Annual BRIDGE Seed Fund 2026

The deadline is 23:59 (CDT) on Monday 5 January 2026

The “Birmingham-Illinois Partnership for Discovery, Engagement and Education” (BRIDGE) agreement exists to support and grow collaboration between the University of Birmingham and UIUC.

Achievements from BRIDGE in 2024 include the nomination for the QS Reimagine Awards, Chancellor Jones of UIUC receiving an Honorary Degree from Birmingham and the launching of the Global South Fellowship, which enables visiting fellows to gain insight into the organisation, conduct of research and training, at each university.

Part of BRIDGE is the annual Seed Fund, established to stimulate wider academic engagement between our two universities.

The BRIDGE Seed Fund is open to all good ideas, but we are particularly interested in the following:

Implementation Grants to support and strengthen existing faculty-faculty relationships leading to clearly defined outputs.

We are particularly interested in applications that:

• Progress joint research priorities;
• Connect world-leading researchers;
• Raise our institutional research profiles through collaborative publications;
• Build relationships with leading academic, scientific, cultural and policy communities in the two regions;
• Look to develop jointly-submitted proposals to external funding agencies.

Initiation Grants to encourage wider faculty involvement and expand institutional engagement.

We are particularly interested in:

• Applicants who can clearly demonstrate that they have established a potential area of collaboration with UIUC colleagues;
• Activities with the potential to extend beyond individual links to wider— that is to say ‘research group to research group’—collaborations;
• Projects with the potential for sustained and enlarged collaborative activity.

Teaching and Learning Grants.

We also invite funding applications from colleagues interested in developing educational relationships with counterparts at UIUC in order to support student learning. We are particularly interested in:

• Applicants who can clearly demonstrate that they have established a potential area of collaboration with UIUC colleagues;
• Projects which will provide distinctive educational opportunities for our students;
• Projects with the potential for sustained and enlarged collaborative activity.

Proposals that have identified funding for sustaining the collaboration beyond BRIDGE Funding, such as UKRI, NSF, NIH, or other external funding bodies are particularly encouraged.

The Seed Fund is open to all. There are no restrictions on the forms of activity undertaken with BRIDGE funding. It is available to support planning visits, workshops, exchanges etc. It can support meetings in third party locations where there is potential to develop and/or showcase collaboration; and it can also cover elements such as consumables, if the case for this is clearly made.

Application Process

Please work with your UIUC co-PI to submit the application into the UIUC Special Programs Portal and provide the following information in the application form.

Application Deadline

The BRIDGE Seed Fund will close Friday March 13 2026, where successful applications will be announced Wednesday, May 13, 2026.

Take a look at further information regarding the BRIDGE Seed Fund, including guidelines and application form. If you have any queries, please contact Mary Elliston.