UKRI has announced the Develop a UK digital twinning research community with a NetworkPlus call. In line with its building a secure and resilient world strategic theme, UKRI aims to establish a multidisciplinary research community in digital twinning, complementing the existing industry-led multisector digital twins community.
Led by a multidisciplinary research team, this NetworkPlus will bring together a diverse research community in digital twinning. This research community must carry out the following: assess and determine what the UK needs to develop a national capability in digital twinning; undertake thought leadership including for ethics and human interaction, environmental sustainability, and security and resilience; and develop and run open opportunities for small digital twinning research projects. The funder expects the team to have expertise in computer science, engineering, and mathematical sciences as well as multidisciplinary input with expertise from across a range of academic disciplines. EPSRC therefore encourages applicants from a broad range of disciplines, some of whom may not normally engage with or be familiar with digital twinning (see the Scope section of the call website). NetworkPlus activities must consider user engagement, involve non-academic stakeholders, span the breadth of the UK, enable benefit at both the regional and national level, and involve co-creation with relevant partners.
Funded activities include workshops, events, communications, secondments, horizon scanning and funding to develop and run opportunities for small projects. UKRI will fund 1 NetworkPlus award of £3,750,000 (funded at 80% fec) over 5 years. A maximum of 5 investigators, including principal investigator and co-investigators, is permitted for each application.
For more information, please see the call website. Please see the Additional Info section of the call website for details about an online meeting place for meeting potential collaborators.
University Internal selection:
Institutions can only submit one application as lead institution. Therefore, this call will be managed according to the University’s restricted calls procedure.
If you are a University of Cambridge PI bidding to lead on one of these applications, you must take part in the internal selection process. Please submit your nomination(s) via this online form by 6th February, 2023 (if asked to log-in, please use your Raven details).
Applicants will need to have the following information ready to complete the online form submission (please note that forms cannot be saved and returned to):
- Names of PI, Co-Is and other collaborators
- A project summary (max. 500 words) that addresses the following questions related to the funder's fit to opportunity criteria:
- 1. What are the team's plans for building a diverse and connected digital twinning network?
- 2. How will the proposed NetworkPlus assess, determine and address real world research, infrastructure and skill challenges between users and academia in the development of a national capability in digital twinning?
- 3. How will the proposed NetworkPlus build multidisciplinary capability relating to resilient digital twins and systems across the broadest possible range of disciplines?
- Head of Department Support letter indicating that the department is happy to host the project.
Please note that the timeline for the internal selection process is constrained by the call dates put forward by the funder.
Funder deadline: 23rd March, 2023.
If you have any queries please don’t hesitate to contact us at researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk.
Best wishes,
Simeon on behalf of researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk