan to generate new data as part of their award will be required to submit a mandatory attachment Data Management Plan to their Je-S application. The changes in Je-S have now been made and were made live on 19 April 2011.

For advice on drafting data management plans, please see the Oxford Research Data Management site.

If you have any questions about the ESRC Research Data Policy and the requirement for data management planning, please contact ESRC's Kristine Doronenkova (kristine.doronenkova@esrc.ac.uk, phone 01793 444303), or Oxford University's Research Integrity Co-ordinator, Kathryn Dally (kathryn.dally@admin.ox.ac.uk).

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Costing and Budgeting

  • Your Departmental Administrator, Research Officer or Research Facilitator will assist you to identify the costs of your project and also prepare a Resolve costing. Please contact them as soon as you are thinking about applying and at the very latest four weeks before the deadline. The Resolve costing will provide the financial information that you must include in the Je-S forms and, since this is the form that indicates Departmental approval of the costs of a project, it has to be provided to Research Services before the application can be approved and submitted by the University to the funder.
  • Applications should be costed on a full economic cost (FEC) basis. The Council will contribute 80% of these costs with the exceptions of project studentships which are paid at 100%, and equipment costs where different funding rules apply depending on the value of each individual item of equipment. For further information please see Research Councils and Equipment Funding.
  • Note that there are (maximum and minimum) limits of the funds sought for certain schemes - check the scheme guidance for details.
Further information for researchers:

Further information for Departmental administrators:

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Equipment

The Research Councils have changed the rules on funding equipment. For further information and on costing guidance please see Research Councils and Equipment Funding.

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Justification of Resources

  • This statement should be a maximum of 2 sides of A4 attachment, in a font no smaller than size 11, and is used to justify the resources required to undertake the research project. It is a mandatory attachment for all Grants schemes.

  • Applicants should ensure that they explain why the indicated resources are needed, taking account of the nature and complexity of the research proposed, and not just list what is required.

  • You also need to have regard for the breakdown of resources into the summary fund headings 'Directly Incurred', 'Directly Allocated' and (where appropriate) 'Exceptions'.

  • Note that this is not justifying the costs (money) sought, rather the resources required to undertake the project, such as equipment or number of staff but also the level (seniority) of proposed staff and the proportion of their time they will dedicate to the project.

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I'm ready to submit my application - what should I do now?

  • Firstly check that your application is complete and includes all the information and attachments required by the Council (this includes letters of support, CVs, lists of publications etc). You can use the 'Validate' function in Je-S to detect any errors in data fields that need to be corrected before the system will allow you to submit it to the next stage.
  • Hitting 'Submit' on Je-S doesn't submit the application. It sends it to the next stage of the process which is to your Departmental Approver Pool. You should therefore check that they are expecting this and have received it.
  • Once your Departmental Approver has approved the application on behalf of your Department it is routed via the Je-S system to Research Services.
  • Research Services reviews applications on behalf of the University and will liaise with you and/or your Departmental Administrator over any queries or changes that might be needed to the application.
  • Research Services submits the approved application to the Council.

Further Information

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The application has been submitted - what next?

  • Proposals are first reviewed by three or more external academic reviewers from the UK and/or overseas and are forwarded to the Board assessors if they meet the required score.
  • Any proposals receiving less than the required score are rejected at this stage.
  • Proposals receiving an average Board assessor score in the mid or high scale are forwarded for consideration at the full Board meeting held every quarter.
  • ESRC notifies applicants of the outcome via Je-S. For details please see our Offer Acceptances and Start Certificates page. For unfunded proposals you will be notified of the grade awarded and you can check whether a resubmission is possible. However, as from 1 June 2011, unless you have been specifically invited to resubmit, resubmission of the same proposal will not be permitted.
  • Do let your Departmental Administrator know the outcome of your proposal. Where it is to be funded they will liaise with you and Research Services regarding the acceptance of the award.

Further Information

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Managing your award

  • Please refer to the ESRC Funding Guide and the Research Council Terms and Conditions for FEC Grants.
  • See Managing awards for the process at Oxford for accepting and managing awards.
  • See also ESRC's own Grant holder support and guidance page.
  • See our Offer Acceptances and Start Certificates page for information about how this process works on Je-S. The project must start within 3 months of the announced start date on the award letter.
  • See our Grant Maintenance page for information about how to request changes to your award on Je-S (e.g. request an extension, change of grant title, change of grant holder).
  • All Directly Incurred staff working on Research Council projects must complete timesheets unless they are 100% charged to one project. See Other key funder requirements for further information, including a sample timesheet.
  • See our Academic Reporting and Expenditure Statements page for information about these requirements and the penalties for late submission of reports.
  • All claims, invoices and financial statements to funders must go out from Research Accounts, never directly from Departments.
  • The Research Outcomes System (ROS) was launched in November 2011. It is a web based system currently used by AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC and EPSRC and requires grant holders to provide information about the outputs and outcomes of their research.
  • Publications arising from research funded by the ESRC should include an acknowledgement of ESRC support as set out in the ESRC Funding Guide.
  • Publications arising from ESRC-funded research must be made available in accordance with their policy on open access to research outputs which includes depositing a copy of all publications in the ESRC research catalogue.
  • Please also see the ESRC's Research Data Policy (PDF, 21 KB), which is intended to support ESRC award holders who collect, produce and re-use data by defining researcher's roles and responsibilities, as well as the roles and responsibilities of the ESRC and its data service providers.

Further information

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Documents

Related links

Joint Electronic Submission system (Je-S)

Find out more