Regional Readiness Fund

The Regional Readiness Fund (RRF) aims to deliver impactful research projects that respond to sustainability challenges within the South Yorkshire region. This fund is being delivered in partnership with the South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre (SYSC).

Successful applicants are awarded funding between £1,000 and £75,000 through two schemes, which have different application criteria. The funds must be spent before July 31st 2026. All awards must demonstrate that the project will lead to an attributable real world impact and/or a much larger 3rd party funding application, so that we can evidence the positive contribution that the Grantham Foundation donation has made towards building a sustainable future for the South Yorkshire region. 

Applications to the fund are currently suspended due to the high volume of quality applications we have received. 

We are pleased to announce the successful projects that will receive funding from the latest round of our Regional Readiness Fund initiative: 

Successful projects - 2025

Enabling Private Rented Sector Retrofit in South Yorkshire

Project lead: Silvija Speciuviene - Moffatt
Project description: This project, co-produced with South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA), will investigate, evaluate and produce key policy findings in relation to the Innovate UK-funded Let Zero project.

Through interviews, document reviews and policy analysis, this project will try to determine the key success areas as well as most significant challenges the Let Zero approach has encountered in enabling retrofit in hard-to-reach sectors.

The key findings will then be translated into recommendations to address the key challenges and barriers the project encountered.

Trees, People and Environment: A Regional Strategy for South Yorkshire's Treescape

Project lead: Jill Edmondson
Project description: Trees are vital to society, delivering benefits to people and the environment. Consequently, there is a policy push to increase canopy cover. However, tree management across the urban and rural landscape is complex, with individual trees and large woodlands across public and private land all forming an integral part of the regional treescape. 

This project presents a coordinated approach to treescape management within South Yorkshire, operating at a landscape-scale, to deliver benefit to people and the environment. It aims to develop a pathway for sustainable treescape management in South Yorkshire, including events to engage communities across the region. 

Understanding the Impact of Retrofit on Indoor Environmental Quality in Doncaster

Project lead: Carolanne Vouriot
Project description: This project, delivered in collaboration with the City of Doncaster Council (CDC), will assess how housing retrofits affect indoor air quality. By monitoring air quality before and after the retrofit, it will highlight any changes and their potential health impacts, identifying both benefits and potential drawbacks of energy efficiency upgrades.

Given the scale of retrofitting required around the UK, it is essential to understand how deep retrofits affect the indoor environmental quality and ultimately the health and well being of the occupants. If health co-benefits are found, this would create further reasons for the rapid need for retrofit. However, if this project highlighted any issues, the findings will be critical in shaping future retrofit strategies. 

PeakFire: Building Evidence for Fire Pollution Alerts in South Yorkshire

Project lead: Maria Val Martin
Project description: PeakFire is a collaborative research project addressing the air pollution and health impacts of moorland fires in and around the Peak District National Park. It combines data from the FireUP network of low-cost air quality sensors—led by Sheffield Hallam University—with satellite imagery and community observations to detect smoke from wildfires and controlled burns that often go unnoticed. The project brings together a wide range of partners, including the Peak District National Park Authority, UK Health Security Agency, and Sheffield City Council. PeakFire aims to support early warning systems and protect communities from harmful smoke exposure through science and local engagement.

Novel Storage and Control Technologies for Decarbonisation of Domestic Heat at Scale

Project lead: Rob Barthorpe
Project description: The project focuses on a community heat demonstrator. The team are working on approaches for integrating novel storage technologies (both thermal and electrical) and control methodologies with established low carbon heating solutions (e.g. heat pumps, solar photovoltaics) to overcome challenges linked to decarbonisation of heat. Solutions are being developed that are applicable both to individual dwellings, and to collections of dwellings served by community or district heat networks.

The project spans both the evaluation and optimisation of the performance of the technical solutions, and investigation of the social perceptions of the technologies being explored. The latter will be vital in identifying and overcoming potential social barriers to widescale uptake of the technology. 

Further details about the fund

Applications to the RRF should start with a problem statement with a project partner located within the South Yorkshire Region, and address a sustainability challenge where research could add tangible value to the regional response. Current projects within SYSC can apply to amplify impact of current outputs.

Projects that exemplify the SYSC ‘novel knowledge exchange approach’ will be prioritised i.e. by providing evidence that research questions have been co-produced with regional partners, and that there is a clear plan to develop and deliver the research collaboratively. This allows us to demonstrate maximum value to partners, by focusing on themes/challenge areas that align with their priorities. 

Projects that show clear interdisciplinarity will also be favoured, particularly where the funding request involves an interdisciplinary output. We would also welcome applications that relate directly to national or regional policies, such as the recently released National Industrial Strategy. 

Who can apply

The fund is available to any academics, research staff or professional service staff members at the University of Sheffield. Please note, the Principal Investigator has to be from the University of Sheffield but other collaborators on the project can be from other institutions.

Project applications should evidence meaningful engagement and collaboration with regional partners as a core focus, alongside other non-academic stakeholders where appropriate. These may include businesses, policymakers, local authorities, public bodies, health and care organisations, community groups, NGOs and others relevant to the project aims.

Funding criteria

The funding award can be used as part of a wider grant application where permissible as match funding, contribute to a larger project budget or to fund a project in its entirety. Applicants should detail how this money will deliver a wider benefit, either through its part in a larger grant award or the effect of the research in terms of deliverable, demonstrable planetary or societal benefits.

The funding can be used to cover research costs such as arranging of meetings, travel costs, and associated items, and 3rd party revenue costs such as specialist licences for software or databases. Capital costs, such as specialist equipment, may be exceptionally considered on a case by case basis, but the applicant must show a wider benefit to the research community of the procurement of equipment. Rental, reuse or repurposing will always be preferred to the purchase of new. 

The awards are not intended to be used as bridging funds, stipend top ups or to extend contracts of staff on grants close to completion.  

We would not normally fund air travel where there were rail alternatives, and we will not fund projects associated directly with the tobacco or arms industries and will only consider the oil and gas sector where decarbonisation and defossilisation is the explicit goal. Priority will be given to those who have not been awarded monies from this fund previously.

Funding stipulations

The recipients will be required to acknowledge the support of the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures and the South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre in any papers produced from the work and must submit a report detailing the project progress for use in the Grantham Centre annual report in January of each year of the project's duration. A separate financial report will be required to track the spend against the award on a quarterly basis.

Recipients will also be required to work with our Communications Officer to create some promotional materials about the project.

Applicants must detail any time constraints in their application.
 

Eligible costs:

• Directly incurred staff time (e.g. research assistant, PDRA, technician, administrator time)
• Directly allocated staff costs by exception
• Travel and subsistence costs
• Market analysis
• Prototyping
• Access to facilities
• Specialist support by 3rd parties
• Equipment (can include specialist software / hardware, excludes laptops)

Ineligible costs:

• Estates and indirect costs
• All projects will be assessed value for money
   

How to apply

Please note:  Applications to the fund are currently suspended due to the high volume of quality applications we have received

If you have any questions or require more information, please contact sysustainabilitycentre@sheffield.ac.uk