Aim
This funding opportunity aims to support the development of a transformative global infrastructure capable of providing the latest, relevant, high-quality evidence to national and international policymakers to address key policy challenges and accelerate delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It will harness the potential of AI and build the capability of researchers to produce faster, more relevant and more cost-effective evidence syntheses. The opportunity also aims to accelerate the use of evidence to inform decision-making by policymakers, including through capacity strengthening.
Scope
Global uncertainties and shared global challenges, from climate change and energy security to economic growth and social inequalities, mean that decision makers need rapid and easy access to relevant and robust scientific evidence. These global uncertainties and challenges are reflected in national government agendas, as well as international frameworks, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Evidence synthesis refers to the process of bringing together the best available relevant evidence to answer a specific question. It is based on a rigorous and systematic approach to searching, identifying, collating, quality appraising, and analysing relevant evidence from multiple studies, based on pre-defined criteria, to inform scientific understanding and decision-making on specific issues. This includes the production of evidence and gap maps, rapid or systematic evidence reviews, realist reviews and living evidence reviews, as well as the design of tools and methods to communicate evidence synthesis outputs effectively to policymakers. The most effective evidence synthesis is often an ongoing iterative process co-owned by synthesis producers and users. By providing access to the highest quality current evidence on an issue, ideally with priority issues defined by end-users from the outset, evidence synthesis serves as a critical and powerful tool for decision makers when formulating policy or designing public services. By policymakers, we primarily refer to governments, parliamentarians, and international governmental organisations.
Recent analysis commissioned by the Government Office for Science and ESRC indicates that UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)’s research investments alone respond to 81% of all priority evidence gaps identified by UK government departments and agencies in their Areas of Research Interest questions. This analysis, along with international analysis by Nesta (see A Blueprint for Better International Collaboration on Evidence), shows a pressing need to build more effective mechanisms to review, synthesise and share existing evidence. There is increasingly relevant evidence being generated that could be used in policymaking, but it is not always easy to access and apply.
A range of factors, from historic patterns of R&D investment by many research funders to researcher incentives structures, contribute to the lack of evidence synthesis activity and the underutilisation of existing evidence for decision-making. At the same time, advancements in AI techniques offer opportunities, when combined with expert human judgement, to dramatically improve evidence synthesis. These advancements have the potential to greatly improve the speed, quality and useability of evidence synthesis. By integrating cutting-edge AI technologies and investing in human capability and knowledge exchange, we can significantly improve the speed, accuracy, and accessibility of scientific evidence, offering decision-makers synthesised insights at an unprecedented pace. These advances are not without challenges (for example, around bias and data extraction and coding), which need to be acknowledged and responded to.
We are looking to fund one consortium to build a transformational infrastructure and a global framework which will, over five years, address the following aims:
Advance evidence synthesis capabilities:
- develop and deploy AI capability and tools to produce evidence synthesis more rapidly, accurately and cost effectively
- develop researcher capabilities to produce high-quality, user-focused evidence syntheses
- create a powerful, integrated approach combining human and AI capabilities for synthesising, analysing and interpreting evidence in an equitable and inclusive manner
- build capability amongst relevant public and civil service professionals to apply evidence-synthesis in policymaking
Deliver nationally and internationally relevant evidence synthesis products:
- pilot a series of demonstrator projects to create a comprehensive suite of AI-supported evidence synthesis products focused on topics of international interest, in collaboration with national and international policymakers. This could include mapping existing evidence and producing high-quality, comprehensive living evidence reviews
- you should use the Nesta scoping report (see A Blueprint for Better International Collaboration on Evidence) to identify priority policy areas of international relevance. It is suggested that you select three or four of these areas
- in identifying priority policy areas, you should demonstrate how these areas align with the UN SDGs and how users of evidence synthesis play a key role in informing the chosen policy areas
Improve the accessibility and useability of evidence synthesis for decision makers:
- develop innovative approaches to translating the results of evidence syntheses into formats that are easy for decision makers to interpret and act on, including use of digital tools
- identify and develop mechanisms for embedding evidence synthesis outputs in the working lives of policymakers. This will likely involve using iterative, collaborative approaches that include co-design and user testing with policymakers
- ensure effective international collaboration around the production of these cross-national evidence synthesis mechanisms and tools to ensure the effective transferability and contextualization of evidence internationally
- enhance capability and capacity development with both potential producers and users of evidence synthesis, including contributing to broader efforts to improve capacity for using evidence in policymaking
Partnerships
To realise the transformative ambitions of this funding opportunity, it is essential that the winning bid coordinates with existing global evidence architecture. Partnership working will therefore be essential. You will need to build trusted relationships across the global and national evidence ecosystem, especially with existing networks, research groups, and evidence users.
