Project Start-up Grants

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 3 years
• Consumables 
• Equipment essential to project success. It is expected that a quote is provided as part of your application. Other sources of funding should be approached and contribute to the overall cost. If this is not possible, full justification must be provided.
• Facility access costs. Usage should be charged at the 'internal' rate wherever possible and the applicant's Head of Department should specify why the usage cannot be paid for by the Department
• National Insurance, Pension, and Inflation (as set at time of application)
• Travel expenses, in line with the University travel expenditure policy

Ineligible Costs:

• Apprenticeship levy
• ‘Buying out’ PI time or contributions to PI salary (unless application is made on behalf of CTO for support to undertake period of research leave)
• Conference Hosting
• Overheads and indirect costs
• Publication and open access costs
• Relocation or Visa costs
• Research Assistant salary costs
• Research that falls under the remit of major funders, such as UKRI
• Studentships
• Visitors

Applications must be completed by established PIs from the University, with the assistance of your departmental Research Grants Administrator. 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.

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 Fiancial Summary Table template here 
3. A copy of a quote for any requested equipment, if applicable to your application
4. A completed Head of Institution Support Form. Please download the Head of Institution Support Form template here
5. 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.
6. 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.