Prue Williams, Max Kennedy and Eric Walton talk about the 2021 Endeavour fund. The slides for their presentation are available in the document below this transcript.
Prue Williams: Tihei mauri ora. E ngā Mana, e ngā Reo, e rau Rangatira mā, tēna koutou, tēna koutou, tēna koutou katoa. Ko Prue Williams tōku ingoa. He Kaiwhakahaere Matua. Te Punaha Putaiao. Ki Hīkina Whakatutuki. Kia ora tātou.
Welcome to the 2021 Endeavour Roadshow. I'm Prue Williams. I'm the general manager for the Science System Investment and Performance Branch of MBIE, and I'm joined today by Max Kennedy and Eric Walton from the contestable team at MBIE.
This year, we're using this webinar format to provide you information about the Endeavour Fund and some of the other relevant MBIE initiatives underway at present. What are we going to do today is we've got some slides that Eric, Max and I will talk to, and here is an overview of the things that we will cover; we’ll talk about the 2020 round and then talk about the upcoming 2021 round, and we'll also give you some tips on how to write a really good proposal. We'll take questions at the end.
So, as we go through the presentation and you think of questions, then please use the Q&A function in this format, and we'll pick up the questions at the end. After today, if you've got questions, then there'll be some information on the last slide that shows how you can contact us after this presentation.
We're going to record the session today, and we'll put this recording on our website so you can refer to it again, along with the slides and other information.
So, the first slide is just to remind you that the main focus of today is the Endeavour Fund. The slide shows you that there are many different government funds, but each of them has its own purpose, and so they are all slightly different, and today, we're talking about the Endeavour Fund, which is down on the bottom row and a little bit to the left, and its position on this diagram shows that it's a competitive fund, and there is a purpose for the fund.
The purpose is to make sure that we're doing research that will deliver economic, environment and social outcomes for New Zealand. 2020 has been an extraordinary year. 'Unprecedented' is the word that's often used, so it's really appropriate to say a few things about COVID and the impact that it's had on the science sector.
Firstly, New Zealand's response to COVID has been informed by science. It's a really good example about how science can help in decision-making. And also, scientists have been involved in communicating as well, and it's been great to see some of our scientists becoming household names. So, a number of researchers in New Zealand have really stood up and are helping with the response.
The second point is that COVID has also had an impact on the research. Many people have had to work from home during lockdown, and that meant that some of the research had to stop and may have meant that some of you may have lost experiments, maybe even lost results. Shutting down the borders has also impacted the science system, halting the flow of potential students and experts, meaning they can't travel to laboratories and to conferences, and also restricted the number of fellowship opportunities.
So, MBIE's response to all of this was based on a set of principles. The first one was we wanted to keep the funding flowing so that the money would go to the institutes and continue to pay as many salaries as possible. So we kept our rounds going and we extended contracts where we could. We also wanted to honour the effort that had already gone in to prepare for proposals before lockdown happened. While we could run rounds remotely, we also wanted to make sure that the processes were fair and transparent, so we made the decision to cancel the Smart Ideas for the 2020 Endeavour Round.
We didn't make this decision lightly, and we know that it's impacted on some of you. But at the time, the Smart Ideas were in concept form, and we were concerned that writing for proposals under lockdown may have been challenging for some of you, and it also may have been challenging for assessors to fully assess all the proposals that could have been in the system.
So, by cancelling Smart Ideas, we were able to extend the Endeavour contracts that would have ended in September this year and keep the research programme round going, and this was important because the research programme already had full proposals written before lockdown. As well as the contract extensions, we more generally took a practical approach to any changes that needed to be made to contracts. So rather than making individual changes as the changes happened, we've allowed changes to accumulate and are processing them in bulk. And finally, we were also able to support some new initiatives to respond to COVID.
We set up the COVID Innovation Acceleration Fund — an on-demand scheme that helped to process ideas that would help New Zealand fight COVID — and we also set up the COVID vaccine platform, which is supporting New Zealand's research in the global effort to find a vaccine.
Looking forward, of course, we had an election on Saturday, and there will be an incoming government, and they— we know now that they will be very interested in research and innovation. So, once the new government is in place, MBIE will engage with them, and we'll start talking about the role of research and innovation, particularly in the economic recovery and also in the other priorities for the government.
Now, I just want to mention a couple of other initiatives that are ongoing at the moment, and the first one of these is NZRIS — the New Zealand Research Information System. This is a new online hub of information about research, science and innovation systems in New Zealand. It's going to provide a single source of information about what resources are being allocated to RS&I in New Zealand, and anyone will be able to use it.
