The National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC) is pleased to announce that they has been awarded Flexible Talent Mobility Account (FTMA2) by BBSRC. They are inviting NBIC academic and industrial partners an opportunity to apply for this funding.

Applications are now open, and will close at 4pm on 28 October 2020. The assessment panel will comprise of the NBIC Science Management Board and NBIC Executive Management Board, who will meet to decide which applications to fund in November. The result will be communicated to applicants as soon as possible.

Projects must be completed and all funds spent by 31 July 2021.

Usage of the FTMA is highly flexible, but activities undertaken must support the mobility of early career academic and industrialist researchers to new environments, including between sectors and between countries. The activities should aim to pump-prime the establishment of new academia-industry interactions or further develop existing ones.

Activities proposed must align with one or more of the NBIC themes to Prevent, Detect, Manage and Engineer biofilms, and must also align to one or more of the challenges outlined within the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ICSF).

The FTMA comprises two types of award:

• Innovation Placements: targeted at PhD students who have just submitted their thesis who wish to undertake placements within a business environment
• Innovation Fellowships: targeted at talented early career researchers (postdoctoral researchers, and those early in their career who are equivalent to BBSRC David Phillips Fellows or equivalent from industry) who have the potential to be the next generation of leaders within UK academic and industrial research

It is intended to support the exchange of personnel, perspectives and knowledge, skills and expertise between the academic and industrial sectors. The costs awarded for each project may vary depending on the work proposed for the project but should generally not exceed £10,000 for innovation placements and £15,000 for innovation fellowships.

Applicants for FTMA funding will be asked to present a case for support that includes clear objectives and outputs from the proposed work, as well as identifying further routes for development and leverage of awarded funding. Applications are welcome for placements which facilitate the development of partnerships to foster longer-term collaborations.

Applications open for approximately 4 weeks, and will be assessed and the outcome communicated within 2 weeks. Following the completion of the placement/fellowship the applicants are required to submit a report to NBIC.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact the NBIC at nbic@biofilms.ac.uk