AMOSSHE Insight call for project proposals 2017/18

What sorts of projects will AMOSSHE fund?

AMOSSHE is calling for research projects, innovative activities or learning in Student Services that address any topic of interest to Student Services practitioners. AMOSSHE is especially interested in projects that align to our key strategic themes as an organisation:

• Social mobility and differential outcomes.
  
• Mental health, well-being and resilience.
  
• Building positive relationships on campus.
  
• Service delivery models (including the role of technology).
  

Find out more about these strategic themes: AMOSSHE strategy: thematic enablers (PDF 586 KB). We welcome proposals from across the breadth of Student Services practice, but if it fits within the scope of your project, we encourage you to identify in your proposal how the project links to one or more of our strategic themes.

Your project may involve primary or secondary research methodologies, or a mixture of both. You may propose surveys (with accompanying analysis) and literature reviews. Successful projects will be sound in their methodology and evidence base, and will also be of immediate practical use to the wider sector. These requirements will be reflected in the criteria the project steering group uses to evaluate and prioritise proposals.

Projects should aim to create tangible outputs as well as a research report. These may include documented interventions that are replicable elsewhere, research tools and instruments or case studies.

AMOSSHE particularly encourages proposals that are co-created with students.

You can’t apply for retrospective funding for work that has already been completed.

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What funding is available?

You can apply for up to £3,500 for your project, with the possibility of extending the total to £5,000 per project based on the length and quality of the project outcomes. This will be at the discretion of the project steering group, and will only be available to projects that demonstrate measurable added value to AMOSSHE members.

Payment of the funding grant may be phased over the course of longer projects.

If the cost of your project exceeds the £3,500 / £5,000 maximum allowance you can still submit your proposal, but you must demonstrate match funding from your institution to cover the remaining cost.

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Who can apply for AMOSSHE Insight funding?

You can apply for AMOSSHE Insight funding if you are a named AMOSSHE member as part of a UK education provider organisation membership. You must have the support of a senior sponsor within your organisation to apply.

AMOSSHE Insight funding is not available for members in these membership categories: non-profit, corporate, individual, student. Find out more about membership benefits for each category here: What are the benefits of AMOSSHE membership? 

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Who decides which projects are funded?

The project steering group who will evaluate the project proposals, will consist of:

• Jayne Aldridge (AMOSSHE Vice Chair Operations and Director - Services for Students, Kingston University)
  
• Mandi Barron (AMOSSHE Executive Member and Head of Student Services, Bournemouth University)
  
• Richard Irons (AMOSSHE Executive Member and Academic Registrar, University of Derby)
  
• Helen McNeely (AMOSSHE Executive Member and Head of Student Affairs, Queen's University Belfast)
  
• John Bloomfield (Executive Director, AMOSSHE)

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If my project is selected, what is expected of me?

If your project is selected for AMOSSHE Insight funding, a member of the AMOSSHE Executive Committee will work with you as a project mentor, to help guide your project and ensure that its outputs are relevant to and useful for AMOSSHE members and the aims of this call for proposals.

By accepting funding for your project you agree to:

• Work with the project steering group to agree a project plan that works for your project team and also serves the aims and intentions of this project call. This plan will set out AMOSSHE’s expectations of the content, progress and outcomes of the project.
  
• Provide updates to your AMOSSHE Insight mentor regularly throughout the course of the project.
  
• Adhere to project milestones as detailed in your project plan.
  
• Produce a report on your findings of no more than 15 pages (excluding appendices), plus a short executive summary.
  
• Adhere to AMOSSHE’s formatting guidance for producing reports.
  

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How will the project outcomes be used?

Intellectual property rights remain with the project team, who will be clearly acknowledged. However, the project outcomes should be made freely available for wider use within the sector, and AMOSSHE reserves the right to publicise the project and publish any of its outputs.

AMOSSHE will promote the project findings by distributing materials to members through its communication channels. Project reports, outputs and outcomes will be published in the public area of the AMOSSHE website and will also be made available to selected external organisations.

You may be invited to share your project findings at an AMOSSHE event. Please be aware that travel, subsistence, conference / event attendance fees and other associated costs will not be funded as part of the project allocation.

Project teams are not required to attend or present at national conference. However, depending on the timescale and duration of your project, the conference might be a good way of utilising the membership to feedback and develop the project as part of the development, so you may want to consider this. For projects that are nearing completion around the time of the national conference, project teams should provide a short summary of their progress for distribution to delegates.

