AHRC standard research grants support collaborative research projects that require leadership from more than one researcher.
You must include a project lead and at least one project co-lead jointly involved in the development and management of the project and co-authored research outputs.
You can apply for funding of between £300,000 and £1.5 million (full economic cost) for projects of up to five years.
Before applying for funding, check the following:
Your proposal must include a project lead and at least one project co-lead. Each team member must contribute to:
Project leads must be actively engaged in postdoctoral research and be of postdoctoral standing. This means you must have a doctorate or can demonstrate in your application that you have equivalent research experience or training. You must have a level of skills, knowledge and experience that is appropriate to your proposed project.
You must be either:
For more information on eligibility read our research funding guide.
We also encourage international researchers to participate as project co-leads. See sections two and three of the AHRC research funding guide for details on eligibility of researchers, organisations and costs.
Recipients of research council fellowships, who are initially supported as postdoctoral research assistants on research grants, are eligible to apply for new research grants but must complete their duties on the original grant before starting the new award.
We do not support project studentships (funding PhD study) within open research grant funding opportunities.
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.
We’re looking for individual researchers with proposals for well-defined collaborative research projects. However, you may include elements of individual research if you can show how this will add value.
Collaborations can involve:
The proposed collaboration should be appropriate for the specific needs of the research project.
We expect the project leads and any co-leads to devote an average of at least four hours per week to the project.
The duration of this award is up to five years.
The full economic cost of your project can be up between £300,000 and £1.5 million.
We will fund 80% of the full economic cost.
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 UKRI 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 UKRI Funding Service.
During the initial phases of the UKRI 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 14 September 2023 at 4.00pm UK time.
You will not be able to apply to round one after this time, instead you will need to complete a new application and submit it to round two.
Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.
The second round will open on 28 September 2023 and will close on 7 December 2023.
Round three will open in early January, details will be published in the autumn.
The proposed start date of your project must be at least nine months after the date of your application.
AHRC, as part of UKRI, 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:
Word limit: 2,500
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.
UKRI has introduced new role types for funding opportunities being run on the new Funding Service.
For full details, see Eligibility as an individual.
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:
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:
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.
Word limit: 1,000
Provide details of any project partners’ contributions, and 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.
Download and complete the Project partner contributions template (DOCX, 52KB).
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.
At the point of application submission, each will be assessed on the following criteria:
Proposals which do not meet these criteria will be rejected with feedback on why it could not proceed.
We will assess your application using the following process.
We will invite three peers to review your application independently, against the specified criteria for this opportunity.
Project leads will be provided with a right to reply/ response opportunity.
The peer reviews and principal investigator response will be moderated by an expert panel who will then assign a final grade to the proposal and rank it alongside other applications after which the panel will make a funding recommendation.
Find out more about AHRC’s assessment process.
We aim to complete the assessment process within nine months of receiving your application.
Written feedback will only be provided in the form of the anonymised peer reviews 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 (DORA) 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.
For help on costings and writing your application, contact your research office. Allow enough time for your organisation’s submission process.
Email: support@funding-service.ukri.org
We aim to respond to emails within two working days.
Phone: 01793 547490
Our phone lines are open:
If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email the Funding Service helpdesk on support@funding-service.ukri.org
Include in the subject line: [the funding opportunity title; sensitive information; your Funding Service application number].
Typical examples of confidential information include:
For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read UKRI’s privacy notice
We provide funding to the Natural Environment Research Council Radiocarbon Facility (NRCF) to allow our research communities to make use of the facility. If your project requires radiocarbon dates, you must request these from NRCF.
For more information read our research funding guide.
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.
