Call for Assessors: Digital Innovation Fund

The University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), as part of its West of England based Digital Innovation Fund (DIF) programme, is looking for Assessors to assess applications to its grant funding scheme.

About the scheme: DIF is an ERDF funded programme, providing grant funding and workshops to SMEs in the West of England region (Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire) that are to looking to innovate and solve new challenges.

As part of the grant funding workstream, businesses can apply for grants of £10,000 to £40,000 to cover 35% of total project costs.

Projects must be innovation, R&D and create jobs, products and services as an outcome of the funding awarded and have a digital aspect.

The role of assessors: Assessors are required to review and score SME application forms that are submitted to the University.

Commitment: • Assessors will assess no more than 20 applications. • The grant funding call closes on 16 November 2021 with applications being reviewed between 19 November 2021 and 05 December 2021. • We will notify you via email when an application is ready for review and has been assigned to you, and we ask that you reply within 1 working day to confirmed that you have received the application so that we know you are still available.

You will also be required to let us know immediately if you have a conflict of interest with any of the companies you are assessing. • Each application takes a minimum of 2-3 hours to review, and will need to be returned by 05 December 2021. • If you have not assessed for UWE Bristol in the last 12 months, you will be required to attend an hour-long training session prior to the undertaking any assessments.

Further details will be provided once successful Assessors have been notified. • We will provide you with a guidance document for assessing, and a template for providing your scores and comments. • All assessing will be done electronically.

Documents will be shared via Microsoft's One Drive, and assessments returned as Microsoft Word documents.

Relevant experience: • Prior experience assessing grant funding applications or similar is essential. • Knowledge of the business landscape in the West of England is highly desirable.

We are looking for assessors to have strength in one particular sector, or experience of R&D or digital expertise.

Please ensure your specialism is clearly stated in your submission email.

Please submit your CV, detailing the information above, to the Digital Innovation Fund team (dif@uwe.ac.uk) no later than 11.59pm on 04 November 2021.

Assessors will be selected to ensure we have a wide range of expertise.

The team will get in touch to let you know if you've been successful shortly afterwards.

You will need to be set up as a supplier on the University systems and sign a contract prior to undertaking work.