Interface - Partnership Research Support Fund

Interface has five very distinct missions, enabling it to provide financial and methodological support for proposed projects:

1. Catalysis: To ensure appropriate contacts between partners to promote partnership research, in the form of a contact point or various échanges between stakeholders. It also involves supporting and accompanying the emergence of needs in the field and their eventual translation into research questions. Finally, we are committed to facilitating meetings between the partners and the appropriate researchers, or vice versa.
2. Financial support: Make resources (in cash or in kind) available to develop a research partnership, depending on the framework conditions and the adequacy of the budgetary request. This financial support is conditional on compliance with the 6 framework conditions.
3. Support: To provide any person or project with the support needed to ensure it has the best chance of success. This support mission also aims to support the collaboration of scientific and field partners to develop partnership research, while taking into account the specific challenges posed by this type of research.
4. Capitalisation: Capitalising on the experience gained over time, with a view to developing our institutional know-how and responsive knowledge. A great deal of work is being done to share the experience acquired during the implementation of each project, which could then be made available to the institution and other partners. In this sense, it's also a question of offering a time for exchange that will enable this research to be developed within our community.
5. Institutional integration:integrate Interface practices into the DNA of UNIL, taking particular account of the integration of partnership research into teaching, outreach activities and career support. This mission will enable us to strengthen a partnership research culture throughout the institution and across the board.

Interface is a partnership research support fund. Its aim is to encourage research projects between external partners and students, researchers or members of UNIL's departments. Research carried out within the framework of Interface must meet the following requirements in order to be supported:

If you are interested in participating in Interface, please contact us.

1. Responsive to a need in the field:
   The research projects carried out and supported under Interface must imperatively respond to a need in the field. The initiative for the research may come from a member of the academic community, but the research must take account of the needs or concerns of partners in the field (non-academic partners).
2. Codirection of the partnership research project:
   Each research project must be co-directed by a student or researcher (depending on the funding instrument), and a partner in the field (non-academic, i.e. a researcher or a student);mique, i.e. a person who is generally not a registered UNIL researcher or UNIL collaborator). In this sense, academic expertise is combined with professional or non-professional experience and expertise in the field, without creating any hierarchies within the projects.
     In this sense, academic expertise is combined with professional or non-professional experience and expertise in the field, without creating hierarchies within the projects.
     In this sense, academic expertise is combined with professional or non-professional experience and expertise in the field, without creating hierarchies within the projects.
3. Non-exclusively academic deliverables:
   The deliverables of research projects carried out as part of Interface must offer non-academic formats, i.e. something other than articles, books or scientific publications. These deliverables can take the form of a concise report, leaflets, an exhibition, a public presentation (seminar, conference, training course, etc.), or a printed version of the project.), or some other form of use (support for public policy, strengthening of advocacy, etc.), decided by the partners and, if necessary, the researchers, at the start of the project.
4. Medium-term results and impact identified:
   The research results must offer usable results in the medium term (12-18 months on average). In this way, the partners can obtain answers to their needs or concerns, which will enable them to plan various measures or assess the impact of the project on their field of activity. The transformation brought about by the collaboration must be measurable.
5. Project monitoring:
   Funding for Interface projects is conditional on participation by the main applicants (see section E of this document) in three Labs during the course of their project, depending on how far along it is (launch, follow-up, closure). To address specific concerns or problems, principal applicants can meet individually with Interface's support team. These meetings do not exempt you from taking part in three meetings in the Labs.  
6. Final report and evaluation of the project:
   At the end of the research project, the principal applicants must produce a short scientific and financial report, the outline of which is provided by Interface. Their participation in the evaluation and satisfaction process carried out at the end of the project is also required.