Small Grants

If you were awarded an EPS Small Grant in or before April 2021, your award is subject to the previous terms and conditions of the EPS Small Grant scheme. Click here for further information on how to submit a final report for your award.

These grants enable ordinary members of the Society to pursue small-scale research projects that require funding for part-time research assistance and/or other expenses incurred in the running of one or more empirical studies. Applicants are encouraged to consider including participation of undergraduate or postgraduate students on an ad-hoc basis. Awards will not be granted for work that is a central part of an already-funded project. 

Any ordinary member of the EPS is eligible to apply for such an award so long as they have not been awarded an EPS Undergraduate Research Bursary, EPS New Graduate Research Bursary or an EPS Small Grant in the current or immediately preceding calendar year. 

It is possible for an ordinary member to submit an application with a co-PI, though the co-PI is listed on the application for informational purposes only. The co-PI need not be a member of the EPS. It is required that the ordinary member make clear on the application which institution will be administering the grant, if the PI and co-PI are not contracted at the same institution. This institution will be responsible for distributing any funds.

Only one application should be submitted in any given 12-month period (i.e. an unsuccessful application for a Small Grant for the June deadline means the applicant should not submit another Small Grant application until the next June deadline at the earliest). Furthermore, only one application can be submitted by an applicant, to any scheme, in a single round (i.e. an applicant cannot apply for both a Small Grant and a Research Workshop in the same round).

Preference will be given to first time applicants, those at an early stage of career and/or without current grant funding. Preference will be given to high quality projects that include participation of undergraduate or postgraduate students on an ad-hoc basis. Awards will not be granted for work that is a central part of an already-funded project or PhD.

The maximum value of the EPS Small Grant is £10,000. This sum can be used to offset research expenses associated with the project. Allowable expenses include payments to employ a research assistant, participant expenses (or, for research with animals, costs associated with the use of animals), technical fees, costs associated with the use of neuroimaging facilities, and the purchase of minor pieces of equipment essential to the running of the funded research project. The EPS understands that there are a range of institutional funding practices for research staffing, however the EPS places importance on the proper funding of research assistants and participants (i.e. payment in line with qualifications, experience and time commitment), whatever experiential benefits may also accrue. Any additional expenses must be borne by the host institution.

Allowable Expenses for Small Grants.

Examples of allowable costs to be charged include (but are not limited to):
Research assistance
Participant payments (cash or online credits, e.g. Prolific)
[Itemised receipt of expenditure on participants required]
Specialist software license
Specialist experimental support (e.g. Gorilla)
Access Fees / Charges (e.g. Scanning)
Small specialist equipment
Conference travel
Consumables

Examples of costs that should not be charged include (but are not limited to):
Student fees
Teaching replacement

All expense claims will be checked for eligibility and approved by the EPS Administrator. Informal enquiries about allowable costs can be directed at any time to the EPS Administrator at expsychsoc@kent.ac.uk.

The Society will, on receipt of an invoice at the end of the period of the bursary, reimburse the institution for the award. The EPS does not make awards on a full economic costing basis, and overheads, indirect costs, estate costs, and other directly allocated costs will not be met by the EPS. The hosting department will invoice the EPS for the actual value of incurred spend, up to the maximum detailed above.

It is expected that the research project will be completed in the one-year period; extensions to the funding will only be approved under exceptional circumstances by contacting the Honorary Secretary.

Full terms and conditions can be found below.

Small Grants will be allocated by the EPS Committee. The completed application documents should be sent to the Honorary Secretary by email* (preferred) at expsychsoc@kent.ac.uk, or by post.

* If emailing, applicants must prepare and submit a single PDF of the aggregated, signed application material. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that all material is compiled and formatted appropriately. In either case material must be received in the office by the stated deadline. Please do not send a hard copy through the post if you have already emailed your submission.

Hard copies can be sent to the Hon. Secretary:

Prof Heather Ferguson
EPS Hon Secretary
School of Psychology
Keynes College, University of Kent
Canterbury
CT2 7NP

There are two submission deadlines per year – 1 June and 1 December. The proposals will be circulated to committee members with the Agenda for the next Committee Meeting following a deadline. Therefore, the earliest start date for a Small Grant are 1 August (if submitting to the 1 June deadline) and 1 February (if submitting to the 1 December deadline). It is expected that the project will start within three months of the earliest start dates listed above. Retrospective applications will not be considered.

