NERC: National capability scientific support and facilities – environmental omics facility

19/09/2019

06/12/2019

The Natural Environment Research Council invites applications for its environmental omics facility call. This supports the delivery of a single environmental omics facility. The successful proposal will be funded over a five-year period, from October 2020 to September 2025. Funding is worth up to £2 million per year. Applicants will be funded at 80 per cent full economic cost, except for NERC research centres which will be funded at 100 per cent FEC. In addition to resource funding, up to £4m is also available for transformational capital; applicants wishing to access this additional funding should include details of any transformational capital investment needs in their proposals, which will be funded at 100 per cent FEC.

The facility must support the development and advances in the following priority science areas identified through community consultation: •genomics, including modern and ancient DNA, microbial and pathogen DNA, eDNA metabarcoding, multicellular organism DNA and tools for quantifying global biodiversity; •meta’omics combining data from multiples omes to inform understanding of system wide responses, for example, to environmental change •transcriptomics – RNA; •phenomics, linking the biomolecular with phenotypic data on a whole organism scale.

Individuals based in UK HEIs, research council institutes and independent research organisations may apply. Collaborative proposals for the combined delivery of the facility are welcome.