Follow-on funding supports unforeseen knowledge exchange, public engagement, active dissemination and commercialisation activities that arise during the lifespan of, or following, an AHRC-funded project.
AHRC funds grants of up to £100,000 for a maximum of one year, and smaller grants of up to £30,000 for shorter or higher-risk activities.
Before applying for funding, check the following:
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has introduced new role types for funding opportunities being run on the new UKRI Funding Service.
For full details, visit Eligibility as an individual.
The project should primarily be led by the original project lead of the research that the proposal builds upon.
Another member of the original research team may lead the project if the nature of the proposed activity makes it more appropriate. In such cases, the original project lead would be expected to be named as project co-lead or at least as an advisor. This would need to be justified within the proposal.
We allow international researchers to act as project co-leads in the proposal.
There are no restrictions on how long ago the original project was funded, but if a significant amount of time has elapsed you must make the case for how the new proposal is relevant.
If you are part of a research group within a research organisation and wish to exploit a piece of research in the absence of the original project lead, you will need to seek their permission and where possible involve the original project lead in an advisory role. Your research organisation must ensure any continuity issues including intellectual property or copyright are addressed.
Proposals must:
We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.
We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:
Find out more about equality, diversity and inclusion at UKRI and AHRC’s equality, diversity and inclusion policy.
The proposed activities should enhance the value and wider benefit of your original research project, and have a significant economic, social, cultural or policy impact.
The follow-on funding for impact and engagement aims to:
The duration of this award is up to 12 months.
Smaller awards of up to £30,000 (full economic cost) are encouraged for shorter, higher risk activities, for example the feasibility of an idea, exploring new partnerships for knowledge exchange, testing the market or investigating a new business model. Funding decision making times are reduced for these smaller awards.
The full economic cost of your project can be up to £100,000.
AHRC will fund 80% of the full economic cost.
The activities supported by this grant can include:
The grant does not cover:
We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.
If your application includes international applicants, project partners or collaborators, visit UKRI’s trusted research and innovation for more information on effective international collaboration.
Find out about getting funding for international collaboration.
We are running this funding opportunity on the new UKRI Funding Service. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.
The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application.
Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI.
To apply:
Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this Funding finder page.
Watch our research office webinars about the new Funding Service.
During the initial phases of the Funding Service, the system will continue to develop in response to internal and external user needs. AHRC responsive mode funding opportunities will run as consecutive rounds with defined closing dates. Opening in rounds means we will be able to accommodate system developments and assess applications in a batch submitted under the same conditions.
Applications may be submitted at any time while a round is open; you do not need to wait until the closing date. We will begin to process applications as soon as we receive them, so if an application is submitted early in a round we may be able to provide you with an earlier decision.
We must receive your application by 7 December 2023 at 04.00pm UK time.
Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.
You will not be able to apply to round two after this time, instead you will need to complete a new application and submit it to round three.
Round three will open in early January, further details will be published in autumn.
As part of UKRI, we will need to collect some personal information to manage your Funding Service account and the registration of your funding applications.
We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice.
If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the UKRI Gateway to Research.
Word limit: 500
In plain English, provide a summary we can use to identify the most suitable experts to assess your application.
We may make this summary publicly available on external-facing websites, so make it suitable for a variety of readers, for example:
Clearly describe your proposed work in terms of:
List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following:
Only list one individual as project lead.
Find out more about UKRI’s new grant roles.
Word limit: 500
What are you hoping to achieve with your proposed work?
Explain how your proposed work:
Within the Vision section we also expect you to:
Within this section you can also:
You must:
Word limit: 1,500
How are you going to deliver your proposed work?
Explain how you have designed your approach so that it:
Within the Approach section you can also:
You must:
Word limit: 1,500
Why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?
Evidence of how you, and if relevant your team, have:
The word count for this section is 1,500 words, 1,000 words to be used for R4RI modules and, if necessary, a further 500 words for Additions.
Use the Résumé for Research and Innovation (R4RI) format to showcase the range of relevant skills you and, if relevant, your team (project and project co-leads, researchers, technicians, specialists, partners and so on) have and how this will help deliver the proposed work. You can include individuals’ specific achievements but only choose past contributions that best evidence their ability to deliver this work.
Complete this section using the R4RI module headings listed. Use each heading once and include a response for the whole team, see the UKRI guidance on R4RI. You should consider how to balance your answer, and emphasise where appropriate the key skills each team member brings:
Provide any further details relevant to your application. This section is optional and can be up to 500 words. You should not use it to describe additional skills, experiences, or outputs, but you can use it to describe any factors that provide context for the rest of your R4RI (for example, details of career breaks if you wish to disclose them).
Complete this as a narrative. Do not format it like a CV.
As a minimum, all named members of the Leadership Team should be discussed within this section of the form.
If references or citations are deemed appropriate, these should be included within the section’s word limit. We would advise you not to include hyperlinks, as assessors are not obliged to access the information they lead to or consider it in their assessment of your application. If you are linking to web resources, to maintain the information’s integrity, include persistent identifiers (such as digital object identifiers) where possible. You must not include links to web resources to extend your application.
UKRI has introduced new role types for funding opportunities being run on the new Funding Service. For full details, see Eligibility as an individual.