To start with, it was going to hold data from our funds — from the MBIE funds — from the Royal Society Te Apārangi and the Health Research Council, and that'll be about 80% of the government research funding will be included in this database. The data that you'll be able to see is what's currently publicly available, and it'll go back to the 2011/2012 contracts. So it'll be a really good resource for you all to be able to see just exactly what research is going on or has recently finished in New Zealand. We expect to have it available to the public in a few months, and if you want more information, there's some contact details on the slide.
The other initiative I want to talk about is one of our priorities, which is expanding the impact of Vision Mātauranga, and some of you will be aware or remember that in the Budget 2020 this year, there was some new funding set aside to allow us to expand what we're doing with Vision Mātauranga.
In particular, we're wanting to attract and grow Māori talent in the RS&I system. We know that Māori are underrepresented in this system, and we're wanting that to increase. We also know that Māori find it hard to navigate and participate. And so some of this initiative will be to help Māori to better navigate and participate in the system. And as well, there'll be some funding for Māori-led RS&I, which will be really important for filling a gap.
The first step for us in this initiative has been appointing a new role to MBIE — the Pou Putaiao — the Director of Māori Research and Innovation. This is a really important role for MBIE to provide us with leadership in implementing this initiative, and we're really pleased to announce that we've appointed Dr Willy-John Martin to this role. Willy-John is currently working for the Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge, and he's also the co-leader of Rauika Māngai. We're really looking forward to working with him and working on this initiative.
And now I'm going to hand over to Eric, who's going to talk to you about the 2020 round.
Eric Walton: Thanks, Prue.
So, I'll talk about two things — the 2020 round summary of what happened, and also talk about the 2021 round.
So, for the 2020 round, recapping what was new in 2020. There was very little change. There was an updated Gazette Notice. We had the same investment plan as the year before, and as many of you would be aware, and as Prue talked about, the Smart Ideas round was cancelled, and that was because we wanted to run a fair process, given the different ability of applicants to develop full proposals under lockdown and the availability of assessors.
Just an overview of what happened. The quality of applications continued to improve, and it continues each round. You as applicants are understanding what is required and are scoring better by the assessors. The Science Board used the portfolio approach when they were making their decisions for research programmes, and Max will talk a bit more about this a bit later.
One of the things that has happened that was a bit different was that 18% of the new investment went to Society proposals, and so now the portfolio stands about 6%, which is near the target of 5%. In terms of Transform proposals, we received 41% of the 147 that were submitted, and we funded— 65% were Transform when the funding decisions were made by the Science Board.
Also, the proposal size appears to have peaked in the 2019 round. The largest proposal was $21 million, and the largest funded was $18.75 million, and in the 2020 round, the largest proposal received and funded was $16.3 million. This is because the Science Board, in taking the portfolio approach, they had to consider value, and in the 2019 round, there was one proposal that was quite large that was not funded and so, people have responded to that signal, and Max will talk more about that later in the talk.
The mean, however, continues to grow. In 2019, it was $8.7 million, and this year — the 2020 round — it was $11 million. Because of that, it has great impact on the success rate. So, as you can see in the slide, the success rate for research programmes was 13.3%, which is down a bit from the 16.8% in the 2019 round, and only 17 proposals were funded. This has effects on… because of the increasing size of the average size of the proposals.
In terms of which ones were funded, of those assessed for impact, as I said, 17 were funded, which was 36% of the assessed for impact, and those that were declined were declined because of the portfolio balance, meaning they were fundable, but they didn't meet the investment signals as well as some other proposals. And that was 12 of them, which was a quarter of those that went to impact, and declined for merit, meaning that their impact... They'd obviously passed the excellence hurdle, and so because they've declined on merit, the impact was not done so well. So, that was nearly 40% of the proposals.
In terms of socio-economic objectives, you can see here the economic, environment and society. The targets were 70, 25, and 5. In the 2019 round, it was 62, 34, 4. After the 2020 round investments, it now stands at 59% Economic — which is a bit lower than the target; 35% for Environment, which is quite a bit higher than the target; and 6% for Society.
Those socio-economic objectives — Economic, Environment and Society — are down at the bottom, and this what each of the sub-objectives... where they lie. You can see that Manufacturing, Primary Production and Ecosystems, Biodiversity and Biosecurity are much higher than the others, and one should consider this when one's thinking about putting in applications in the 2021 round. This graph table will be put on to the web page, and the ANZSRC codes that contribute to each subject. And they're based on the 2008 ANZSRC codes, and those are the codes that we're using for the 2021 round.
