Emergency Bridge & Underwriting
| Frequency | once per term |
| Upcoming deadline | 09 October 2025, 12pm |
| Funding Amount | up to £30,000 |
| Funding Duration | 3 to 6 months |
This funding call is designed to help provide support for emergent needs and opportunities, specifically targeting short periods of emergency bridging or underwriting needs for early career, postdoctoral, researchers. 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. Therefore, priority will be given to first time applications.
The named applicant should be a PI or independent researcher. 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
- Normally, applications should not be for retrospective funding
Please note that the INT does not reconsider unsuccessful applications for the same project 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
- 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
- Equipment purchases
- Facility access costs
- Overheads and indirect costs
- Publication and open access costs
- Relocation or Visa costs
- Research Assistant salary costs
- Studentships
- Visitors
Applications must be completed by established PIs from the University, with the assistance of your departmental Research Grants Administrator. Calculating staff costs in a Worktribe standalone budget is recommended.
Applications should be submitted using our online Emergency Bridge & Underwriting application form.
You will be asked to upload:
- 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
- A completed Financial Summary Table. Please download the Fiancial Summary Table template here
- A completed Head of Institution Support Form. Please download the Head of Institution Support Form template here
- Reference statements from 3 referees. Please see information below regarding referee eligibility. These collected references should be concatendated into a single document and should:
- 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.
- A copy of the applicant CV and the CV of any staff named in the application. CVs should be no longer than 4 pages
Referee eligibility:
- None of the experts must be from the Institution making the application
- 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 2025 |
Lent 2026 |
Easter 2026 |
|
Application Deadline |
09 October 2025, 12pm |
05 February 2026, 12pm |
04 June 2026, 12pm |
|
Trustees' Meeting |
20 November 2025 |
19 March 2026 |
16 July 2026 |
|
Outcome Announced |
27 November 2025 |
26 March 2026 |
23 July 2026 |
