Supporting Your Research
See below for funding, project management support, managing your research data, and commercialisation.
Funding
C2D3 Seed Funding Calls
C2D3 Early Career Researcher Seed Funding
- Up to £5,000 per project.
- Can support a variety of activities, including research, internships, industry collaboration, events, workshops, training with a focus on interdisciplinary collaboration.
- Call opens April, closes May. Watch this space for details of the next funding round
Accelerate Programme-C2D3 Funding Call
- Up to £25,000 for researchers pursuing innovative applications of AI, in research or real-world contexts.
- Can support a variety of activities, including research, events, workshops, teaching, software development, or software development, with a focus on interdisciplinary collaboration.
- 2025 funding round NOW OPEN!
This year applications are open under three categories:
- Early Career Seed Funding: Small grants of up to £5,000 for early career researchers (PhD students or postdocs) to provide a step towards an independent research career.
- Funding for events: Up to £15,000 to convene networks and events.
- Project grants: Funding of up to £25,000 for larger scale projects.
Other sources of funding
Enhanced funding is available to Departments and Faculties by application to support high-cost events and any activities involving external speakers or specialists.
The University has set up a fund to provide financial contributions to large, collaborative grant applications. This is to encourage and support these applications and maximise the University’s outward-facing impact. Research grant applications for funding of normally over £5M for STEM disciplines and over £1M for applications led by Arts, Humanities and Social sciences subject areas can request financial contributions from this Fund.
The Bid Preparation Fund supports collaborative research applications by providing funding for bid development activity. Project leads and co-leads of collaborative research grant applications involving at least one internal or external partner can request funding from this Fund. Requests for support from this fund are based on the needs of individual proposals. A typical award of up to £10k, may be made to individual applications, although the sum available will depend on the value and nature of the bid.
There are several funding for impact schemes, themed across the UK research council remits and an All Council Harmonised Fund. Many are offered on a rolling basis, accepting applications year-round.
An online database of research funding opportunities and a source of international research policy and practice news.
The Royal Society provides a range of grant schemes to support the UK scientific community and foster collaboration between UK based and overseas scientists.
Additional support
Large interdisciplinary research proposals
C2D3 offers dedicated support for the development of large, interdisciplinary research proposals. This includes assistance with identifying potential collaborators from across the University of Cambridge — spanning departments, faculties, and disciplines — to help you build strong, well-rounded project teams. We also provide support with bid development and preparation, helping to ensure your proposal is competitive and aligned with funder requirements.
Whether you're at the early stages of an idea or already developing a proposal, we can help you navigate the complexities of cross-departmental collaboration and streamline the preparation process.
If you are seeking collaborators within the C2D3 network, or would like expert support in shaping and submitting a major research bid, please get in touch at coordinator@c2d3.cam.ac.uk.
Project management support
C2D3 offers comprehensive support to ensure the successful planning, execution, and completion of research projects (grants and contracts). We can offer extensive expertise in project management with a flexible approach tailored to each individual project.
Benefits of working with C2D3
We are ready to provide support before, during and after the research project – as a shared resource, often referred to as pooled labour. Pooled labour is a research-smart and agile approach to the University’s research activities.
- Projects can access expertise as needed - support can be scaled up or down based on project demand
- No need to go through a recruitment process to gain administrative support, allowing your budget to be allocated more flexibly
- C2D3 inherently works cross-department and cross-school, as an Interdisciplinary Research Centre. We are adept at identifying and following local processes.
Please enquire to see how we can support you: coordinator@c2d3.cam.ac.uk
Case Study
- US-based funder
- Fast-paced, research-at-scale, unconventional research model
Cambridge participation
- Research contract: 2022-2024
- International institutional collaboration
- International fieldwork
Highlights of C2D3’s support
- Negotiating research contract - funder, ROO, department, PI
- Financial monitoring, budgeting, reporting to funder
- High-value equipment purchasing
- Recruitment of researchers
- Event organisation – bootcamp, workshops, funder visit
- Consultant agreements
- Visiting researcher arrangements and expense claims
Managing your research data
Research Data Management
The University of Cambridge Research Data Management team offers support for researchers in managing their research data and ensuring compliance with funder policies on open data. Visit the Research Data Management website for information on research data management, guidelines and advice on complying with open data mandates from funding bodies., as well as assistance with uploading your data into the University's open data repository.
The Statistics Clinic
The Statistics Clinic aims to offer free statistical consulting services to all university members. Once a fortnight during term, and monthly during vacations, statisticians are available to meet with researchers (graduate students and research staff), to provide advice on questions relating to uncertainty, hypothesis testing, data modelling and inference in a friendly environment.
Commercialisation
Part of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge Enterprise supports academics, researchers, staff and students in achieving knowledge transfer and research impact.
Cambridge Enterprise do this by helping innovators, experts and entrepreneurs use commercial avenues to develop their ideas and expertise for the benefit of society, the economy, themselves and the University.
Liaising with organisations both locally and globally, Cambridge Enterprise offers expert advice and support in commercialisation and social enterprise, including help with academic consultancy services; the protection, development and licensing of ideas; new company and social enterprise creation, and seed funding.