Glen, Annalisa and I have just returned from this afternoon’s positively glittering 2011 Team Achievement and Individual Merit Awards ceremony for staff at the University of Lincoln. This annual event makes awards for exceptional performance in a number of categories. We are now the proud owners of this year’s staff award for Income Generation and Diversification.

The award was made in recognition of our team’s significant impact on one of the key University objectives to increase external income generation for research. Over the past year, activities coordinated and delivered by our office have included:

• implementation of a European research funding strategy;
• a high level of in-depth bid support, including drafting, project costing and detailed advice on funder priorities;
• scoping forthcoming funding opportunities and matching these with research groups and individual academics;
• a greater focus on providing more strategic workshops and training opportunities for all academic staff.

These new initiatives have contributed to a higher number of EU funding bids submitted and the University’s first FP7 success, along with a marked 83% increase in secured external income for research from £1.8M in 2009/10 to £3.3M in 2010/11. We have also seen a 25% increase in academics attending our training courses from 293 to 365, a 51% increase in the number of bids with authoring support from 43 to 65 and an increase in success of these bids from 25% to 29% by number (and from 25% to 65% by value).