NERC Opening up the Environment Pilot Grants

Pilot grants to explore the potential to increase diversity and generate partnerships in order to attract a wider talent pool into NERC science.

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has launched the Opening up the Environment Pilot Grants scheme to develop partnerships and identify the potential to increase the diversity of representation in the NERC community. The aim of the funding is to:

• Explore the potential the applicant’s organisation or department has to increase diversity of representation and thereby attract a wider talent pool into NERC science.
• Generate partnerships that identify, include and showcase a broad range of people and skillsets that contribute towards NERC science.

Up to 20 pilot grants will be allocated through this new programme of funding and work must focus on the UK research and innovation community, with a clear focus on one or multiple specific areas of NERC’s remit.

Projects must set out equitable, inclusive plans to identify and include a broader diversity of people in the environmental solutions workforce of the future, which will contribute to increasing diversity and inclusion in the NERC community. Projects will undertake emerging work to test, scope and pilot approaches that showcase a broader range of people and skillsets to inspire those who have the potential to be part of the future talent pipeline and contribute towards delivering environmental science solutions.

Applicants will enhance or form new partnerships that support the ambitions and actions needed to identify, include and showcase a broader range of people and skillsets that contribute to delivering NERC science. Plans will also consider how to increase the breadth of audiences who will be exposed to the skillsets and people delivering NERC science. Appropriate partnerships can vary across organisations/communities and discipline areas; partnerships could be, for example, across departments or teams, with local non-academic communities, working with people with lived experience, between research teams and professional service teams, and across science research discipline areas.

Activities undertaken could include:

• Evaluation of existing activities.
• Surveys and focus groups.
• Activities to identify work required within an area to bring them in line with other areas of best practice within the organisation or scientific discipline.
• Mapping of current activities, policies and processes in the organisation against a self-assessment tool.
• Creation of a theory of change model.

Approaches may look at enhanced support for additional requirements associated with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. Applicants can choose to focus on any appropriate area that may help support the widest pool of talent to be involved in environmental science and related careers. Areas for consideration include protected characteristics, individuals with caring responsibilities, social mobility, geographic location, lived experience and intersectionality.