The New Things Fund 2022/23

The applications for the New Things Fund 2022/23 is closed. The deadline for applications is Sunday 11th December.

What is the New Things Fund?

The New Things Fund (NTF) is an internally awarded programme created to provide the initial impetus to commence a journey towards local, sub-national, national or international policy engagement. NTF is itself funded via the University of Southampton’s allocation of UKRI’s Policy Support Fund.

We aim to award twenty researchers with up to £7.5k for rapidly realisable projects to be delivered between 30th November 2022 and 14th June 2023. Extensions beyond this will not be possible.

Strategic Policy Themes

This year’s iteration of NTF is targeted towards the themes of Net Zero, Place & Health Disparities. We are particularly interested in projects that address the current cost of living crisis in an actionable way. This could include producing research evidence that supports a specific intervention to take to local or central government and/or third sector organisations. This can also include evaluation of past and current interventions that can be used by policy making bodies to learn from when creating further policy decisions.

An NTF award does not have to be used in a way that brings immediate policy impact, but we are looking for projects that can be actionable. It should be treated as a building block for wider initiatives developing new relationships with evidence users, creating pathways to impact, or laying the foundations for future engagement through awareness raising outputs such as video or written briefings. We expect applicants to consider how new policy engagement activities may support research ambitions (such as joint applications for funding with evidence using bodies or scoping of contract research) but we do not expect you to predict exactly what policy impact these activities will deliver.

Support & Evaluation

If awarded, your project will be supported by a member of the Public Policy | Southampton team, with monthly meetings and guidance on achieving policy impact. This could include support with creating and editing policy briefs, providing guidance on stakeholder outreach, or providing connections and networks to access.

Six months after your award has ended we will contact you to find out how NTF has supported your policy engagement journey. We will repeat this survey at 12 months post award to gain an understanding of how this has catalysed your work and seek further ways in which PPS can support your onward journey to policy impact. Importantly, the support you receive from PPS does not stop post May (funding spend deadline). 

FAQ’s 

What kinds of things can I request funding for?

In previous years, successful awardee’s have received funding to partner with external bodies, creating networks with relevant stakeholders, fund survey participation, creating policy briefs, hiring research assistants to produce stakeholder analyses, building web pages or websites, creating and disseminating videos, etc. All funding should support the overall aim of policy impact.

Can I cost in working with other organisations or people?

This year we particularly encourage projects that seek to address the cost of living crisis. This may include working with NGOs, charities, or volunteer organisations. Through this fund, we will also cover the financial cost incurred by these organisations and individuals participating in the project where reasonable.

What do common activities (such as policy briefs, videos, research assistants etc) roughly cost?

For our policy briefs, we work with the design studio (DPC Studio) which is an in-house design team. We recommend allocating £500 for the creation of a policy brief.

For Research Assistants, PPS can support you to find a PhD Student through our Policy Associates Scheme or through uniworkforce. The cost will depend on how long you would like the research assistant for. The spending deadline is June 14th, but due to how casual workers are paid (in arrears), we can support research assistants still working up to the end of May.

For anything else, you will need to receive a quote and let us know in your application. We advise getting a rough quote before applying instead of after, so that we can allocate the funding you need in enough time.

Why is there a 14th of June deadline?

Unfortunately the 14th of June deadline is set by Research England’s Policy Support Fund, rather than ourselves. However, this is just the deadline for spending your allocated award. You don’t need to have *finished* the project by then, and you will still get support from PPS after this deadline.

Please ensure that the principle investigator is also a budget holder, or there is someone in your school that can act as a budget holder in order to access the funds on your allocated subproject code. Please also ensure you have support from your Head of School before applying. 

Previous Projects

2022/2023 Projects

2021/2022 Projects

2020/2021 Projects