We expect the successful team to work with a number of partners, including:
The United Nations (UN)
The UN is a key strategic partner in this investment. At the September 2024 United Nations Summit of the Future, and in the Pact for the Future, Member States are anticipated to commit to using science and digital technologies in helping decision makers accelerate progress towards the UN SDGs.
The UN can provide expertise and facilitate strategic connections for the successful consortium, providing access to key international stakeholders beyond the UK needed for the delivery of the UN SDGs. The UN can act as a gateway to support the successful applicant in ensuring the infrastructure is a global public good and that the demonstrator projects are internationally relevant and align with the UN SDGs.
The UN also possesses a large volume of globally significant evidence, including evaluations, which should be integrated into evidence synthesis activity. You must demonstrate how they would collaborate with the UN Evaluation Offices and Global SDG Synthesis Coalition, and build upon existing evaluation, evidence mapping, synthesis and AI tool development activities within the UN system, to ensure your work is of global relevance.
UK Government stakeholders
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is a co-funder of this funding opportunity. Their interest is in the application of AI for scientific understanding and advancement. The Government Office for Science, Cabinet Office, and Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office have also been consulted as part of the development of this investment. You will need to demonstrate how you will engage with these departments, and others, in shaping and delivering this investment. You are asked to consider how your proposed demonstrator projects could contribute to the new UK government missions.
UKRI
Working with the research councils to identify evidence gaps, to inform future investment priorities, and create opportunities to maximise impact from existing investments.
ESRC
Existing ESRC investments which support evidence synthesis include the What Works Network, and the UKRI Local Policy Innovation Partnerships. You should articulate how you will build on and add value to existing investments.
You are asked not to contact any of the partners above at this stage. Introductions will be facilitated by ESRC once the award has been made.
You will need to articulate how you will build on, and where appropriate collaborate with, evidence synthesis investments made by other organisations (for example, Wellcome Trust and the National Institute for Health and Care Research), as well as international investments and networks that are relevant to their suggested programme.
You should ensure the infrastructure has sufficient capacity to engage with these partners and stakeholders, and to engage with ESRC to ensure effective investment management of the infrastructure. This will include providing reporting and monitoring information for the funder and engagement with governance structures.
You should also ensure you have capacity to engage with ERSC’s externally commissioned evaluation for this investment. The successful team will be expected to work with the evaluators to ensure relevant data and evidence is collected to support the evaluation.
Considerations
You will need to consider the following aspects of the investment and evidence how you plan to respond.
Leadership
It is expected that the leadership of this investment will be composed of internationally-recognised experts in evidence synthesis methods who are able to use and drive cutting-edge developments in tools and methods, including in the application of artificial intelligence.
It is expected that the demonstrator projects will require a consortia approach, bringing together experts from relevant subject areas to collaborate with the leadership team of evidence synthesis experts. We require there to be at least one project co-lead (international) making a significant contribution to the project team. The leadership team must also demonstrate cutting-edge expertise in bridging research, evaluation and policymaking.
Geographical focus
The delivery team will need to work with UK policymakers and consider the balance of their delivery with UK, national and international policymakers and the applicability of their approaches in international settings, including the Global South.
Diversity, strength and quality of evidence
You will need to demonstrate how the infrastructure and demonstrator projects will define and work with different types of evidence, including quantitative, qualitative and evaluation evidence, and consistently assess the strength and quality of that evidence.
It is expected initially that work will focus on published research and grey literature (for example, government and international evaluations). The UN, for example, holds a database of roughly 25,000 evaluations, with over 4000 reports being published since 2021 and you should consider how to interpret and use this evidence. Longer term, you should investigate the potential opportunity to also integrate relevant raw data streams.
Transferability of evidence
The applicability of evidence depends on the context. The delivery team needs to consider how to understand and communicate the transferability of evidence, including across different places in the UK as well as internationally, and how they might draw on contextualized forms of evidence to support this. This might include contextual analysis, including of local political economy, local knowledge and contextual factors, to better understand what works where and how much confidence we have that bodies of evidence can be applied in different contexts and to particular interventions and outcomes (such as the UN SDGs).
Local policymaking
This investment is co-funded by the UKRI Creating Opportunities Improving Outcomes strategic theme. You will need to demonstrate how the investment will develop evidence synthesis that is useful to decision makers at a sub-national level in the UK (as in, local and regional).
