Thank you for your interest in the Modern Slavery PEC’s Commissioned Research. Commissioned Research projects are funded research where the Modern Slavery PEC needs to respond quickly to an urgent need and feel that we are best placed to do so through a short project, working closely with one, or a small number of researchers. This research will be up to a maximum of £50,000 and will be commissioned without our standard funding call process.

We want to ensure that we have a diverse range of researchers to work with on commissioned research projects and therefore invite researchers to complete our expression of interest form below outlining their area of expertise and policy impact experience.

Commissioned research can be led by and include researchers from UK based Higher Education Institutions, Research Organisations registered with UKRI and charities registered in the UK. If you are not sure of your eligibility, please contact office@modernslaverypec.org

When an area of research is identified for a commissioned research project, the Modern Slavery PEC will use this database to identify the most suitable researcher to undertake the piece of work. This will be based on their areas of interest and experience of policy impactful work. Where multiple individuals meet the areas of interest for a piece of research, the Modern Slavery PEC may reach out to individuals for further information on their expertise, the researcher’s partnerships, and preparedness to undertake the research in set timeframes. The initial criteria, taken from this expression of interest form, will be:

1)   Has the researcher/team already carried out/published research of a high quality in this area?

2)   Does the researcher/team have experience of undertaking research using the proposed methodology?

3)   Does the researcher/team have experience in undertaking policy impact work in this area?

Additional criteria might be added, and asked to those meeting criteria 1-3 by email, on a case-by-case basis.

When identified as a potential lead for commissioned research, the researcher(s), in consultation with the Modern Slavery PEC’s Directors of Research and Policy Impact will write up a (maximum) three-page outline of the project (including, aims/objectives, scope, methods, timeline) and will submit a budget for the work. This will be assessed by an independent panel, who will advise if the project meets the following criteria:

·      Does this project meet the Modern Slavery PEC’s strategic objectives and align with the PEC’s guiding principles for research?

·      Is this project feasible within the time/resource allocation?

·      Are the ethics and safeguarding statements appropriate to the project?

·      Does this project have policy impact potential?

·      Are the project outputs appropriate to the goals of the project and resources of the team?

Once approved, all projects will be contracted to the research team by the Modern Slavery PEC. The researcher(s) will work closely with the Modern Slavery PEC throughout the lifetime of the commissioned research to undertake the project and produce the relevant outputs.

The Modern Slavery PEC is currently trialling the commissioned research process, and, as such, have a limited number of projects that can be directly commissioned. We therefore encourage interested researchers to tick the box in the form to also be signed up to our newsletter, where we will send out information on all our new funding calls, as well as our capacity building workshops.