In terms of Vision Mātauranga, in terms of research programmes assessed for impact, most people did it moderately well or very well — 86% — and based on profiling that's at the back of the application form, proposals with greater than 50% research that was considered Māori-centred or kaupapa Māori was 11%, which was quite pleasing. More pleasing was the fact that three Māori-led proposals were funded — two from the University of Waikato and one from the Auckland Museum.
One is about data in the environmental states from the University of Waikato; the one from Auckland Museum was about environmental stewardship and conservation leadership through an iwi-led research for the Kermadec Islands, and there was the ending racial oppression from the University of Waikato.
Now moving to the 2021 round. There is only minor changes to Endeavour 2021 compared to the 2020 round. The investment plan is the same as the one that was in 2019/2020. It should be read in conjunction with the Gazette Notice and Call for Proposals. They are both out, and the investment guidelines— the Assessment Guidelines will be out shortly, and you may wish to read those as well.
The Gazette Notice gives the assessment criteria and the funding available, and the Call for Proposals sets out how to apply. In terms of available investment, the new annual investment is $57 million in the 2021 round. That's $200,000 more than the 2020 round, and that increases in research programmes, which now is $39 million of new annual investment and $18 million to Smart Ideas. The targets for Protect and add value and Transform is split 50/50.
In terms of eligibility, and this is clarified in the Gazette Notice — in the 2021 Gazette Notice —proposals. The major aim of the Endeavour Fund is not to fund health research, defence or expanding knowledge, but acknowledges that some proposals will have some coding to those codes, and so the Gazette Notice clarified that some out-of-scope research objectives are acceptable and the proposal remains eligible. The thing to remember is that the health is about the cost savings to the healthcare system.
So, the sum of the impact objectives must be less than 50% to remain eligible, and so the thing is to consider the impacts of the research that you're proposing and work backwards to the codes. If your proposal has more than 50% health — clinical health — it is probably better directed to the Health Research Council.
As many of you will know, there's two investment mechanisms — Smart Ideas and Research Programmes. Smart Ideas are smaller targeted investments of between $400,000 and $1 million for two or three years, and Research Programmes are much larger investments to support much larger pieces of work, and can be three, four or five years with a minimum of $500,000 per year.
Smart Ideas. The important piece here is that the assessment criteria — the Excellence and Impact. Excellence is science and team, and Impact is benefit to New Zealand and implementation pathways. The big important thing to note is that it's weighted towards science, at 50%, and team, and so, to pass the excellence hurdle when you're assessed, it's really important to get science right - Those novel and new ideas. Once you pass the excellence, you're invited to submit to a full proposal, and it's reassessed for excellence, because there'll be new information in there, and assessed for impact, and assessment criteria remain in both stages.
The important dates for Smart Ideas. It's mandatory to register, and that closes on the 4th of November, which is next week, and the closing date for submission of concepts is the 25th of November.
In terms of Research Programmes, you can see here the assessment criteria — science, team, benefit to New Zealand and implementation pathways —is assessed equally — 25% to each —and it's quite different to Smart Ideas. Once the proposal has been assessed for excellence and impact, a portfolio approach is used by the Science Board when making their funding decisions, and Max will talk more about that shortly.
And the dates that are important — again, registration is mandatory, and so you have to register by the 9th of December, and the closing date for submission of your full proposal is the 3rd of March.
In terms of Vision Mātauranga, it's important to remember that assessors often take a broader view. In addition to the four Vision Mātauranga themes, they consider the level of engagement with Māori — how well that you're interacting with them — the development of Māori capacity and capability, and also possible uses for the research outcomes in a broader space — things like climate change and some environmental things in various projects.
In terms of the assessor selection, it's really important. We're trying to help people get the right help by getting the right assessors for the proposal. So, MBIE is using the significance to Māori profiling questions at the back of the proposal, and if the proposal is greater than 50% kaupapa Māori or Māori-centred research, the majority of assessors will have specific expertise in the assessment of Vision Mātauranga.
And I'll hand over to Max to talk about the assessment and decision-making processes.
Max Kennedy: Kia ora, everyone.
