UPDATE: Application deadline extended till 14 February 2021

About the grant

The British Council is pleased to announce a call for applications for a grant to undertake an institutional partnership programme as part of the British Council and Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, GATI (Gender Advancement for Transforming Institutions) programme. GATI aims to advance gender equality in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Medicine) in higher education and research in India.  Advance HE is supporting this initiative and details of GATI can be found at https://dst.gov.in/scientific-programmes/scientific-engineering-research/women-scientists-programs.  

This pilot project aims to introduce a gender equality framework, drawing upon the successful Athena Swan model in the UK, customised to the requirements of the Indian context, with a focus on bringing about transformational change. The project aims to create a new ecosystem that will be based on building competencies of institutions and provide them with ongoing mentoring support from UK institutions, to achieve transformation. (See concept note for further details)

The grant aims to fund UK higher education and scientific institutions to establish an institutional partnership programme, whereby participating institutions in India can benefit from experienced UK institutions in their gender equality journey in STEMM.

The deadline to submit your application is 23:59 GMT on 14 February 2021. Applications should be returned to: Parul.gupta@britishcouncil.org

Purpose of the grant

To facilitate and encourage the establishment and maintenance of active partnership links between the UK and India higher education and scientific research institutions.

Eligibility guidelines and application process

Who may apply?

UK higher education and research institutions who are, either recipients of the Athena Swan award or have applied for the award in the past one year. The award agreement will be with the institution and not with an individual. The applicant will be expected to work with a group of Indian higher education and/or research institutions for the purposes of this grant.

What proposals are eligible?

1. We are looking for: proposals from (i) UK higher education institutions (ii) UK scientific research institutions; who will be the lead institution. A principal applicant will make the application on behalf of the lead institution.
2. The proposals must demonstrate clear evidence of knowledge and expertise from the UK institution on their previous work on gender equality in STEMM.

Amount of Grant

A grant amount of GBP 25,000 will be awarded to six UK institutions each. Annex 3 provides the concept note for the partnership programme.

The agreement will be signed for a period of twelve months from April 2021 to March 2022.

The grant award will be paid upon completion of relevant checks and milestones within the agreement period as indicated below.

• GBP 10,000 will be disbursed to each institution at the time of signing the grant agreement
• GBP 7500 will be disbursed to each institution upon completion of phase 3 of the partnership plan (refer partnership concept note)
• GBP 7500 will be disbursed to each institution upon submission of project completion report (by March 2022)

In the event of any underspend of the Grant, this may be used for further activities under the Project subject to the British Council’s prior approval and in accordance with the Standard Terms of Grant Agreement (Annex 4), in particular clause 5 of Schedule 3 (Change Control).

Ineligibility

• This Grant is not intended to fund the field work of Ph.D. candidates or similar.
• The proposal must make clear what expenditure items the award will fund (details are to be indicated in the Budget Form).
• The grant will not fund items of equipment which institutions would normally be expected to possess (for example computing equipment including laptops). Nor will it fund conference or seminar attendance to disseminate findings unless specifically invited to do so by the British Council.

How to apply

To apply applicants must complete the following documents and send to Parul.gupta@britishcouncil.org by 23:59 GMT on 14 February 2021.

1. Annex 1: Grant Application Form
2. Annex 2: Budget Form

Applicants are responsible for ensuring they complete the form fully and correctly.

Selection Process

You will have your response evaluated as set out below:

Stage 1:  A check will be made to ensure all required documents have been provided according to the specifications. Incomplete or incorrect submissions will be disqualified and not evaluated further.

Stage 2:  The proposal will then be evaluated in accordance with the criteria and weightings set out below. If excluded at this point, they will not be evaluated further.

A British Council panel will evaluate the proposals against the following criteria:

• Suitability statement (40%)
• Lead Institution’s and partnership team’s professional experience, qualifications and competencies (30%)
• Value for money (30%)

All decisions of the panel will be final and binding. No correspondence will be entered into with the unsuccessful applicants.

We reserve the right to contact applicants to request or negotiate an amendment to any aspect of the proposal, including for example budget items or project timeline, to best meet the objectives of the scheme.

Timeframe of the Grant

• Follow up/clarification questions can be submitted to Parul.gupta@britishcouncil.org
• Any entry received after the closing date will not be considered.
• The British Council accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any technical failure or malfunction or any other problem with any system, server, provider or otherwise that may result in any entry being lost, delayed or not properly registered.
• The British Council is not obliged to enter into further discussions or offer advice on proposals. The decision of the British Council regarding the grant is final.
• The British Council accepts no responsibility for failure to notify successful applicants where such failure results from the provision of inaccurate contact details by the applicants or from the acts or omissions of any third party (including, without limitation, any internet or postal service provider) and shall have no liability to any applicant if it is prevented from or delayed in delivering any aspect of the opportunity by acts, events, omissions or accidents beyond its reasonable control.

Reporting requirements

• A reporting schedule must be included in your proposal. This should cover the following:

• Detailed partnership plan - to be submitted to the British Council by 30 April 2021.
• Quarterly progress reports – a brief summary of ongoing activities – 30 June 2021, 30 Sept 2021; 31 Dec 2021, 31 March 2022.
• Final Report - to be submitted to the British Council at the end of the contract period. This would normally include rationale, findings, discussion and implications, and references.

• Detailed Financial Report - to be submitted to the British Council at the end of your project. Please note that in the event of underspend any re-allocation of funds under the project must be formalised before the expiration of the Grant Agreement in accordance with the Change Control Clause (see Annex 3: Standard Terms of the Grant Agreement).

