The University was awarded an allocation of Quality Related (QR) impact funding for this financial year to provide funding to academic colleagues to support impact activities which could potentially feed into the development of high impact case studies for the next Research Excellence Framework (REF).
For the 2025-2026 academic year, we ran the following impact funding schemes:
For all of these funding calls, it was mandatory to consult with your Research Impact Officer before submitting a final application. If you wished to apply, you must have contacted your Research Impact Officer who would advise on the application and provide support. Applicants were asked to allow five working days for their Research Impact Officer to review an application. Any applicants who did not consult with their Research Impact Officer prior to submission would have their application withdrawn.
Our Engagement and Impact Fund is a competition open to research staff employed at the University of Essex which aims to enhance the non-academic impact of research. It provides funding up to £2,000 (including VAT), allowing researchers to respond quickly to opportunities for impact. It supports activities that help to build relationships with stakeholders and research users in the private, third, or public sector to enable research impact. All awarded funding must be spent by 30 June 2026.
This was an open call with two tranches of funding available. The first tranche was awarded in the Autumn Term, and the second tranche is awarded in the Spring Term:
Tranche one (Autumn Term) - the first tranche of funding opened at 12 noon on Monday 8 September 2025 and closed on Friday 5 December 2025.
Tranche two (Spring Term) - the second tranche of funding opened at 12 noon on Monday 12 January 2026 and closed on 22 January as all the allocated funding available for this tranche was awarded.
We will not accept any applications submitted between the closure of the first tranche of funding and the opening of the second tranche of funding. As there is a limited amount of competitive funding available per tranche, we would advise for applications to be submitted as early as possible within each term. Please note that only one Engagement and Impact Fund award can be funded per applicant, per academic year.
Please download and read the call guidance notes (.pdf) for full details about this call before applying.
Once you had contacted your Research Impact Officer for support and to help review your application draft, applicants were asked to complete their final Engagement and Impact Fund application form (.docx) and submit it by email to impact-programmes@essex.ac.uk.
We expected decisions to be made and notification of outcomes within four weeks.
Colleagues were asked to download and read the call guidance notes (.pdf) for full details about this call before applying.
Once they had contacted their Research Impact Officer for support and to help review their application draft, applicants were asked to complete their final Impact Accelerator Fund application form (.docx) and submit it by email to impact-programmes@essex.ac.uk before the deadline (12 noon on Friday 21 November 2025).
Due to the competitive nature of this call, applicants were also encouraged to liaise with their Director of Impact prior to submission.
Applications will be reviewed by a panel of senior academic staff and REO staff. Outcomes are expected to be communicated in mid to late December 2025.
Our International Impact Fund is a competition for academic staff employed at the University of Essex to undertake projects that will realise impact outside of the UK that may contribute to our REF2029 engagement and impact section of the submission. It will support work based in the UK so long as most of the impact of the project, and any ensuring work realised, will occur outside of the country. Applications could be for up to £10,000 (including VAT) per project. Please note we can only accept one International Impact Fund application per person. All awarded funding must be spent by 30 June 2026.
Colleagues were asked to download and read the call guidance notes (.pdf) for full details about this call before applying.
Once they had contacted their Research Impact Officer for support and to help review their application draft, applicants were asked to complete their final International Impact Fund application form (.docx) and submit it by email to impact-programmes@essex.ac.uk before the deadline (12 noon on Friday 17 October 2025).
Due to the competitive nature of this call, applicants were also encouraged to liaise with their Director of Impact prior to submission.
Applications will be reviewed by a panel of senior academic staff and REO staff. Outcomes are expected to be communicated in mid to late November 2025.
Successful applicants will be allocated cost codes to spend against. All spend of funding awarded under these calls must be completed by 30 June 2026, and all proposed project activities should be completed by this date. Recipients will also be required to complete reporting during and/or at the end of their funding awards.
All engagement and impact activities and any outcomes and impact should also be documented on the RIS-Impact Module.
Please consult our Ethical Public Engagement Tool and Guidance document (.pdf) to help determine if your activity involving engagement with members of the public incorporates research and therefore requires ethics review. If ethical approval is need for your project, this must be granted before a cost code can be issued. Please see the University’s guidance on obtaining ethical approval for research involving human participants.