The Centre for Sustainable Business is pleased to announce the Seed Fund Round 2 designed to foster early-stage research and partnership development within the field of sustainable business and in particular the themes of sustainable consumption, sustainable business systems, sustainable finance, and leadership for sustainability. This initiative aligns with King’s strategy for developing a distinctive and cohesive research profile.

The fund supports small grants ranging from £10,000 to £20,000 for a duration of 6-12 months. The principal investigator (PI) should be based either at King’s Business School (KBS) or at one of the other faculties of King’s College London. In case the PI is not part of KBS, a KBS member of staff must be included as co-investigator. We encourage interdisciplinary research proposals but at least 50% of the proposed research must fall within the social sciences, relating to business and management studies or economics.

A Proposal Development Workshop will be held on Thursday 3 April at 11am (MH1.06) to explain the scheme further and answer questions colleagues might have. You can also contact the team on sustainablebusiness@kcl.ac.uk for advice on preparing proposals and questions about the scheme, or sarah.l.evans@kcl.ac.uk for more general questions about research funding.

What we want to support

We expect that the fund will support colleagues committed to:

• Applying existing research strengths to respond to social and environmental sustainability challenges.
• Providing practical solutions for businesses to transition effectively to sustainable practices.
• Initiating new research trajectories.
• Fostering interdisciplinary connections from a whole-system perspective.
• Collaboratively creating research and impact strategies with stakeholders (e.g. business, government, or third sector).

Priority will be given to projects demonstrating interdisciplinary approaches and stakeholder engagement.

Awards available 

Funds can be used for:

• Salary costs of fixed-term researchers and project staff, e.g., research assistants
• Travel and subsistence costs for researchers, external partners, or delegates
• Project costs including hosting events, publishing, transcription, and IT
• Engagement activities that facilitate the development of external partnerships
• Equipment

Timeline

The call will close on Friday 16^th May 2025.

Assessment criteria

Assessment will be scored against the following criteria:

• Relevance to at least one of the Centre’s four research themes (sustainable consumption, sustainable business systems, sustainable finance, or leadership for sustainability)
• Academic novelty
• Analytical rigor
• Societal relevance
• Potential to lead to external grants

Communication

Questions regarding the scheme in general, application process, and eligibility should be addressed to sustainablebusiness@kcl.ac.uk.

The team might consider using successful applications as examples for future applicants. Please keep this in mind should your application be successful. All sensitive data will be removed from the applications before sharing. Successful applicants will have the option to opt out of this process.