Within this section you can also:
You must:
Word limit: 500
What are the ethical or RRI implications and issues relating to the proposed work? If you do not think that the proposed work raises any ethical or RRI issues, explain why.
Demonstrate that you have identified and evaluated:
If you are collecting or using data, identify:
Within this section you can also demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant. You must:
Word limit: 1,000
What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost?
Justify the application’s more costly resources, in particular:
Assessors are not looking for detailed costs or a line-by-line breakdown of all project resources. Overall, they want you to demonstrate how the resources you anticipate needing for your proposed work:
Additionally, where relevant you should explain:
We do not fund individual items of equipment over £10,000. Please read our Research Funding Guide for further information.
Word limit: 250
How, regarding the rules on the previous funded research, do you feel this new work is eligible for follow-on funding?
You should ensure that you demonstrate that this new work:
Additionally, you should:
Word limit: 5
Please provide the primary research area of your proposal.
You must select from one of these research disciplines:
This information will be used for the purposes of processing your proposal and in the selection of appropriate assessors.
Word limit: 50
Please describe, using keywords, the research area of your proposal and where relevant the approach, time period or geographical area.
This will further help with the selection of appropriate assessors.
Add details about any Project Partners’ contributions. If there are no project partners, you can indicate this on the Funding Service.
A Project Partner is a collaborating organisation who will have an integral role in the proposed research. This may include direct (cash) or indirect (in-kind) contributions such as expertise, staff time or use of facilities.
Add the following Project Partner details:
• the organisation name and address (searchable via a drop-down list or enter the organisation’s details manually, as applicable)
• the Project Partner contact name and email address
• the type of contribution (direct or in-direct) and its monetary value
If a detail is entered incorrectly and you have saved the entry, please remove the specific Project Partner record and re-add it with the correct information.
For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.
Word limit: 10
Provide project partners’ letters or emails of support from each named partner
If you do not have project partners, simply add ‘N/A’ into the text box, mark this section as complete and move to the next section.
Upload as a single PDF the corresponding letters of support from the named project partners.
Each letter or email of support you provide should:
Ensure you have prior agreement from project partners so that, if you are offered funding, they will support your project as indicated in the contributions template.
For audit purposes, UKRI requires formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.
Do not provide letters of support from host and project co-leads’ research organisations and other UK research organisations.
Proposals will be subject to two specialist peer reviews by members of AHRC’s Peer Review College, followed by a response from the project lead. The proposal, reviews, and the project lead response will be moderated by a review panel who will make funding recommendations to us.
We aim to complete the assessment process within 14 to 16 weeks. The earliest start date for the project should be no earlier than five months and no later than nine months after submission.
Proposals will be reviewed directly by the panel, and the project lead will not be offered a response.
We aim to complete the assessment process within six weeks. The earliest start date for the project should be no earlier than three months and no later than nine months after submission.
Find out more about AHRC’s assessment process.
Written feedback will only be provided in the form of the anonymised peer reviews (only for proposals above £30,000) and the final grade from the panel.
We reserve the right to modify the assessment process as needed.
We support the San Francisco declaration on research assessment and recognise the relationship between research assessment and research integrity.
Find out about the UKRI Principles of Assessment and Decision Making.
Your application will be assessed against criteria that directly relate to the core application questions listed in the ‘How to apply’ section.
Find details of assessment questions and criteria under the ‘Application questions’ heading in the ‘How to apply’ section.
If you have a question and the answers aren’t provided on this page
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Helpdesk is committed to helping users of the UKRI Funding Service as effectively and as quickly as possible. In order to manage cases at peak volume times, the Helpdesk will triage and prioritise those queries with an imminent opportunity deadline or a technical issue. Enquiries raised where information is available on the Funding Finder opportunity page and should be understood early in the application process (for example, regarding eligibility or content/remit of an opportunity) will not constitute a priority case and will be addressed as soon as possible.
For help and advice on costings and writing your proposal please contact your research office in the first instance, allowing sufficient time for your organisation’s submission process.
For questions related to this specific funding opportunity please contact enquiries@ahrc.ukri.org
Any queries regarding the system or the submission of applications through the UKRI Funding Service should be directed to the helpdesk.
Email: support@funding-service.ukri.org
Phone: 01793 547490
Our phone lines are open:
To help us process queries quicker, we request that users highlight the council and opportunity name in the subject title of their email query, include the application reference number, and refrain from contacting more than one mailbox at a time.
You can also find information on submitting an application here: Improving your funding experience.
If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email the UKRI Funding Service helpdesk on support@funding-service.ukri.org
Include in the subject line: [the funding opportunity title; sensitive information; your UKRI Funding Service application number].
Typical examples of confidential information include:
For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read UKRI’s privacy notice.
We recognise that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major interruptions and disruptions across our communities. We are committed to ensuring that individual applicants and their wider team, including partners and networks, are not penalised for any disruption to their career, such as:
Reviewers and panel members will be advised to consider the unequal impacts that COVID-19 related disruption might have had on the capability to deliver and career development of those individuals included in the application. They will be asked to consider the capability of the applicant and their wider team to deliver the research they are proposing.
Where disruptions have occurred, you can highlight this within your application if you wish, but there is no requirement to detail the specific circumstances that caused the disruption.