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How do I apply?

Stage one

If you intend to submit a project proposal, please write a 200 word summary of the project aims and how it relates to any of AMOSSHE's strategic themes.

Email your summary to info@amosshe.org.uk by 17:00 on Friday 15 December 2017.

You don't need to submit anything else at this stage. The project steering group will shortlist the summaries and invite selected project teams to submit a full project proposal.

Stage two

If you're invited to submit a full project proposal, AMOSSHE will send you a proposal form. To complete the form you should organise your full project proposal to include the following:

• Project title and 50 word overview
  
• Name(s) of the project leader(s), with contact details
  
• Project aim
  
• SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) objectives and/or the hypothesis to be tested
  
• Research methodology
• Project plan including milestones
  
• How the project will be managed
• Anticipated outputs / products
  
• Dissemination plan, which should comment on the potential scalability of the project or its outputs
• Full project budget inclusive of any VAT - this should include any other funding that you have secured as match funding for the overall project
• Signature or letter of support from a senior sponsor within your organisation
  

You must provide enough information to enable the project steering group to make informed decisions about what you’re proposing, how the work will be managed and what outcomes you expect. Due to time constraints, the group will not have an opportunity to come back to you for clarification on any points. You must write your proposal so that anyone with a broad understanding of Student Services can understand it, and you must indicate the wider relevance of the work.

Submit your full project proposal by 17:00 on Friday 23 February 2018.

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What are the timings?

Please submit your stage one project proposal electronically to info@amosshe.org.uk by 17:00 on Friday 15 December 2017. AMOSSHE will tell you the outcome of your proposal in the week commencing Monday 15 January 2018.

When submitting your proposal you can suggest a timescale that accurately reflects the needs of the project. AMOSSHE requires all projects to be completed by 30 August 2019 at the latest. Please ensure that you fully detail your project timescale and major milestones when submitting your full proposal form, so that the project steering group can understand the reasoning for the duration of the project and how this relates to the outcomes of the project.

Here's the full timeline for the 2017/18 AMOSSHE Insight programme:

Date	Milestone
2 November 2017	Call for project proposals (stage one)
15 December 2017 (17:00)	Deadline to submit stage one project proposals
Week commencing 15 January 2018	AMOSSHE advises proposers whether they are successful or not. Call for project proposals (stage two): project steering group invites selected project teams to submit full project proposals.
23 February 2018 (17:00)	Deadline to submit stage two project proposals.
Week commencing 5 March 2018	AMOSSHE advises proposers whether they are successful or not.
March 2018	Project steering group agrees the terms and scope of the projects with the project leads.
25 May 2018	Final date for project teams to submit progress summaries of projects completing in the 2017/18 academic year.
31 August 2018	Final date for project teams to submit final outputs of projects completing in the 2017/18 academic year.
24 May 2019	Final date for project teams to submit progress summaries of projects completing in the 2018/19 academic year.
30 August 2019	Final date for project teams to submit final outputs of projects completing in the 2018/19 academic year.

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How does AMOSSHE Insight sponsorship work?

In order to support AMOSSHE Insight into the future, AMOSSHE may seek to engage sponsorship from third parties for individual projects and/or AMOSSHE Insight as a whole. AMOSSHE will work with project teams and sponsors according to these guidelines:

• Quality projects that benefit the sector are AMOSSHE’s priority – not sponsorship income.
  
• AMOSSHE won’t seek to engage sponsors until after selecting the successful project proposals. Third parties won’t be involved with the proposal selection process, and the potential for sponsorship won’t influence which projects are selected for funding.
  
• Once the successful project proposals are chosen, AMOSSHE may seek to engage third party organisations with an interest in the topic area(s). In return for a sponsorship contribution, third party organisations will benefit from having their branding associated with the project.
  
• AMOSSHE will seek engagement with external companies, organisations and interested parties in accordance with our business engagement policy.
  
• AMOSSHE will seek agreement from the project team lead that they are happy for their project to be sponsored by named organisation(s). The project team can choose not to have their project associated with a sponsor.
  
• Sponsoring organisations will have no input into the progress or outcomes of the projects. Any sponsor branding on project outputs implies endorsement of the expertise and professionalism of AMOSSHE members’ work – not influence on, or agreement with any project findings.
  

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