Each Connections Funding team will need one University of Bristol researcher (employed by the University of Bristol) to be the budget holder for the project. We particularly welcome applications from colleagues who have not yet been a PI on a research grant.

We expect to see arts/humanities researchers and/or social scientists having a key role in interdisciplinary research teams but welcome applications from researchers from the sciences who want to expand their connections into the social sciences, arts and humanities disciplines. At the very minimum, we expect at least two people to apply. Each team member can come from different disciplines or with different expertise.

Funding can be used to buy in expertise (for example, you may need to pay an artist or community partner; if so please factor in any VAT when working out the cost), pay for non-staff researchers (both within and from beyond the University and including research associates and students), consumables (such as the costs for your project team meetings such as catering, and materials) or travel needed to work together. Costing for Bristol Museums’ and Special Collections involvement is being provided separately.

The application questions are available to aid you in framing your application.

If your application does not include costs for a member of University of Bristol staff or the costs of a partner from beyond  the university, please put n/a in the Worktribe field on the application form.

If your application includes costs for a member of University of Bristol staff or the costs of a partner from beyond  the university, the University of Bristol applicant/budget holder will need to submit a full financial costing on Worktribe (the University’s finance system for projects) to be approved internally prior to submitting the application. The University partner’s costing specialist will be able to help, but please follow the Brigstow-specific guidance at www.bristol.ac.uk/brigstow/research-admin/worktribe. Please allow sufficient time before submission for the relevant finance and Head of School approvals for your Worktribe costing. 

Below are suggested timeframes to ensure the University processes are completed in time for your submission. While there could be some flexibility, these are the usual timescales you should follow:

• Three weeks before submission to Brigstow: the budget holder should have created a project Worktribe and started populating the budget. The budget holder can contact their University costing specialist for help.
• One week before submission to Brigstow: the budget holder should have submitted the costing for review
• Two days before submission to Brigstow: finance and Head of School should have completed their approvals allow you to finalize your Connections funding application and submit it via the Brigstow online application form. 

To apply, please visit bristol.ac.uk/brigstow/funding/apply. 

Terms of Engagement

As part of the application process team members are asked to agree to Brigstow’s Terms of Engagement. These set out the principles and also the expectations from both Brigstow and the successful team.

Charter for Co-production Through an Anti-Racist Lens

Brigstow is committed to the principles set out in the Charter for Co-production Through an Anti-Racist Lens published in 2024. We encourage all project teams to make themselves aware of these principles and to apply them when considering how they will carry out the Ideas Exchange, and plan for a larger project. In the application form you will be asked to confirm that your whole team agrees to the Charter for Co-production through an Anti-Racist lens.

You might want to explore some of our toolkits to aid your discussions when developing your Connections Funding proposal -  these are all available on our Brigstow Institute Toolkits webpage. The toolkits could be useful as you:

• develop your ideas and frame your project;
• untangle some of the language and expectations across disciplines and partners;
• think about how to keep people engaged in the project; and
• understand the pressures and tensions each team member might experience.