SFC R&I Shared Services Collaboration Fund

Funding to address the challenges threatening the sustainability of the research and innovation (R&I) activities of many Scottish universities through catalysing opportunities for sharing, collaborating and developing inter-institutional R&I services such as technology transfer offices and research offices.

Within the context of the financial challenges facing universities in the UK, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC)  has launched the R&I Shared Services Collaboration Fund to catalyse activity in Scottish universities and support sector efficiencies and long-term financial sustainability. The Fund will allow Scottish universities to apply for funding to develop sustainable models and steps to implement sharing services, including but not limited to sharing tech transfer offices (TTOs) and research offices. The SFC’s intention is to precipitate and fund a different way of working, investing in change which will enable the change to carry on. The Fund will allow:

• The consolidation of existing distinct functions by replacing them with a single shared function.
• Institutions with smaller research portfolios to work with larger institutions to gain access to expertise and capability that they don’t currently have.
• The creation of shared capacity between groups of institutions where limited functions currently exist but new shared capability would drive efficiencies. 

The Fund will kick-start longer-term collaboration by supporting the initial costs of change, enabling institutions to navigate the difficult proof of concept stage and de-risk the exploration of new approaches in a financially constrained environment. Ultimately, the Fund will support the sector to work differently and create efficiencies through the sharing of essential Research & Innovation (R&I) back office services. The focus of the funding opportunity is not on building more R&I service capacity but on making existing capacity and the system generally more effective and efficient through sharing.

As well as promoting financial viability, where grants are focused on the sharing of TTO services, the Fund will increase Scotland’s research commercialisation pipeline by expanding access to key facilities across institutions. This provides an opportunity to further Scottish government innovation ambitions as outlined in the National Innovation Strategy. University research commercialisation is central to the strategy and ensuring that world-leading research from across all of Scotland’s universities can be successfully commercialised requires access to critical expertise.