I'm going to talk about what happens to your proposal after it has been submitted and then give you some tips about how to put it in a great Endeavour project. So, the assessment of proposals once they've been submitted is a two-stage process. In Smart Ideas, you submit a concept which is assessed for excellence, and the best of those are invited to submit full proposals, which are then— because there is more information now in the full proposals, they're assessed again for excellence and impact. With Research Programmes, the full proposal is submitted at the beginning. This is again assessed for excellence, and proposals for sufficient excellence then get put through for the assessment of impact.
So, how do the Science Board make their decisions? Because the Science Board is the decision-maker and not MBIE. For Smart Ideas, they invest in the best proposals based on a ranked-order list. It's quite simple. They take median scores, they put them in a list, and then decide in that manner. For Research Programmes, it's a bit more than the assessor's scores, and so, Research Programmes must have sufficient merit, which is your assessment scores. But on top of this, the Science Board takes a portfolio approach, which I'll outline, and considers portfolio targets and impact categories.
So, here is the portfolio approach that the Science Board uses. The first is that they have to determine that each proposal has sufficient merit against impact and excellence criteria. So, these are the scores that you get. Next, for Research Programmes, they consider how the overall mix of investments meets the investment signals, and I'll go over what those investment signals are. They consider the value offered by the largest proposals. They are looking to avoid duplication and excess concentration and looking to give weight to the general policy objectives, including, where appropriate, the Vision Mātauranga policy.
So, here is a list of the investment signals. You'll find these described in a bit more detail in the investment plan. There are four general signals and two specific signals. The general signals, which is excellent research with high potential impact in areas of future value, growth and critical need for New Zealand, and that really ties back to the mission of the Endeavour Fund.
Second is leveraging wider investment and knowledge in New Zealand and overseas. And here, what they're looking for is that you know where your research fits into both the New Zealand and the international landscape and you have good connections to enable you to do the best research.
The third general signal is give effect to Vision Mātauranga, and the fourth one is to take account of broader government policy and strategy documents. So, that's your linkages for where the government is trying to go in assisting New Zealand. Those are the four general ones.
There are two specific ones. The first one is creating and growing knowledge-intensive industries, and these are things that will promote high-paying jobs. There is a definition of what a knowledge-intensive industry is in the investment plan, so look that up and see if you fall within that signal.
The second specific signal is supporting the transition to a low-emissions economy, and this one, on the face of that small sentence there, seems to be quite broad, and a large number of things that we are doing would support that. But when you look at the definition within the investment plan — and I certainly recommend you do that — you will see that it's quite narrow. It is focused on greenhouse gas reduction, and it's also focused on economic outputs and activities related to that. So it is quite a narrow signal once you look at that definition.
What do we mean by value and concentration and duplication? So, value is not value for money. So when the Science Board looks at value, it's not saying, “We've put X dollars into this programme. We will get this benefit coming out of it — the benefit divided by the amount of dollars in is value for money”. It's not that at all. What it is… is it's an assessment across the portfolio of whether there is going to be better value overall to New Zealand if they, for example, fund one huge programme or a couple of smaller programmes, and which will give the biggest benefit to New Zealand.
So what this means — and the Science Board has signalled this — is that large proposals need to be of the highest quality to receive investment, and the Science Board will pay particular attention to that. At the other end of the scale, as Eric has mentioned, we're seeing the average size of proposals increasing, so make sure that you take note of this particular signal.
The second, signal here is around concentration and duplication. So, concentration is really looking at all the sectors that we currently have investment in and then making a decision about what is best for New Zealand over those portfolio of investments. Now, if you want to see how the Science Board is making that decision, refer to the SEO chart that Eric mentioned and showed you earlier. This is what the Science Board uses to make its decision about whether we've got too much in a particular area or not. I would say that there is no particular desire from Government to have all those sectors equally balanced, and if anything, it's really a Science Board decision as to what they see is going to be the best for New Zealand.
Duplications. Obviously, with government money, we want to get best use out of it, so we don't want to fund the same thing twice.
Let's talk a little bit about impact categories within Research Programmes. There are two categories that either is assessed under —the Transform category or the Protect and Add Value category.
Now, if you're in the Transform category, you have to have both an immediate impact and secondly, an ultimate impact. So you have to have both. The immediate impact focuses on things that there are a radical change or a leap in performance that is coming out of the research compared to the status quo, and we're after a step change, not an incremental change that will result.
The ultimate impact is leading to this transformational change for New Zealand economy, society and environment, and the way I like to think of this one is, how will it impact on the lives of New Zealanders? If you can see that it's going to make a transformational change to a particular sector or group within New Zealand, that's a good— good chance that it will have good ultimate impact. Some of the descriptors we've put in there is creating or disrupting economic activities, creating a new sustainable resource or eliminating environmental damage, changing the character of risks or opportunities faced by individuals or societies.
