Emergency Bridge & Underwriting

Upcoming Deadline 24 September 2026, 12pm
Funding Amount up to £30,000
Funding Duration 3 to 6 months

Emergency Bridge & Underwriting Overview

This funding call is designed to help provide support for emergent needs and opportunities. Specifically, this funding opportunity aims to target short periods of emergency bridging or underwriting needs for early career, postdoctoral, researchers at the University of Cambridge. Such needs will be considered on a case-by-case basis and should focus on retaining exceptional staff members during funding gaps.

This funding scheme should not be used to tide over researchers repeatedly or provide long term funding. Priority will be given to:

  • First time applications
  • Applications that support continuous employment at the University of Cambridge after the bridging period
  • Applicants who have secured future funding and those who have already applied for future funding

The named applicant should be a PI or independent researcher. This will often be the supervisor of the researcher requesting the bridge funding. Where an established researcher seeks a contribution to their own salary, the applicant should be the Head of institution.

It is expected that: 

  • Future funding has been applied for or has been secured at the time of application. A clear plan and timescale should be included in the application
  • Salary costs for Early Career Researchers and Postdoctoral Research Associates are prioritised
  • Retaining the named Research Associate, in need of funding, is important to the project or research group. Awarded funding should also benefit the Research Associate’s personal career development
  • The project can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion if the intended further funding is not secured
  • Applications should not be for retrospective funding

Please note that the INT does not reconsider unsuccessful applications for the same bridge unless there has been a substantial material change in circumstances.
 

The INT strives to be as flexible as possible to ensure the success of your research project. Therefore, if your proposed project costs are not covered by this summary, please ask.

Eligible Costs:

  • Postdoctoral Research Associate salary costs up to spine point 044. If project staff members are currently paid at a higher spine point, it is expected that any difference in salary is met using alternative funding. Staff may work on a part-time or full-time basis. If project staff members are working part-time, this cannot be used as justification to pay salary costs higher than spine point 044 or extend the project further than 6 months
  • National Insurance, Pension, and Inflation (as set at time of application)
  • Travel expenses, in line with the University travel expenditure policy, for the Postdoctoral Research Associate
  • Consumables

Ineligible Costs:

  • Bridging salary costs of recent PhDs to their first Postdoctoral Research Associate post
  • Apprenticeship levy
  • ‘Buying out’ PI time or contributions to PI salary
  • Conference Hosting
  • Contributions to the PI's research or travel expenses
  • Equipment purchases
  • Facility access costs
  • Overheads and indirect costs
  • Publication and open access costs
  • Relocation or Visa costs
  • Research Assistant salary costs
  • Studentships
  • Visitors

Apply online here - this form will close on 24 September 2026, 12pm

Applications must be led by established PIs from the University, with the assistance of your departmental Research Grants Administrator. It is recommended that the administrative team submit the application form to maintain impartiality. Applications do not need to be processed by the Research Operations Office before submission. However, calculating staff costs in a Worktribe standalone budget is recommended.

Information you will be asked to provide:

  • Applicant details – Please provide contact information for the named PI, the Head of the Institution, and the institution grant administrator. Shared mailbox email addresses are encouraged where appropriate.
  • A list of all active grants held by the PI. You do not need to include awards you are named as Co-Investigator or those that have recently ended. You should only include awards set up in CUFS and managed by the Research Operations Office alongside your institution’s finance team.
  • Your project title
  • A project summary - This summary should be approximately 5 lines and intelligible to a non-expert.
  • Your requested funding amount. This value must match your finance summary table you will be asked to upload. Please see details of this below.
  • A brief funding purpose – This should be approximately 1 sentence and include the name of the Postdoctoral Research Associate in need of bridge funding, their FTE, duration, and planned salary spine point.
  • Your planned project dates. It is expected that projects start on the first day on the month and end on the last. Please note the maximum duration of 6 months.
  • Your sources of future funding. We appreciate that you may have several options for future funding. Please make these options clear by specifying each funding scenario. Please note, you must inform the INT immediately if you succeed in obtaining a replacement grant. Any funding offered by INT as a bridge or for underwriting, but which is no longer needed, must be returned to the Trust.
     

You will be asked to upload: 

  1. The project academic case. This should be no longer than 4 sides of A4, including references. All text within your academic case should be no smaller than font size 11, Calibri, Aptos, or Arial. All A4 margins should be set at a minimum of 1 inch
  2. A completed Financial Summary Table. Please download the Financial Summary Table template here
  3. A completed Head of Institution Support Form. Please download the Head of Institution Support Form template here
  4. Reference statements from 3 referees. Please see information below regarding referee eligibility. References need to be sought by the Research Grants Administrator and should be concatenated into a single document. References should include the following information:
    • Review the strengths and weaknesses of the project,
    • Assess the suitability of the researchers and the proposed methods for the study,
    • Comment on the likelihood of the project being achieved within the timescale proposed,
    • Be transparent about how they know the applicant.
  5. A copy of the applicant CV and the CV of any staff named in the application. CVs should be no longer than 4 pages. All CVs should be concatenated into a single document.

Referee eligibility:

  • 1 expert may be from the Institution making the application, but this is not compulsory
  • At least 2 of these reviews must be provided by an individual from outside the University of Cambridge
  • Reviewers should not be co-authors of papers, co-editors of projects, or co-applicants for grants
  • Reviewers should not be former PhD supervisors of any member of the application team during the last five years
  • If there is existing independent peer review feedback available for this project, such as from a bid to UKRI, you may use these in the place of up to 2 references

All decisions are made at Trustee meetings, which happen once a term on the dates given below. Please note that the INT will not consider applications made between the advertised funding rounds or by those from outside of the University of Cambridge.

Michaelmas 2026

  • Application Deadline = 24 September 2026, 12pm
  • Trustees' Meeting = 19 November 2026
  • Outcome Typically Announced = 26 November 2026
  • Earliest funding start date = 01 December 2026

Lent 2027

  • Application Deadline = 21 January 2027, 12pm
  • Trustees' Meeting = 18 March 2027
  • Outcome Typically Announced = 25 March 2027
  • Earliest funding start date = 01 April 2027

Easter 2027

  • Application Deadline = 20 May 2027, 12pm
  • Trustees' Meeting = 15 July 2027
  • Outcome Typically Announced = 22 July 2027
  • Earliest funding start date = 01 August 2027