THE TURNER KIRK CHALLENGE FUND

Funding call

The Turner Kirk Sprint Challenge Fund has been established to bring together conservation scientists and mathematicians from Imperial's Centre for Environmental Policy (CEP), Department of Life Sciences (DoLS) and Department of Mathematics (DoM) to address unsolved challenging conservation problems towards further development of transformative and tangible solutions.

The overall assigned Turner Kirk Trust Sprint Challenge fund for the call is £50,000. One or more projects will be awarded.

The successful team(s) will be awarded a fund up to £50,000 to address their conservation challenge through (up to) 6-month project activities. The outcome will need to include a follow-up activity plan based on the Sprint Challenge achievement. The assigned fund can be used at the team’s discretion on the basis that it facilitates otherwise unachievable goals.

Eligibility and application criteria

We welcome applications from multidisciplinary teams of postgraduate researchers and/or academics, comprising of – but not restricted to – mathematicians and conservationists.

To be considered for this opportunity teams are required to submit a full proposal, no more than two pages in length using the forms provided.

To submit a short proposal and/or a full proposal, please upload the following completed forms to our Qualtrics survey.

2024 Turner Kirk Trust Sprint Challenge Application Form – Full Proposal

2024 Turner Kirk Trust Sprint Challenge Application Form – Short Proposal

Please note that submission of the short proposal is not mandatory for the submission of the full proposal.

Shortlisting of relevant applications will be made from a Committee of Experts (Ewan Kirk, Patricia Turner, Dan Crisan, Morena Mills) based on the following criteria:

• Proposed activities at the intersection between conservation and mathematics;
• One of the PIs must be based at Imperial;
• High risk/high gain co-creative ideas and approaches tackling global conservation and biodiversity challenges;
• Potential to understand and solve complex scientific issues real-world environmental issues;
• Novel use/application of mathematical tools;
• Next concrete steps based on the planned outcomes.

Please note that teams with shortlisted proposals be invited to pitch their ideas at the Award Sprint Challenge Pitch Event at Imperial College London on the 30 March 2023. Further instructions will follow.

Awarded proposals and teams (i.e., names, departments, etc,) will be expected to be added to The Imperial Turner Kirk Trust (TKT) Challenge.

Awarded 6-months projects are expected to start on 1 July 2024.

Upon completion, the team will be expected to present their findings at the Showcase Challenge Fund Event at Imperial in March 2025.

Brainstorming sessions

We are hosting a matching/brainstorming event (taking place on 17 May 2024). This session aims to help interested researchers start discussing conservational challenges that may require mathematical models to be addressed. The event can help teams prepare initial ideas (short proposals) to be submitted and discussed in the follow-up workshop session (4 June 2024). The workshop session will strengthen proposal ideas and create further networking opportunities towards proposal finalisation.

Please note that submission of the short proposal is not mandatory for the submission of the full proposal.

Timeline - TKT Sprint Fund

Key dates are as follows: