NERC funding opportunity: Environmental Risks to Infrastructure

The Environmental Risks to Infrastructure Innovation Programme (ERIIP) is a collaboration between the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and infrastructure owners and operators to enable them to access research and use environmental science to identify, quantify and manage environmental risks to UK infrastructure, such as those from extreme weather events and climate change. 

Through the Environmental Risks to Infrastructure Innovation Programme, NERC are investing £5 million over 5 years to fund projects that take the outcomes of existing research and translate these into industry-relevant information, tools to help identify environmental risk, assess their impacts on infrastructure and develop solutions. NERC are working with owners and operators from across the infrastructure sector, including energy generation (nuclear, renewables), energy transmission, water, road, rail as well as regulators, policy-makers and consultancies. 
  
Expressions of Interest are invited for collaborative projects between academia and industry to develop and apply existing science. NERC has up to £1m available for this call and envisages funding a cohort of projects within this budget, between 3-12 months in length. For further information, see the Announcement of Opportunity.
 
 All projects must have project partners related to UK infrastructure (e.g. infrastructure owners, operators, regulators or policy-makers). For a list of organisations who have expressed an interest in collaborating with academics, details are provided in the ERIIP members challenges document. Potential project partners are invited to contact NERC  if they are looking for academic collaborators interested in developing projects for this Innovation funding call. 

CIRIA is providing co-ordination services to NERC on this Programme and is organising a brokerage event on 8th March to enable collaboration between academics and industry, and a partnering service will be available through CIRIA. For more information please visit the event webpage. To apply to attend please complete the application survey by 15th February. 

For information on the NERC Environmental Risks to Infrastructure Programme and CIRIA’s role in supporting academic - industry collaboration please contact [email protected].