Full details on the funding opportunity and application process can be found here. You may also find the information below and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) helpful in deciding whether to submit an application.
The Future of UK Treescapes is a £14.5 million programme funding research that aims to significantly improve our environmental, socio-economic and cultural understanding of current and possible future UK treescapes. The outputs from these projects will help inform critical decisions that will be made in coming years concerning the ‘what, where, how and who’ of treescape expansion. In addition, they will help us to better safeguard our trees, woods and forests.
We are delivering the Programme through three funding Calls:
We have also launched a Fellowship Scheme, which is now accepting applicants.
NERC is inviting proposals for Treescapes Fellowships as part of the Future of UK Treescapes programme, deadline: 12 noon on 29 July 2022
The Future Treescapes Fellowship Scheme will offer opportunities for researchers or non-academics to spend between three to twelve-months working on a topic related to the Treescapes programme remit in a new disciplinary, institutional or applied setting.
If you would like to find organisations that may wish to host you or academics and non-academics to host at your organisation. Why not take a look at our collaborator finder.
For general enquiries, please contact treescapes@glos.ac.uk
Applications to the first call for the Future of UK Treescapes programme closed in March 2022. The announcement of the awards will be made in June 2022.
Funds of up to £2.5 million were made available from NERC, AHRC and ESRC for this call. Projects applied for up to £625,000 and we will fund up to 80% (max £500,000) of this.
Projects will have a maximum duration of 2 years and will start by 1 August 2021.
Applications to the first call for the Future of UK Treescapes programme closed in December 2020.
Six projects were selected in the first call and have now begun their research. These projects will explore how trees, woods and forests function. They will look at what needs to be done to grow and protect our future treescapes so they truly benefit nature and society as a whole. Our projects bring together diverse teams to undertake world-leading research, from scientists to artists, humanitarians to forest managers.
In the first call, funds of up to £10m were available from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). An additional £900K was provided by Defra, the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government to support collaboration and joint research proposals with Forest Research (FR).
These FAQs are continuously being updated. If you have specific questions not answered here or you would like to seek further clarification, please contact the UK Treescapes programme team at uktreescapes@nerc.ukri.org
All proposals must cross the remits of at least two of the three funding research councils (NERC, AHRC and ESRC) and show clear evidence of interdisciplinarity. Any that do not will be out of scope and will be rejected.
Where possible, each application will be assessed by panel members with relevant expertise to the proposal. Panel members will be drawn from research areas represented by the relevant research councils, in order to ensure that all elements are properly assessed.
Engagement with wider stakeholders and potential end-users is a critical requirement of all Call Two applications. Proposals must demonstrate that at least one stakeholder has been involved in the development and design of the research and will be involved in its subsequent execution. We further expect applicants to have considered the different routes to impact of their work as part of their Case for Support.
No. Note FR is now eligible for UKRI funding and can be involved with Call Two projects as Principal Investigators or Co-Investigators but their involvement is not a requirement of the call. FR costings should be included in the Je-S form in the usual way.
Individual projects do not necessarily need to have a UK-wide focus. However, our aim is to build on Call One to establish a portfolio of projects that have applications within the UK. The funders reserve the right to use the recommendations from the assessment panel to create a balanced portfolio of research projects.
Businesses can participate as ‘Project Partners’. The Principal Investigator can request minor directly incurred costs for Project Partners to facilitate collaboration, such as travel and subsistence. However, Project Partners are expected to provide specific contributions (in-cash or in-kind) to the project.
Businesses can also participate as a sub-contractor to carry out aspects of the proposed work, e.g. if there is a lack of expertise in eligible institutions. They will be deemed to be providing a service rather than collaborating in the research as partners. An organisation cannot be listed as both a Project Partner and a sub-contractor. Detailed guidance on Project Partners and sub-contracting can be found in section C of the NERC research grants handbook. It is recommended that applicants read section J on exploitation and intellectual property.
Yes, community-based organisations can be involved as project partners and receive funding. Community organisations can receive funding at 100% of direct costs, rather than the usual 80% full economic cost. Please refer to the announcement of opportunity for details on stakeholders or non-academic partners involvement and costs.
Artists and arts-based researchers may be involved in projects in a variety of roles, including in the case of arts-based researchers, as PIs. We would expect to see a clear definition of these different roles, however. Hence, while it is possible to include professional artists in proposals, their role will be different to that of arts researchers (i.e. trained researchers whose methods are in creative/practice-based research). Proposals need to ensure that the research element of the projects span the remits of at least two of the research council’s remits.
No, provided that interdisciplinarity can be fully demonstrated in the proposal.