The CONNECT FTMA fund supports the direct costs for knowledge exchange activities - collaborations, placements or training, involving Newcastle University, Babraham staff, and collaborators.
Funded activities should aim to further develop high functioning teams to deliver excellent research, staff career development, career mobility and/or significant cross-sector societal and commercial impact.
The CONNECT FTMA Fund can be used to support staff across a wide range of roles (researchers, technicians and professional enabling staff), but is particularly focused towards supporting postdoctoral researchers, technicians and technology and skills specialists.
The Fund also has a strong focus on supporting funding to projects that are in the BBSRC’s strategic priority area of securing better health, ageing and wellbeing.
N.B. Although the UKRI-BBSRC CONNECT FTMA grant has previously been unable to support costs that enable student participation, funds raised through the Frontiers in Stem Cell Innovation 2026 Conference has enabled us to create a small fund for the Spring 2026 CONNECT call that will be used to specifically support the direct costs of PhD students incurred through participating in collaborations or placements.
Eligible costs for funded projects include: travel, accommodation, subsistence, consumables and equipment use up to a maximum total cost of £25,000. Salary costs can not be not reimbursed.
Once an application is submitted, each participant in the submitted proposal should complete a Demographic Information form
A further call will open after Easter, with an application deadline in mid-July.
For any queries, please contact: kec@babraham.ac.uk