SALIENT will deliver internationally significant and transformative research that supports the UK’s efforts to contribute to a secure and resilient world. We will contribute to the national conversation through impactful, methodologically rigorous, and accessible research that informs policy making at all levels and complements wider UKRI Building a Secure and Resilient World (BSRW) investments.

Building a Secure and Resilient World (BSRW)

BSRW is one of five strategic themes in UKRI’s five-year strategy, ‘Transforming Tomorrow Together’. BSRW aims to strengthen security and resilience in areas of personal vulnerability, community fragility, and national risk, across various social and economic sectors at the heart of daily life.

Transforming Tomorrow Together

Understanding the global strategic environment is crucial for our national resilience. The UK’s research contribution can be powerful, but it requires the identification and coordination of world-leading research to provide tangible benefits for society, the economy, and the environment.

Future policy making capable of delivering the Government Office for Science’s vision in ‘Rebuilding a Resilient Britain‘ requires a highly co-ordinated research programme to deliver rigorously gathered evidence into government. SALIENT will address this challenge through a dynamic programme, led by the Thomas Ashton Institute for Risk and Regulatory Research.

SALIENT will catalyse, conduct and commission innovative, timely and relevant research targeted at evidence gaps across the five Building a Secure and Resilient World priority themes:

• Global order in a time of change
• Technologies for resilience, security, and defence
• Resilient and secure supply chains
• Behavioural and cultural resilience
• Strengthening resilience in natural and built environments

SALIENT aims to be an internationally unique UK asset. Our multidisciplinary team of researchers will build strong connections across a broad group of stakeholders in central and local government, the devolved administrations and crucially, the public to deliver a set of core research work packages addressing priority topics to make a real difference to resilience at home and create transferable lessons of global significance

SALIENT is proud to be supported by a diverse group of partners from various sectors. Our collaborators include government departments, arms-length bodies, and hubs specializing in STEM futures, systems thinking, and reliability. This broad support network enhances our ability to conduct cutting-edge research and develop innovative solutions. Together, we are committed to advancing security and resilience, ensuring our work has a meaningful impact on society

We anticipate 50-70 projects with at least ten per work-package in five rounds of funding.

Each round will last for ten months, and commissioned projects will last between six and nine months. All applicants will be expected to show how their research aligns with ne of more of SALIENT’s work packages

The SALIENT Hub will take a transparent approach to assessing proposal quality, and alignment with the aims of the Building a secure and resilient world – UKRI will govern the selection processes.

SALIENT embodies equity, diversity, and inclusion by the judicious scheduling of activities, milestones, and events to promote and support work-life balance and ensure that potential applicants with caring responsibilities etc, are not disenfranchised from the opportunities presented by the hub.

We will fund two modes of projects:

Theoretically motivated projects (e.g. research that draws upon theory as the basis for enquiry, or as a means of researching a question, position, or relationship).

Empirically derived projects (e.g. research that is based on measurement and observation of real-world phenomena).

We are keen to support and encourage Early Career Researcher (ECR) led projects as a means of promoting development and community building for new scholars.

Funding calls will be released throughout the length of the project, so please check the devolved funding pages regularly.

We support the development of the Early Career Research community to ensure sustainability. We will take steps to identify potential synergies and opportunities for transferring research between different sectors and disciplines, both within and outside of SALIENT. Additionally, we will implement a communication plan to help the community explore and commercialise their research, where appropriate.