Call for Proposals

RDI Fund/ Belmont Forum Collaborative Call for Proposals #Migration 2022 is Open!!

Integrated Approaches to Human Migration/Mobility in an Era of Rapid Global Change

Proposal Submission Deadline – Friday, Jul 29, 2022 at 20:00 UTC

The RDI Fund in partnership with the Belmont Forum is working to expand international research opportunities(networking, capacity building, project development and funding) for UWISTA researchers and other researchers throughout the region. This current funding opportunity solicits proposals that contribute to an integrated systems approach to accurately characterize migration and mobility and its intersection with Global Change, both closely related and intersecting phenomena. The call is open to researchers from all fields. Researchers from the social sciences and the humanities are particularly encouraged to participate. See here for more details.

The RDI Fund is participating as one of several donors in this collaborative research action (CRA). See the RDI Fund’s Annex here for eligibility criteria and visit the Belmont Forum website for more information on the #Migration2022 CRA and other donors supporting this call.

Researchers are highly encouraged to take part in the Belmont Forum’s capacity development and networking activities to ensure that their final submissions are competitive and meet all eligibility criteria. Be sure to complete the Expression of Interest Form to stay abreast of all activities planned.

Details of the call and the application process are provided via the application portal https://bfgo.org .

You are encouraged to review the proposal form and the proposal form instructions prior to applying.

Contact the RDI Fund Secretariat at rdifund@sta.uwi.edu with any queries regarding this call.

Information Session with LAC Donors

A Q&A session with the RDI Fund and other donors supporting researchers from Latin America and the Caribbean will take place on Thursday May 12th 2022 at 1pm via Zoom. Participating donors include the host The Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) with Future Earth, FAPESP, and the University of West Indies (UWI) Trinidad and Tobago Research and Development Impact (RDI) Fund.

We will also be joined by Belmont Forum and the Global Development Network (GDN) who will provide more information about the application process, networking, and training opportunities to support the teams. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions of the funders and to learn about upcoming events to support the application process. There will be simultaneous translation to English, Spanish and Portuguese.

I-POC Grants are intended to foster the transformation of UWI discoveries and innovations into commercial products, processes and services and scalable development interventions for the benefit of the society. This is in keeping with the RDI Fund’s stated objective of supporting research-directed action that will have impact on policy, practice, products and/or services. It is envisioned that these grants will help to bridge the funding gap identified in academic entrepreneurship, often termed “the valley of death”, by supporting progression from pioneering research results through proof of concept.

The I‐POC Grants are intended to provide monetary support and commercialization resources/services to facilitate the demonstration of the technical and/or economic feasibility of an idea. This idea should be subject to an invention disclosure, legal agreement and/or some form of intellectual property (IP) protection which stipulates that the intellectual property (IP) in question is owned or co‐owned by The UWI. However, ideas which do not meet this requirement can still be considered.

Focusing primarily on research ideas in the technology readiness levels (TRLs) 1‐6 with an already identified commercial and/or social application, I‐POC grants aim to protect, develop and scale indigenous innovation, inclusive of social innovation as well as innovation in the creative industries.

Activities which can be supported by I‐POC grants include:

Validating proof of concept for a social innovation or development intervention which is
scalable and replicable
Creating an app to aid a socio‐economic intervention or creative experience
Product development, optimization and testing
Commercial feasibility studies for ideas with commercialization potential in the creative
industries
Development of technology transfer solutions for industry partners, particularly SMEs
Enhancing product design and user experience
Research on understanding user behaviour
Research to address an industry‐specific barrier which impairs the ability to license or attract private investment
Risk mitigation studies to improve technology attractiveness to potential licensees

Activities which cannot be supported by this programme include:

Basic exploratory studies, theory development, model development
Activities which do not have a clear connection to commercialization, development solutions at scale and/or technology development

Important Notes

Project Teams should be led by a Full Time UWI St Augustine academic staff member.
The maximum financing request is TT$2M per project and the maximum period for project execution is 36 consecutive months.
Potential applicants should read the RDI Fund’s Operational Guidelines and the I‐POC Grants’ Guide to Applicants for further details on the eligibility criteria, technology readiness levels, and evaluation criteria.

To learn more about The UWI's Intellectual Property (IP) Management and Commercialisation Policy, IP Disclosure and IP Ownership, please refer to the St Augustine Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (STACIE) website.

For assistance with invention disclosure and proposal preparation for this call or any other internal or external call for proposals, email STACIE at StACIE@sta.uwi.edu.