Funding Call 1

This first funding call aims to support the Careers and Skills Development of Data Stewards across the UK by providing an evidence base to display the relevance of introducing data stewards in the UK across multiple disciplines and organisations. 

Key Dates

Funding Schemes & Key Documents

CaSDaRs Aims

  • “Learn by doing” Fund data stewards as “researchers on the ground” to understand roles and challenges across different institutions and (under-represented) disciplines.
  • Establish clear and accessible career pathways, with entry level routes, progression opportunities, taking into account the different skill requirements. 

Call Aims

  • Establish an evidence base demonstrating the value of introducing data stewards across disciplines and organisations in the UK.
  • Support network development, advocacy efforts, and career pathways through evidence-informed strategies.
  • Showcase how targeted funding can drive medium- to long-term systemic change in data stewardship practices.
  • Generate insights to inform and strengthen the 2027 funding call, ensuring continuity and strategic impact.

Eligibility

These applications must be made by an organisation based in the UK (or the UK office of a multinational corporation) proposing to host this project. Organisations that are not normally eligible for UKRI funding may be considered for support through this flexible funding call. However, any funding awarded must comply with UKRI’s subsidy control regulations

Trusted Research

Trusted Research supports research integrity in undertaking collaborative research projects. In your application, you will need to show how you will identify any risks associated with security as it relates to integrity and how those risks will be mitigated.

In this process you will find these resources useful:

If you have any concerns about this, then contact the relevant authority at your organisation. If your project is selected for funding, the requirement is on you to ensure that your activities are compliant with the National Security and Investment (NSI) Act 2021; you may also be asked for additional information to prove that you will effectively manage the risks associated with your planned work. CaSDaR has the right to remove funding awarded if you do not effectively ensure that your research is complying with these requirements.

Application Process

  • Applicants must fill in the relevant application form in a word document
  • Applicants must then fill in the relevant Qualtrics form for the scheme they are applying to, which involves consenting to the terms of our research study (full links to participant information sheets), uploading their application form, and providing optional demographic data for ED&I purposes. NB: This study has received ethics approval via the University of Southampton Ethics Committee ERGO number: 108977.

Data Gathering

  • Demographic data will be used internally to understand the diversity of our community, and only aggregated anonymised statistics will be published as part of CaSDaRs reports. 

  • Specific parts of the application forms will be used to create an anonymised aggregated dataset, which will be used for some quantitative and qualitative analysis.

  • Quantitative data: e.g. number of applications, number of organisations, different types of organisations /domains represented.

  • Qualitative data: Thematic analysis to provide data on the need for data stewards across different organisations and disciplines, types of work associated with data stewardship, current skillset of data stewards etc.