Cultural strategies, compacts and futures
Click here to read about Dr Daniel Ashton project: Cultural strategies, compacts and futures: The role of local government in connecting culture with place, health and the environment.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Click here to read about Dr Daniel Ashton project: Cultural strategies, compacts and futures: The role of local government in connecting culture with place, health and the environment.
Click here to read about Dr Xiaowen Lin and Dr Zhifeng Chen's project: Eat better, live better under our living cost crisis.
Click here to read about Doctor Lisa Ballard's project: "HomeGrownSO14: University to Resident Skills & Knowledge Exchange".
Click here to read about Doctor Rebecca Ward's project: Say no to smoking? Understanding the complexity of introducing smoking cessation programmes.
Click here to read about Dr Nida Ziauddee's project: What does ‘Long Covid’ mean to you?
Click here to read about Alexander Masterman's project: An investigation into accessiblity barriers in mass transport systems
Click here to read about Gregory Sewell's project: Kids4climate School Study
Click here to read about Dr Bindi Shah's project: The Fishing App: promoting sustainable small-scale fisheries
Click here to read about Gary Hickey's project: Developing a carbon calculator for research
Click here to read about Jessica Boxall's project: Facilitating engagement with Ghanaian policymakers to increase impact of Southampton-led research on climate change and health in Ghana
Click here to read about Pathik Pathak's project: Developing a UK-Ghana Public Health Engagement & Policy Community of Practice
Click here to read about Wassim Dbouk's project: Enabling Long-term Behaviour Change for Ocean Climate Action
Click here to read about Dr Gillian Kennedy's project: 'New' Prevent Policy: How the Government's policy to prevent radicalism is being perceived by Muslim Youth.
Click here to read about Dr Fiona Woollards project: Responses to Alcohol and Pregnancy Policy
Click here to read about Dr Ajit Nayaks project: Leading sustainability transitions: Responsible leadership in the building industry
Click here to read about Dr Stuart Turbull-Dugarte's project: Digitising Democracy: crises, integrity, support & trust
Click here to read about Dr Matteo Scarponi's project: Outcome monitoring protocol in support of the 2021 Code of Practice for the Safety of Small Fishing Vessels.
Click here to read about Dr Preeti Dhuria's project: Supporting effective implementation and enforcement of the UK government Food (Promotions and Placements) legislation
Click here to read about the Centre for Democratic Futures Communications project, led by Dr Valentina Cardo, Dr Silke Roth, and Dr Matt Ryan, directors of the CDF
Click here to read about Dr Jessica Smith's Project, Public Perceptions of the Hybrid Parliament
Click here to read about Dr Laila Ait Bihi Ouali's Project: Quantifying the welfare benefits of drone logistics: the case of healthcare provision by drone
Click here to read about Dr Elnaz Shafipour's project: Understanding user preferences for smart en-route electric vehicle charging
Click here to read about Dr Ian Williams and Dr Lanre Shittu's project: Circular Economy Thinking to develop Sustainable Electronic Products, Business Models and Designs
Click here to see ‘BAME Multigenerational Family Businesses and Covid19’, led by Dr Valentina Cardo and Dr Yasmin Sekhon Dhillio.
Click here to view ‘Policy Changes amongst stakeholders to increase awareness and funding for research into sight loss’, led by Dr Arjuna Raynayaka and Dr Jenny Dewing
Click here to see ‘Understanding ecosystem level impacts of plastic pollution’, led by PhD student Stephanie Lavelle
‘Networked technology futures’, led by PhD student Juljan Krause
Click here to see this project led by Dr Danielle Schoenaker et al.
Click here to view the project 'pandemic preparedness' led by Dr Michael Head and Dr Ken Brackstone
Click here to see ‘Linking academics and policymakers’, led by Dr Dianna Smith and Hannah Barker