ESRC opens environmental research fund

The Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science (Access) fund will aim to develop new ways of thinking, methods or practices that help the social sciences address climate and environmental problems.

Access will have two funding calls, with the first having a total value of £250,000 and offering eight to 10 small grants of up to £30,000, open now until 30th June 2023.

A second funding round for larger projects will open in 2024.

Anyone bidding for funding will need to show they have incorporated Access’s guiding principles around successfully tackling climate and environmental challenges – such as biodiversity loss, sustainable use of resources and decarbonisation – including diverse voices in both the design and delivery of solutions and reducing the environmental impacts of research practices.

Professor Patrick Devine-Wright, Access director and based at the University of Exeter, said: “The Access Flex Fund is an exciting opportunity to try out new ideas and approaches to advance environmental social science.

“There is so much we still need to learn about how to advance interdisciplinarity and knowledge co-production with tangible impact. And all the while we face a range of environmental crises that make action on these issues more urgent than ever before.”