To make funding information required by the organisation’s SET base easily accessible, CSIR Information Services (CSIRIS) partnered with CSIR Strategic Alliances and Communication to source a funding database and subscribed to SciVal Funding.
Themba Belle, CSIR Strategic Alliances Manager, Xoliswa Matroko, CSIRIS Corporate and Meraka Institute Information Specialist, Berenice Lue Marais, CSIR Strategic Partnerships Group Manager, Lyndi Jonker, CSIR Communication New and Digital Media Practitioner and Eunice Ndeke, CSIR Strategic Alliances Business Support Funding.
Xoliswa Matroko, CSIRIS Information Specialist who led the project says, “A while ago, CSIRIS embarked on a drive to investigate the concept of embedded information service delivery within the CSIR. This entailed the evaluation of the information services and products provided in support of the entire research process value chain.”
As part of the drive, CSIRIS staff visited competence area managers and research group leaders to ensure that researchers were aware of information products available to them and to establish whether they had alternative service requirements that were not being met. During the visits, researchers expressed the need for a funding source platform, which would provide:
- An active list of funding opportunities as they become available.
- Funding intelligence (for example, some CSIR groups have received Gates funding, FP7 awards or Google Research funding – what would their advice be to others seeking such funding?); and
- Some form of an alerting service allowing users to receive funding opportunity notifications as they become available.
“To find the right funding platform, CSIRIS tested and evaluated available funding resources and decided to subscribe to SciVal as it met the organisation’s requirements. Funding for this subscription was approved by Dr Rachel Chikwamba, Group Executive: Strategic Alliances and Communication,” says Xoliswa.
Berenice Lue Marais, the Group Manager of CSIR Strategic Partnerships says, “One of our objectives is to facilitate processes geared towards finding funding opportunities. The Scival Funding Database will be helpful for researchers to explore and secure funding for their projects.”
- Provides accurate and current content on funding opportunities and grants of more than 3 500 funding agencies globally, including those of government, corporate, research sponsors and private foundations;
- Provides information on the funding environment and trends, as well as enabling access to data on funding performance measurement, evaluation and strategic planning;
- Helps with the identification of potential collaborators for future research as information on previously awarded grants and their principal investigators is made available;
- Enables viewing of opportunities and grants awarded, if applicable, and the filtering thereof according to sponsors, subject area, sponsor type, deadline, amount, etc.;
- Allows the setting up of alerts to receive newly-published funding opportunities.
CSIRIS will be hosting two training sessions on how to use the Scival Funding database at the Knowledge Commons. Xoliswa indicated that the dates of the events will be communicated in due course.
For further information on Scival Funding please contact: Xoliswa Matroko or Eunice Ndeke.
News contributed by Eunice Ndeke, Strategic Alliances and Xoliswa Matroko, CSIRIS
12 February 2014
