Inter-Institutional Development Scheme (IIDS) 2026/27 Exercise
- Proposals across panels generally addressed timely, relevant, and high-impact research areas with clear, acceptable objectives. Some proposals effectively leveraged institutions’ existing capabilities, including subject-matter expertise and relevant prior funded work, to extend resources and broaden potential impact.
- Submissions successfully incorporated varied formats, including conferences, workshops, and hackathons to foster institutional collaboration. Successful proposals demonstrated clear coherence among activities, strong relevance to the topical series, and the inclusion of reputable speakers.
- Some proposals lacked academic depth, with unclear conference and misalignment between conference themes and the expertise of the invited speakers. For some proposals, the final deliverables remained unclear, particularly regarding how they would enhance the research capacity of the participating institutions. A common deficiency was the lack of concrete strategies for long-term impact.
- Excessive budget requests for research assistants / helpers and overly generous venue budgets were noted. Budgets required clearer, itemised justification and substantial tightening to ensure cost-effectiveness and proportionality, thereby maximising value for money and optimising overall resource utilisation.
- As cross-disciplinary collaboration was a core requirement, genuine cross-institutional partnerships were strongly preferred over collaborations merely across colleges within the same university.