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This padlet is for collecting ideas in advance of our next SIG Open Forum event, and will be used to select discussion topics. It could also be used during the session to contribute thoughts and suggestions, and may be shared afterwards. Padlet generally allocates animal-based pseudonyms, but please be aware that if you have an account and are logged in, you might be identifiable. That's fine, unless you don't want to be.

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(1) ARMA session conference plans

(2) Plans for internal funding event

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How have/are we (and by extension, the researchers we support) handling the various scheme pauses and postponements that we've seen recently? Are proposals being redirected or delayed?

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Beyond the hype and the nonsense, what practical uses have colleagues found for AI tools in their day-to-day work in research development? Or what hasn't worked so well? Any good (shareable) cautionary tales?

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Anyone used it for making decisions, whether that's as a funder, or as institution in response to demand management? What happened? How did people feel? Was it accepted?

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Proliferation of bid writing consultants and project management 'partners'

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Proliferation of bid writing consultants and project management 'partners'

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Have other organisations noticed an upward trend in approaches by bid writing consultants and/or project management partners?

Is it primarily a Horizon Europe 'problem'?

Has anyone developed policies on when they can/cant be engaged and on what terms?

Bid writing consultants often request an up front payment to cover costs and a success fee. How are these costs covered?

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Is there going to be more opportunity for ARMA to engage with UKRI as we had last year? The recent town hall suggested there may be significant change ahead – requirements etc. Nothing specific was said, but the direction seemed to be a desire to ‘simplify and speed up the process’.

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In 2025 NERC updated its resubmission policy to move towards harmonisation of approaches across UKRI. Does anyone have views on how this policy is being implemented, and/or views on the effect that it is having, e.g., whether it has changed people’s views on whether they should try a resubmission?

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Lack of admin funding in UKRI Doctoral Focal Awards 

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Lack of admin funding in UKRI Doctoral Focal Awards 

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In the last round of AHRC DFA, we found that none of the HEIs involved in our bids were able to contribute an admin budget and so if successful, the DFA's admin will fall on already stretched existing student admin teams. This may end up weakening the delivery of the programme for the students. It is also a backdoor request for institutional contributions when the scheme states it doesn't require any.

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Innovate UK - changes - lack of engagement

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Innovate UK - changes - lack of engagement

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We have deadlines for Wednesday 13th, 11am... quite a few. Out of the blue Friday 8th we discovered without any communication that Je-S was no longer functioning and IUK had decided it was no longer being used. IUK budget format on IFS was also wrong for Uni's, set up as IDY format. Eventually they said just workaround. Then I discovered over the weekend that they expect everyone to start afresh as they had fixed it, but it meant a new form. It had a section for upload - using this crashed the budget section. They have made significant changes with a lack of any communication, nor extension to deadlines. I would like ARMA to engage with Innovate - perhaps we could have them do a session to improve engagement?

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What's your experience of getting industrial cash matched funding on some new UKRI calls? Are there sufficient industrial interests?