How to get a three-month head start on your next MBIE Endeavour proposal
Often people haven’t heard of the Gazette notice. It is the constitutional record and contains official commercial and government notifications that are required by legislation to be published.
The Gazette Notice for the MBIE Endeavour fund is published on the government’s website every year, typically in July. This is the fundamental document and foundation of all other documents of the MBIE Endeavour fund including the Guidelines normally issued in October.
If you read and analyse the Gazette Notice in conjunction with the Investment plan, we can guess whether or not there will be significant changes in the future round.
Important to note is that even if the Gazette Notice doesn’t change, there may be some specific changes in the Guidelines. However, the overall logic, philosophy and major restrictions will not change. That means if you write the proposal now and follow the logic from last year, you will likely be able to change what you have when the Guidelines are out in October quite easily.
Connecting with the Research office/Funding support team now is a good idea. It will help you to find out what they already know or guess regarding specific changes. This has also the additional advantage that you get in early and can get assistance now rather than rushing in with all others in November or December.
A word-for-word comparison to last year sometimes shows where specifics might change.
I did a word-by-word comparison of last years and this year’s Gazette:
There almost no change’s part form fixing a few things and words. The only substantial ones are new Eligibility Criteria related to working with Russian state institutions or organisations and a reminder not to apply for activities are already funded elsewhere:
“For proposals to be eligible under the Endeavour Fund, they must: …
f) not benefit a Russian state institution (including but not limited to support for Russian military or security activity) or an organisation outside government that may be perceived as contributing to the war effort;” …
i) “must not be for activities already funded elsewhere.”
Since the Investment plan is still valid till 2024, it is likely we will not see any big changes in the Guidelines, maybe some adjustments.
Investment Plan is here: