New Opportunities & Best Chances

This page covers two related alert types that help you discover funding:

• New Opportunities (type: opportunities) -- AI-powered matching of new funding to your research profile.
• Best Chances (type: best_chances) -- Strategic identification of high-impact grants where you have a competitive advantage.

Both alert types monitor the continuously updated funding index and use AI to evaluate relevance. The difference is their focus: New Opportunities casts a wide net based on your criteria, while Best Chances applies strategic analysis to surface grants with strong fit and less competition.

New Opportunities

New Opportunity alerts are the most commonly used alert type. They notify you when new funding opportunities are published that match criteria you define. The system compares newly indexed opportunities against your saved criteria, and an LLM generates a summary explaining what was found and why each match is relevant.

Setting Up

1. Navigate to Smart Alerts from the ArkSearch submenu.
2. Click Create Alert and select New Opportunities.
3. Configure your matching criteria:
   • Keywords -- Research keywords or phrases. Semantic matching captures related terms automatically.
   • Programmes -- Optionally restrict to specific funding programmes (e.g., Horizon Europe, ERC, MSCA).
   • Budget range -- Set minimum and/or maximum budget thresholds.
4. Choose your frequency: daily, weekly, or monthly.
5. Save the alert.

What You Receive

Each notification includes:

• Match count -- Number of new opportunities found since the last run.
• AI-generated summary -- A plain-language overview highlighting the most relevant matches, grouped by programme or topic.
• Opportunity cards -- Each result shows the title, funder, deadline, a days-until-deadline badge, and an AI insight explaining why it matched.
• Direct links -- Each matched opportunity links to its detail page.

Best Chances

Best Chances alerts take a strategic approach. Instead of matching purely on topic relevance, the system evaluates factors like competition level, alignment with your profile strengths, and historical success rates for similar applicants. The goal is to surface opportunities where your chances of success are highest.

Setting Up

1. Navigate to Smart Alerts from the ArkSearch submenu.
2. Click Create Alert and select Best Chances.
3. The system uses your research profile and past search activity as the primary criteria. You can optionally refine with:
   • Preferred programmes -- Focus on specific funding sources.
   • Budget preferences -- Set your preferred funding scale.
4. Choose your frequency: weekly or monthly is recommended, as the strategic analysis benefits from a larger window of new data.
5. Save the alert.

What You Receive

Each notification includes:

• Ranked opportunities -- Results ordered by estimated fit, with the most promising matches first.
• AI-generated strategic insight -- For each opportunity, an explanation of why it represents a strong match -- covering factors like alignment with your expertise, typical applicant pool, and funding body priorities.
• Direct links -- Links to each opportunity's detail page.

Tips

• Use both types together. New Opportunities gives you broad coverage so you do not miss anything. Best Chances highlights the most strategically valuable subset.
• Start broad, then refine. If New Opportunities returns too many matches, narrow your keywords or add programme filters. If results are sparse, broaden your keyword list or remove budget constraints.
• Keep your research profile current. Both alert types, especially Best Chances, deliver better results when your ArkID profile accurately reflects your research focus and expertise.