So both of those are very much both the immediate impact around radical change or a leap in performance, or the ultimate impact being a transformational change for New Zealand. That's the sort of discontinuity and major advantage that we're looking for out of the Transform impact category. Now, if your research doesn't meet those criteria, then you're free to put it in under the Protect and Add Value category.
So, now I'd like to talk about how to put a Endeavour programme together, and some tips to make your proposals better.
So, the first thing, I think, is to check it would fit with the fund. So, I just wanted to tell you what the sweet spot for Endeavour was, and if you look at the mission statement for Endeavour, it's all about transformation, and the sweet spot is high-quality, high-stretch science that leads to some form of risk-taking, but that risk taking is well-managed, and if it works, it will transform New Zealand. That is the sweet spot for the Endeavour applications.
So, the first thing I like to tell people is, start with the end in mind. What are these changes to New Zealand's economy, environment or society that you are after achieving? And start working back from there in almost an intervention logic and saying, 'Well, if I want to get there, I'm going to need to hit these things,' and then that will put you in a good frame of mind to work out, “What is it I need?” And then you can start off things and saying, ‘What disciplines do I need? Have I made sure I've covered all the disciplines required to get that ultimate aim?’ And then lastly, look at, ‘OK, I need this science now to achieve that?’ And start putting your proposal together from there.
The other thing is that end users of all forms tell us that they often get approached very late in the piece wanting endorsement from applicants where it's either at the last minute or the proposals are really well-developed, and they're not that keen on that, and what they want is co-design and co-development with end users starting very early so they're completely engaged.
Another one that's really important, because you see it turn up as one of the investment signals, is aligning with the broader government strategies and policies. So, what better way to show that your research is in the right area than pointing to a government policy or strategy that it aligns with? And so I encourage you to look at the government policies that are out there and see how your research is going to enable some of those to happen.
You want to have good science stretch within a proposal, and when I say science stretch, I'm thinking of things like cutting-edge science, perhaps science and interfaces that haven't been explored before. Its things like it has an impact on the discipline. So it's really stretchy, high-quality science is what we're after, and a tip I like to give people is that you should be able to— if I ask you what are the two or three stretchy bits of science in your application, you should be able to identify those immediately, and I think it helps you if you specifically state, 'The stretchy bit of the science in this proposal is X, Y and Z.'
So then the assessors who are looking for that say, 'Oh, they're putting this forward as their stretchy bit of science,' so they'll have a good show of realising what the stretch is.
Give sufficient detail so assessors can understand your thinking. One of the common issues we get from assessors is that we didn't see enough detail about X, Y and Z. Now, we realise that there are constraints on the word limit, but you do have to have sufficient in there to show the logic and how you're going to arrive and what you're doing and some of the methods you may choose to use. And it's important here not to make assumptions and think that the assessors will all know this, but make sure it's written out in a very clear and logical fashion.
Manage your risk. High-stretch science does involve more risk, but it should be managed with a suitable plan, so make sure you have a risk plan in there and a plan B if perhaps some of the things don't work out.
Build the best team with the right mix of skills, researchers and end users. Assessors often say, 'Well, this discipline is missing,' or, 'They haven't got— This group of end users haven't been involved.' So think quite broadly about who those stakeholders are and make sure you've covered those up. A great opportunity to form your best team is that New Zealand is quite unusual in that 50% of the funding can be used to fund offshore collaborators. This is a great opportunity to bring in international expertise, state-of-the-art expertise, into your team to form the best team to help that.
There is only one caveat on that — you can't fund offshore collaborators to do work on their problems in other countries. They must be working on New Zealand's problems and New Zealand's mission, i.e. the mission of your programme.
Co-funding is not mandatory, so you don't have to have it, but potentially it is useful if you're nearer to market to demonstrate that you have very firm end user involvement and buy-in.
Think of benefits to New Zealand quite broadly. So, often, people think if they're in the economic area solely about economic benefit, whereas there may be a huge range of other benefits that are there, whether these are cultural, social; they might be capability building all of those things.
So think quite holistically about the benefits and don't sell yourself short. And again, capability development is a very positive aspect within a programme. You can have young researchers lead programmes, but they should be well-mentored, and that mentoring should be very formal and demonstrated in your proposal.
Just talk a little bit about Vision Mātauranga. Carefully consider the relevance of Vision Mātauranga to your proposal, and this must be done under each assessment criteria. The important thing as to whether it's relevant or not is that it is well justified — so you have looked at it, you've assessed it; you may have had some engagements and come up with your assessment over whether Vision Mātauranga is appropriate and relevant or not.
Like all end users, engage with Māori partners at the beginning and not the end of proposal development. You may also like to consider Māori involvement in wider project teams, whether that's in a governance role, whether it's in a kahui, whether it's in a technical area, or whether it's scientists, PhDs, postdocs, etc, within your programme. If you are using kaumatua or traditional knowledge, make sure the costs of those involvement is included in your application.
I'd like to talk about some big little things, and these are things that you usually put off doing till the end of your proposal but actually can have a big impact. So I'd like to highlight these so that you give it the due attention.
The first thing is the executive summary. So, if I'm an assessor or I'm on a Science Board and I'm trying to say, 'Is this a good proposal or not?' The first thing I'm going to do is go to the executive summary and look and read that. I suggest that as the assessors and the Science Board are looking at how well you meet the formal criteria of the Endeavour Fund in excellence and impact, it's quite useful in the executive summary to split it into four parts and say, 'Here's how I meet excellence or teams or implementation pathway of those four criteria,' and then you're putting your best foot forward.
Of course, it's a short word limit, so it pays to give that some thought as to how you're going to tell your story there. The other thing that's important is around your public summary. If you do get funded, the media will have access to those, and so it's important that that's not giving away any IP, but also that it's written in a way where someone who is not versed with science can read and understand what it is you're doing, so spend some time on that, and sometimes, if you've got some comms expertise within your organisation, it's good for them to have a look over the public summary.
You have some investment signals that you're going to assess whether you met or not. Don't leave these to the last minute. Include all of those that are relevant. You don't have to meet all of them, but make sure you're covering the ones that you have and show how your proposal aligns to those signals.
Select your ANZSRC codes with care, and we're using the 2008 version of the ANZSRC codes. They've just been changed recently, but we've decided to stick with 2008 for the coming round, and these are used to assess portfolio balance and alignment with investment signals. So, it's really important that we have the most accurate information to assess your proposal fairly.
Answer Significance to Māori profiling also with some care, and the reason for this is that it will help us select our assessors, and if there is greater than 50% Māori-led or kaupapa Māori researchers mentioned, we'll use that to make sure that we have the appropriate expertise to assess the proposal.
OK, so now I'd like to pass back to Prue, who's going to tell you about some of the other MBIE opportunities that are available.
Prue Williams: Thanks, Max, and this is also a signal that we're getting towards the end of the slides that we wanted to talk to you about today, and a reminder that if you have questions for us that you would like us to answer today, then please use the Q&A function, and we'll answer those when we get to the end of the slides.
So, just a few other things to think about, and that is that MBIE supports a range of infrastructure for the science system in New Zealand, and these are things that may be able to help you with your research, so please think about using them, and your Endeavour proposal is the ideal place to seek project funding to use this infrastructure. And it's listed on the slide here along with the contact details if you want to follow up.
We also have a couple of other rounds open at the moment, and you might be interested in these funding opportunities.
First of all, the Vision Mātauranga Capability Fund is open at present and closes on the 11th of November, so look out for that one if that's of interest to you. And in the international space, the funding that comes through our Catalyst Fund, there's a call open there specifically around food science and environmental science with China. So if that's an area that you're interested in, then you've got until the 18th of November to put your application in.
You can find out about any of our funds on the MBIE website, and if you subscribe to our alert, then you'll be sent electronically updates as things happen as we open rounds. If you want to know more about the Endeavour round, then you're welcome to contact us here at MBIE. We can help to explain the process, and certainly we can provide you with help about how to use our portal system and resolve any problems that you might be having.
What we can't do, though, is we can't interpret the Call for Proposals for you or give you any advice about your proposal. So we can't say to you, 'Yes, your proposal meets the specific government signals that we indicated in the call for proposals.' We can't do that. We're not the decision-maker. The decision maker-is the Science Board, so we won't provide you with any advice about your proposals. But we can certainly help you with the process and anything to do with the portal. So, here's how to contact us.
Here's contact details, email addresses and a phone number there if you need to get hold of us through the portal, and all this information is available on our web page, so look out for that.
And as I said before, we'll be putting these slides up on our website, so you'll be able to refer to them as well.
