Researcher-led Initiative Awards 2027

The Researcher Development and Research Culture (RD&RC) team is in receipt of Research England funding to enhance our institutional research culture, and we are therefore able to run the Researcher-led Initiatives for the 2026-27 year.

The Researcher-led Initiatives support the development and cascading of personal, professional and career management skills by and for Early Career Research staff and Postgraduate Research students across the University of Exeter. Staff applicants will need to indicate their job family (i.e. R only, E&R, E&S, Technical Strategy & Operations) and explain how they fit into the Early Career Researcher stage.

The Researcher Led-Initiative Awards (RLIs) are intended to enable early career research staff and postgraduate research students to be creative, proactive, and empowered, through the process of initiating, designing, managing, and delivering new professional development activities for their peers that will develop the skills and experience needed to progress their careers. They also offer the opportunity to experience applying for and managing a funding bid 

Up to £2,500 per award is available to support projects, events, and initiatives eg, speakers/facilitators, relating to specific themes. The awarding panel are looking for highly creative and innovative projects that have a lasting impact. Initiatives can by delivered via hybrid, remote and in-person activities.

Your application needs to align with one or more of these Research Culture themes: 

1.  Leadership and Employability.
2.  Communication.
3.  Wellbeing.
4.  Building Community.

Collaborative and inter-disciplinary applications are encouraged!  

As part of your application, you are asked to demonstrate the following: 

• Where applicable, cross-faculty/inter-disciplinary demand for and interest in your project. 
• Lasting impact of your initiative. 

Overview of criteria: 

1. Lead applicants must be Postgraduate Research Students or staff from the University of Exeter in academic, research or technical roles who consider themselves to be early career researchers, including, for example, lecturers, experimental officers, research software engineers.
2. Beneficiaries of the initiatives must include Postgraduate Research Students and/or University of Exeter staff in academic, research or technical roles who consider themselves to be early career researchers. Please note: Applications from Postgraduate Research Students must include other Postgraduate Research Students as beneficiaries. b. Applications from Staff in academic, research or technical roles must include other University of Exeter staff in the same roles. 
3. We warmly welcome activities that are collaborative and inter-disciplinary in nature. 
4. The initiatives must be completed and paid for by the 21st June 2027.
5. Successful applicants must agree to fulfil the responsibilities outlined in the ‌‌Award Holders' Responsibilities‌ which includes taking full responsibility for managing the financial demands of the award. A 'How to ...' Guide will be made available to successful applicants.
6. The proposed activities must directly benefit parties beyond the named applicants, fully reflecting the beneficiaries detailed in the application.
7. You will be required to provide details on how you propose for the project to have a long-term impact eg, producing accompanying resources, guidance etc. 
8. You will be required to evaluate your activity, provide a short-written report in the style of a blog and send it to the RD&RC Team: researcherdevelopment@exeter.ac.uk
9. We cannot fund an activity that is essential for any already-funded project’s success – activities must be additional to that planned for existing funded activity.
10. Activities should not replicate those which are already offered by the University. 
11. Applicants must not have previously received more than 2 consecutive years of funding (for example if you/your co-authors or the activity have been awarded money from RLIs for the previous 2 years you will not be eligible for this round.  These awards are designed to help start initiatives, not act as continued funding). 
12. Funding for internal room bookings, travel to conferences or individual professional development are outside the scope of these awards.  Moderate and reasonable catering for events is within scope.
13. Award holders cannot pay themselves from the fund to manage, administer or participate eg, as a facilitator or presenter in their awards.  Neither will Award Holders be able to pay existing members of University of Exeter staff as presenters, through their funding nor through honoraria.  The University’s Entertainment, Hospitality and Gifts outlines the expectations for both receiving and giving gifts.
14. Activities need to be advertised through Eventbrite and the link shared with the RD&RC team: researcherdevelopment@exeter.ac.uk
15. The judging panel will be assessing applications on the following criteria:
    - Theme: how well the application addresses the research culture theme.
    - Rationale for project: how clearly and strongly the proposal is articulated including its feasibility in terms of completion within the given time frame.
    - Impact: how well the application communicates who will benefit from the project either from peer development or networking and the impact it will have overall.
    - Budget: how well costed and appropriate the budget is for the project proposal and whether to not this represents value for money

Download the Application Form: RLI 2027 Application Form‌.

Attend an online session - ‘How to Prepare a Strong Researcher-Led Initiative (RLI) Application’ – 03.11.26 (12.30 pm – 1.30 pm)

Applications close on Thursday 19 November 2026 at 12 Noon. Please submit your application form in .doc/.docx format.

Successful award holders