Partnerships on Grant Applications, a Collaborative Success Story with University College London

Partnerships on grant applications, a collaborative success story with University College London

Just over a year ago (has it really been that long!) I wrote a blog about the importance of grant funding partnerships, and how selecting the right partner can significantly affect the outcome of your funding submission. Partnership funding is popular within the grant world, as it’s an effective way of demonstrating collaborative efforts on a single innovation. It shows commitment to work in unison and share costs, project complexities, and resources, but most importantly, it shows a shared passion and belief about the project goals and ideas.

The Proposal

Back in May 2023, we were approached by our good friends Prof. Lena Ciric and Dr Fiona Jamieson from UCL, who were writing a bid for funding with EPSRC Centres for Doctoral (CDT) Training. Their proposal ‘Engineering Solutions for Antimicrobial Resistance’ was to open a centre to train engineering and physical sciences graduates to become civil, industrial and academic leaders to address the national and global burden of Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR), which has been declared by the WHO as one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity, leading to an estimated 10M deaths per year and a US$100 trillion cost to the world economy by 2050.

The Collaboration

Test Labs were asked to support with the delivery of the programme through in-kind support, such as training of students through lectures and tutorials, facilities access, and hosting visits, which we gladly accepted. Aside from whole heartedly supporting the cause of addressing AMR, taking time away from our busy work schedules to play a part in helping the next generation grow and thrive within the world of science is one the most rewarding things that we do. We have a long-standing relationship with ARU Peterborough, our local university, where we regularly host students for work experience. We were delighted to be approached by UCL to support similarly with their students within the doctorate programme.

As advised by Fiona, our required input for the application submission was a detailed letter of support. Information provided included who we are as a business, what we do, our companies mission and visions, actions we will take to support with the programme, and how we have worked with Lena and the team on past projects. Once written, this was sent to Lena and Fiona to accompany and strengthen their submission. And from here, there was nothing left for us to do, but wait!

The Result

Half a year later, we were overjoyed to hear that UCL was successful in their funding bid, and subsequently was awarded a staggering £12million over 8 years. We have since found out a vast 23 other partners featured of that single proposal, including regulatory bodies, SMEs and global corporates, each supporting the programme in their own unique way. I have no doubt that aside from a terrific proposal, all of these skills, resources, and support combined from the different partners played a massive role in the overall success of the application.

“Test Labs and UCL have a long-standing collaborative partnership and it’s these types of partnerships that are crucial in the design and delivery of our training programmes. Students will be able to learn from Test Labs and other industrial collaborators about how to implement research in a commercial setting which is vital for the translation of this research training into impactful outputs.”

Roelle Ann Santa Maria, Engagement and Communications Manager | UCL

If you would like to find out more about funding partnering opportunities at Test Labs and how we can strengthen your proposal, please contact us on 020 3813 0969.

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