Across the international research funding community, there is a growing interest in using experimental approaches to improve how funders allocate money.
AFIRE (Accelerator For Innovation & Research Funding Experimentation) is a new collaboration between the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) and the Innovation Growth Lab (IGL) to boost leadership and institutional capacity for the design, implementation and synthesis of experiments with research and innovation funding.
AFIRE will provide a broad platform which is accessible to funders at all levels of engagement, combined with structured support to increase the speed, scale and ambition of their experimental initiatives.
The project aims to enhance
- Awareness of experimental possibilities within the funding ecosystem
- Motivation to experiment and to conduct effective evaluations of interventions
- Capacity to experiment, including technical expertise and understanding of the research innovation funding frontiers
- Scale and reach, as AFIRE will support the running of experiments at a larger scale with great levels of robustness and post-experimentation dissemination.
- The culture of the research and innovation funding sectors in a way that is more experimental and evidence-based
This project builds upon IGL’s previous collaboration with RoRi, and our joint The experimental research funder’s handbook, which provides practical resources for funders to move further or faster down the experimental path. For further information on the project click here.
Team
- Tom Stafford (RoRI/Sheffield)
- Teo Firpo (IGL, Nesta)
- James Wilsdon (RoRI/UCL)
- Albert Bravo-Biosca (IGL, Nesta)
- James Phipps (IGL, Nesta)
- Cindy Lopez-Bento (KU Leuven)
- Ines Rombach (RoRI, Sheffield)
- Stephen Curry (RoRI/Imperial)
- Helen Buckley Woods (RoRI, UCL)
- Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner (CWTS)
