New ACCESS Report: Insights for the management of flexible funds

In recent years, UKRI, and its constituent research councils, have funded numerous initiatives that include flexible funding as part of their mandatory work programmes.

In managing these flexible funds, research investments find themselves having to act as funding bodies, governing and distributing resources effectively and fairly – yet many have limited experience in doing so.

In addition to scientific merit, many of these programmes aim to fund non-research activities such as knowledge exchange, and to embed specific principles – Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is particularly common – adding further complexity to flexible fund management.

Our ACCESS ‘Flex Fund’ comprised a total value of £1 million, which we have distributed over two Flex Fund Rounds.

Like many programmes managing flexible funds, we have been trying out new approaches and learning by doing and want to share our successes, mistakes and learnings with others. This is particularly important due to the lack of documentation and evaluation available on the delivery of flexible funds.

Our latest report provides insights from a mixed methods evaluation of Round 2 of the ACCESS Flex Fund. It aims to provide guidance and food for thought for other flexible fund managers and administrators, as well as funding institutions more generally.

In it, we:

• evaluate the performance of our fund from the diverse perspectives of fund managers, operations team members, reviewers and applicants;
• highlight findings, challenges, key learnings and insights; and
• present four key recommendations for effective flexible fund management.

We hope that other flexible-fund managers will benefit from what we have learned.

If you would like to discuss the report and its findings with us, please email us at: info@accessnetwork.uk