Applications should consist of the following (further details on application form):

Guidance

  • In preparing a budget for a small grant, members should be aware that the committee will often decline applications if they involve unpaid research assistance that is integral to the project. The EPS believes that research assistance should be properly funded. We normally expect research work to be costed at a rate not less than that of the minimum wage / National Living Wage equivalent (whilst recognising local conditions and circumstances within institutions). Analysis of successful awards in recent years indicates a mean / median payment rate of approximately £15 per hour. Some grants of course require specific technical / academic expertise and may justify a higher rate of pay, although this inevitably affects the overall budget limits.
  • Research participants should be also compensated at an appropriate rate, again recognising that institutional policies vary in this respect. Members are invited to make this clear in their application.
  • We also remind applicants that small grant applications should not be used to support postgraduate research projects.
  • The EPS is happy to consider proposals that will be pre-registered if the grant is funded, but this is not a requirement. Applicants are welcome to document any relevant open science practices.
  • In assessing small grant applications, the committee naturally attends to the quality of a project’s experimental design. The EPS is also keen to ensure that applicants have fully considered the adequacy of statistical power when planning experiments.  However, we recognise that in some cases the difficulty of data collection or aim of the project (i.e. method development or exploratory) may mean that full power is not appropriate.

For Successful Applications

The award must be used solely towards the research activities of the award holder.

Awards are paid in arrears by cheque payable to the host institution, sent to the Society Member on receipt of the Final Report Form and Final Report. It is the responsibility of the host institution to ensure that any payments made through this award are made in accordance with locally agreed procedures.

Within two months of the first anniversary of notification of the award, the award holder will be required to submit to the Hon. Secretary:

  • A short report (max 1000 words).
  • A completed Final Report form confirming that any payments incurred during the period of the grant have been made, and that all local ethics procedures were followed.
  • An invoice should accompany the Final Report, on which basis the EPS will reimburse the host institution. The EPS does not regard grant activity and grant reports as supplies or deliverables for specific items, and therefore does not expect to pay VAT on grant invoices.

The invoice should include full details of the award holder (please note that invoices should not be sent to the EPS separate to the final report).  The Report must include details of actual expenditure, and should be submitted within one year and 2 months of the award start date (as indicated on the application form). The report should include an abstract of the research and mention any publications planned on the basis of the research activities associated with the award. The Society’s assistance should be acknowledged in any such publications. Further details of the headings to use are in the Final Report form.

Small Grant Final Report Form – PDF
Small Grant Final Report Form – Word

Information for Small Grants awarded in or before April 2021.

If you were awarded an EPS Small Grant in or before April 2021, your award is subject to the previous Terms and Conditions of the EPS Small Grant scheme.

Within 2 months of the first anniversary of notification of the award, the award holder must complete the Final Report form that can be downloaded here. This should be sent, together with an invoice* and the final report, to the Hon. Secretary at expsychsoc@kent.ac.uk.

*Where the invoice is for less than 75% of the total award, the EPS will reimburse the money spent at that point. An updated report (or brief summary if the initial report has already been sent) should then be forwarded to claim the remaining funds within 12 months.

The Final Report form must be signed by the award holder and by the award holder’s Head of Department. In addition, the Final Report requires confirmation that local procedures for ethical scrutiny of the project were adhered to. The Final Report must include details of actual expenditure, although the accompanying invoice should be for that value if less than 75%, or the full amount of the award (£3,500) if more than 75%. It is the expectation of the Society that the host institution will use the unspent funds to continue support of the research activities of the award holder.

If sending an updated report and invoice and the actual spend since the first report brings the total over the 75% threshold, the award holder should invoice for the remainder of the full amount of the award (£3,500). If the actual spend since the first report does not bring the total over the 75% threshold, the award holder will only be reimbursed for this actual expenditure and the grant will be closed.

The EPS does not regard grant activity and grant reports as supplies or deliverables for specific items, and therefore does not expect to pay VAT on grant invoices.

Funding and Donations

Members of the Society may donate money to the Small Grants Fund in the assurance that it will not be used for other society purposes. The EPS Committee wishes to encourage members and/or institutions to consider this possibility seriously.