The FE and Skills Bid Call

On 17 February the FE and Skills Sector Funding Call was announced, it provides an opportunity for the sector, in keeping with their own strategy and priorities, to apply for funding with the objective of:
a. enhancing student experience;
b. improving efficiency and effectiveness of their organisation; and
c. enhance organisational capability to meet the new requirements envisaged in policy and funding by means of:

• applying  "existing resources (from JISC or elsewhere) to their work and adapt them for their needs." (£450,000 available) 
• identifying "gaps in these resources and/or current uses made of technology in the sector and create new resources for use by other providers." (£900,000 available)

This call is unique in a number of ways; firstly FE and Skills sector will not be competing with universities for funding, the entire £1.4 million will be invested in projects proposed and managed by colleges (including sixth form and specialist colleges) and the skills sector (work based learning, adult and community, offender learning).

Secondly efforts have been made to make this call less onerous to bid for, this has been achieved in a number of ways:

1. Its free, unlike a standard JISC funding call there is no requirement for you to match the bid award with your own finances. All that is really required is a good idea (well explained) and a sensible, well thought through work plan to see it through. This is therfore a great opportunity for you to action a good idea that you could not otherwise afford.
2. Straight forward documentation - the forms have been simplifying and streamlined to make your job in completing them easier.
3. Everything you need is one place; the bid application, call details and plenty of supporting documentation are available on a dedicated wiki. Examples of a budget and risk assessment are included to help you with the more demanding parts of the bid.
4. An exended bidding period, although bids have been accepted since 1 March you have until 31 May for final submission. 
5. A resubmission plan is in place and provided your idea is deemed good enough to merit funding you will be given guidance and an opportunity to complete any missing details in order to resubmit your bid (the ultimate deadline for this is the end of June). In such cases funding will be nominally allocated to your project, so with funding reserved, you need only follow the recommendations and resubmit your bid to stand a good chance of final approval of your project and the funding. This is call does therefore offer an oportunity for even the most inexerienced bidder to learn and benefit from the experience and feel they have opportunity to secure funding equal to any other bidder
6. Local help and support is available from your local Regional Support Centre, this helps ensure a quick and personable response tailored to your needs. Your RSC can help you in a number of ways for example answering queries, signposting you to resources, recommending practices or partners for a call or proof reading your bid prior to submission.
7. Additional briefing sessions with the bid Project Manager (Nigel Ecclesfield from JISC Advance)  The RSC West Midlands held a briefing and questions session today 26 March at 10am, the recording  is available on our event wiki. If you are in another region check with your local RSC to find out if they have run a similar session.
8. Flexibility, Funding for approximately 40-50 small projects is available, small projects start at a minimum of 5K up to an expected 40K, the upper limit is however is open to negotiation. Project start and completion dates also have some flexibility (in negotiation with the Project Panel)

Visit the funding call wiki for more details: http://bit.ly/fes-drp