Lloyd’s Register Foundation announces new Academic Networking Grant

The two networking grants, each offering funding up to £250,000, will fund the creation of expert networks, a series of targeted workshops, and a large-scale dissemination conference to identify research gaps, promote partnerships, and deliver actionable roadmaps for impactful safety solutions across two challenge areas: 

• Safe Decarbonisation of Maritime Industries: Ensuring that as maritime transitions towards zero-emissions in the coming years, that the infrastructures enabling this shift are safe for people, physical assets and the environment. This includes developing and adopting future fuels and sustainable practices within the maritime sector.  

• A Safe Digital Maritime Transformation: Explore how the maritime sector can adopt and integrate digital technologies while addressing safety, efficiency, and sustainability challenges. 

Proposals should demonstrate how their scope aligns with the Foundation’s mission to engineer a safer world, and how they have the potential to generate long-term impact through interdisciplinary collaboration in one or more of these areas. 

In addition, these grants are intended to convene interdisciplinary experts and should be led by at least one from a High-Income Country (HIC) and one from a Lower-Middle-Income Country (LMIC), fostering collaboration across diverse sectors such as engineering, science, economics, business, and policy. 

Beth Elliot, Lloyd's Register Foundation's Director of Strategic Communications: “This latest initiative supports our ambition to enhance global safety and engineering excellence. Developed collaboratively with Lloyd’s Register Foundation and Lloyd’s Register Group, the two networking grants align with our shared priorities supporting the safe decarbonisation of maritime industries and a safe digital maritime transformation. 

“The grants directly contribute to our strategic objectives of creating safer systems and delivering scalable, sustainable solutions to pressing safety challenges. They also build upon ongoing work in areas such as sustainability and digital maritime transformation, reinforcing our role as a trusted leader in engineering safety and innovation.”

Eligible institutions must be actively engaged in education, research, or public engagement activities that align with the Foundation’s mission to engineer a safer world. Collaborations with industry, policy, and non-academic partners are encouraged; however, the lead applicant must be an academic institution.  

We encourage all potential applicants to attend an informational webinar on 4 March 2025, where we will provide an overview of the call, eligibility criteria, and application process, followed by a Q&A session. The deadline to submit proposal summaries is 14 March 2025, 12:00 GMT (midday). For further information on the open call, click here. 

If you are an academic organisation who is interested in this call, but haven't yet identified a partner to submit a joint proposal, join our LinkedIn 'matchmaker' group.