Applicants are invited to apply for short-term pilot study and challenge fellowship funding from the RCUK Digital Economy Theme (DE) Sustainable Society Network+.

These pilot studies will be no longer than 6 months in duration and are designed to test new ideas or create novel linkages between research areas. Up to £200,000 is available to fund several pilot studies of up to £50,000 each (Funded at 80% according to Research Council funding regulations). Proposals should focus on novel research ideas that are previously untested and hold the potential to identify key research challenges for Sustainable Society.
Applicants within 5 years of the award of their PhD may apply for Challenge Fellowship funding, which is funding set aside for younger researchers. 30% of the total network
pilot funding (i.e. 30% of £500,000) is prioritized for Challenge fellowships over the 3-year period.
Resources that can be requested under this call include:

•  Investigator and researcher time;
• Travel and subsistence appropriate to delivery of the project;
• Equipment.

The key themes for this call were identified during the Network+ event held on the 12th– 13th July 2012 at the Science Museum. These are:

1. Community Sharing – in what ways can communities create value through exchange and/or sharing resources? How can digital technologies help enable new organizational structures in order to create a more efficient application of resources across society?
2. Changing values, attitudes and/or behavior – in what ways can we help shift peoples values towards more sustainable futures? How do we ensure that one change in behavior does not cause unexpected affects in other parts of a system?
3. Measuring Infrastructures – How can digital technologies assist in moving use from metrics to real-world action? Different measurements can have different meanings in several contexts – How can we help people to understand metrics around infrastructure, etc…?
4. Resilience – How can we provide sufficient support about abrupt transitions that society faces? How do we ensure that there is appropriate management of redundancy/risk and how can we help people respond to disruption and shocks?
5. Empowering through Creativity – how do we link creative disruption to positive social change? What can we do beyond just networking creative people together? Also, how can we avoid any potential loss of creativity with digital advances?

The deadline for applications is 5pm on the 17th October 2012. For more information on the call, including background details and the call document, please visit the call page.