Project duration

The project must be undertaken from 01 April 2021 to 31 March 2022. Funding will be transferred to the successful Lead Institution once the grant agreement is counter-signed by the British Council as per the agreed payment schedule.

Formal project start dates will be set in the grant agreement by the British Council. Expenses incurred by the institutions prior to the effective start date, including any costs incurred in the production of the proposal, cannot be charged to the grant.

Conditions of the award

• The intellectual property rights of this project will be in accordance with the Intellectual Property Clauses (see Annex 4: Standard Terms of the Grant Agreement).
• Successful institutions must satisfy the British Council that the expenditure has been incurred in accordance with the original proposal by providing a detailed expenditure report.
• Institutions must agree to the terms and conditions of the grant, which will be outlined in detail into the contract for successful applicants.
• Institutions must agree to the terms and conditions of the scheme, which will be outlined in detail in the contract for successful applicants. Please be advised that Annex 4: Standard Terms of the Grant Agreement is not final and will be finalised with the winning institution.

Benefits of the award to the successful institution

• Financial support which enables the project to take place.
• Access to appropriate government partners and higher education and scientific research institutions overseas as agreed on a case-by-case basis.
• Opportunity to partner with Indian higher education and scientific research institutions on a pilot that aims to achieve gender equality in STEMM in India
• Promotion of the project results through British Council internal and external networks

Equality, diversity and inclusion

Applicants are encouraged to ensure equal opportunities in the teams implementing their proposed activity. For the British Council’s approach, see our Equality Policy at: https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/equality_policy_1.doc

Applicant screening

In order to comply with UK government legislation, the British Council may at any point during the application process carry out searches of relevant third-party screening databases to ensure that neither the applicant institutions nor any of the applicants’ employees, partners, directors or shareholders are listed:

• • as an individual or entity with whom national or supranational bodies have decreed organisations should not have financial dealings;
• • as being wanted by Interpol or any national law enforcement body in connection with crime;
• • as being subject to regulatory action by a national or international enforcement body;
• • as being subject to export, trade or procurement controls or (in the case of an individual) as being disqualified from being a company director; and/or
• • as being a heightened risk individual or organisation, or (in the case of an individual) a politically exposed person.

If the applicant or any other party is listed in a Screening Database for any of the reasons set out above, the British Council will assess the applicant as ineligible to apply for this grant call. The applicant must provide the British Council with all information reasonably requested by the British Council to complete the screening searches.

Personal data

The British Council is the data controller of the information that you provide as part of your participation in the GATI project partnership programme. This means that the British Council is responsible for determining how your information is collected and used. The legal basis for collecting your data is;

• that the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract – our agreement outlined in the GATI project partnership programme Terms and Conditions;
• that processing is necessary for the legitimate interests of the British Council. Specifically, with regard to achieving the outcomes and outputs of the GATI project partnership programme.

By submitting your application, you understand that your information will be shared with our partners, for the following purposes;

• Your data will be shared with Advance HE a third party organisation commissioned by the British Council as a knowledge partner to work with British Council and the Department of Science and Technology to achieve the objectives, outcomes and outputs of this project.
• Your data will be shared with the Department of Science and Technology and 25 participating higher education and scientific research institutions who are participating in this project. The details of the institutions will be included in the grant agreement contract that will be signed between the British Council and successful applicants.
• Your data will be shared with Think Through Consulting, a third-party consultancy commissioned by the British Council to conduct monitoring and evaluation and compile reports on the impact of the overall GATI project of which the partnership programme is a part.

Other than for the purposes mentioned herein, your personal data will not be shared outside the British Council without your explicit permission.

The British Council complies with data protection law in the UK and laws in other countries that meet internationally accepted standards. You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold on you, and the right to ask us to correct any inaccuracies in that information.

In some situations, you have the right to require us to restrict the processing of your personal information. You can require us to restrict processing in the following circumstances:

1. We are processing your personal data unlawfully and you do not want us to delete the information but restrict it instead.
2. You are concerned that the information we hold about you is inaccurate. You can ask us to restrict the information until we are able to determine whether the information is accurate or inaccurate.
3. We no longer need the information for the purposes for which we collected it, but they are needed by you for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
4. You have objected to the processing (see below) and we need to decide whether the legitimate interests under which we have to process the information override your fundamental rights.
5. you think we are processing your personal information unlawfully, but do not want the information deleted.

You have the right to object to our processing your personal information for the following purposes;

• Processing for the purposes of direct marketing;
• Processing for the purposes of automated decision making and/or individual profiling.

In certain circumstances you have the right to require that British Council securely deletes or destroys your personal information (the ‘right to be forgotten’).

In certain circumstances you also have the right to data portability, that is the right to request and receive a copy of your information in a structured, commonly-used and machine-readable format, along with the right to ask us to send that information to another organisation.

In order to exercise any of your rights under the Data Protection Act 2018 / GDPR, please contact us at IGDisclosures@britishcouncil.org.

If you have concerns about how we have used your personal information, you also have the right to complain to a privacy regulator.

Complaints about how we process your personal information can be considered by the UK data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO can be contacted using the following details:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
UNITED KINGDOM

Website: www.ico.org.uk
Email: casework@ico.org.uk

If you live in a country or territory located in the European Union (EU) or European Economic Area (EEA), and you think that some, or all, of the issues you are concerned about have taken place in your country of residence, you can complain to your national data protection regulator. For contact details of national data protection regulators in the EU and EEA, please refer to the European Data Protection Board website .

For further detailed information on how we process personal information, please refer to the privacy section of our website, www.BritishCouncil.org/privacy-cookies/data-protection or contact your local British Council office.

We will keep your information for a period of three years from the date of your last activity in the GATI project partnership programme.