Equipment costs and capital equipment threshold policies
From 1 April 2025, the following changes to equipment costs and capital equipment threshold policies will apply for all new funding opportunities launched in the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service.
For funding opportunities published before 1 April 2025 the previous costs thresholds will apply. For funding opportunities without deadlines, the changes will apply to all applications received after 1 April 2025. The funding opportunity will specify how equipment costs should be included within your application.
Equipment costs
UKRI will fund all items of equipment in UKRI awards at 80% of their full economic cost (FEC). There will be limited exceptions to this rule where we will fund these costs at 100% FEC for:
- specific equipment or infrastructure opportunities
- international partner costs (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee list countries only)
- instrument development awards
Instrument development awards are defined as an award, or group of awards, forming a single project wholly or mainly focused on creating a novel instrument of benefit to the wider research and innovation community. This will either enable research capability not available using any existing instrument or will substantially improve research capability beyond what currently exists, in a way that opens up significant new scientific opportunities.
Equipment costing more than £25,000
Single items of equipment costing £25,000 and over will be considered capital expenditure, an increase from the previous capital threshold of £10,000.
In the Funding Service individual items of £25,000 and over should be included under the equipment heading. Only equipment costs of £25,000 and over need to be justified within the resources and costs justification.
Equipment costing less than £25,000
Items under £25,000 should be included as other directly incurred. The equipment must be essential to the effective conduct of the research and not already available to the host organisation.
Documentation and consultation for procuring equipment
Justification for requested items of equipment costing between £25,000 and £138,000 (£115,000 excluding VAT) must include evidence that the option of using existing equipment has been investigated. The procurement of equipment, including maintenance must comply with all relevant national and EU legislation and the research organisation’s own financial policy and procedures.
The research organisation’s own professionally qualified procurement staff should be involved in the procurement of equipment and services at or above £25,000 (excluding VAT). The procurement staff must be consulted before the procurement process begins, and, where appropriate, at the market research stage, and must approve the order or contract before it is placed with the supplier. Additional documentary evidence for the estimated cost should be included with the proposal.
Last updated: 1 April 2025