British Council Springboard

Support is available for bilateral meetings involving researchers from institutions in either France or Germany and the UK who wish to strengthen existing collaboration in any scientific discipline.

The British Council aims to facilitate exchanges between researchers of the UK and other countries. Springboard is a bilateral programme designed to help UK early career researchers strengthen their collaboration with a partner in France or Germany, as a step towards deeper collaboration, developing international networks and possibly joint bids to relevant funding organisations.

Springboard forms part of the British Council’s Going Global Partnership, which supports universities, colleges and wider education stakeholders around the world to work together towards stronger, equitable, more inclusive and internationally connected higher education, science and training.

All research disciplines, including social sciences and the humanities, are eligible. Priority will be given to multidisciplinary applications.

The Springboard programme provides:

• A two-day meeting between the French or German and UK team members (maximum 10 participants) to meet, exchange and discuss priorities for the launch of a collaborative project.
• Online communication skills training for researchers with less than five years of experience.
• One-week research placements in the partner’s lab for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers.

Meetings will be held in one of the partner’s institution or in another location of their choice. Those involving French researchers may be held either at the Embassy of France in London or at the British Council in Paris. Meetings which include Scottish universities and French partners can be held at the Institut Français d’Ecosse in Edinburgh.