Existing landscape
ESRC is strongly committed to a collective impact approach across funders and living evidence synthesis producers, which includes working towards a common agenda, shared measurement, sharing data and capacity, and mutually reinforcing activities. We expect you to support that vision and engage with other funders and producers. You will need to articulate how you will build on current and previous UKRI investments, including the What Works Network and the UKRI Local Policy Innovation Partnerships. You will also need to articulate how you will build on evidence synthesis investments made by other organisations.
Integration with government systems
You must demonstrate how you will integrate evidence synthesis within government policymaking systems. For example, UK government departments are developing and trialling tools that leverage AI in the production of tailored policy briefings. Civil servants can use tools like the Cabinet Office Redbox Copilot to interrogate and summarise thousands of policy documents as they produce briefings for ministers and other officials.
You should consider how to integrate with these systems, for example, through building an application programming interface or API. You should also consider how to learn from experiences of applying evidence synthesis in government contexts from other countries, and from within the UN system.
AI for science
AI is transforming the practice of science with researchers and evaluators having access to powerful AI tools to retrieve, synthesise and evaluate bodies of existing evidence rapidly and reliably. You should consider how your work will impact the scientific process more broadly, the implications of this change and how to integrate evidence synthesis tools within broader science systems. You should also consider how you will keep your proposed tools flexible and up-to-date given rapid advancements in artificial intelligence. You should also consider how your tools will be applicable to different types of evidence, including how you can respond to the particularities of UN evaluations.
Flexibility to respond to a rapidly changing landscape
You must build this infrastructure in such a way that it is able to seek, and take advantage of, opportunities to take on additional funding, including from stakeholders and additional partners (for example tech companies), and to be agile in responding to technological advancements and changes in the broader science system.
Sustainability
The project team is expected to think critically about how to ensure the project’s sustainability. This involves identifying potential risks, identifying future funding sources and opportunities to secure the project’s legacy and ensure its benefits continue to be realised over time.
Demonstrator projects
You should clearly articulate your approach to the demonstrator projects, with reference to both the Nesta scoping report (see A Blueprint for Better International Collaboration on Evidence) and the UN SDGs (see UN reports under Additional information). This might include:
- evidence and gap maps: the production of interactive visual overviews of gaps and concentrations in the availability of relevant systematic reviews, research and evaluations, alongside an assessment of the quality of these outputs
- living evidence reviews: production of ‘living evidence reviews’ that will demonstrate how up-to-date evidence synthesis serves the needs of decision makers in the UK and internationally
Timings
The award must begin by 1 September 2025 and is expected to deliver to the following timeline:
- Zero to nine months: further scoping, engagement with key partners (see the previous Partnerships section) and development of this collaborative infrastructure, its vision and work programme alongside some early activity. The work programme must be a collaborative proposal which meets identified user need and puts in place interventions which will overcome identified barriers
- 10 months: submission and formal review of longer-term plans (specifics provided under the Stage gate review section)
- 11 to 60 months: implementation of longer-term plans
You are asked to note that the successful investment is subject to a formal gateway review after an initial nine-month scoping phase. Applications for this funding opportunity should cover five years of activity and associated costs.
Detailed plans for the first 10 months of activity should be provided and include deliverables that will demonstrate the functionality of the infrastructure from the outset, as well as resourcing and funding plans to engage with key stakeholders, including, for example, inception and stakeholder workshops.
An overview of plans and approaches to deliver the longer-term ambition should also be included. We recognise that these plans will be subject to refinement and review during the first nine months. You should ensure that there is sufficient flexibility in the budget to accommodate any changes and include consideration of future virement of funds that must be in line with UKRI virement rules.
Team requirement
It is expected that the leadership team for this investment will include a diversity of skills and experience, for example:
- internationally-recognised experts in evidence synthesis methodology to accelerate cutting-edge developments in methods
- expertise in the innovative use of AI-powered research tools, with a good understanding of ethical considerations
- demonstrable expertise in synthesising evidence, including evaluative evidence for policymakers
- cutting edge expertise in bridging research, evaluation and policymaking
- at least one expert international project co-lead
It is expected that the teams working on the demonstrator projects will bring together experts from relevant scientific and policy fields (thematic experts) to collaborate with the evidence synthesis methodology experts.
For more information on the background of this funding opportunity, go to the Additional information section which includes links to the Nesta scoping report and two reports on the UN SDGs.
Duration
The duration of this award is five years.
Projects must start by 1 September 2025.
Funding available
The 100% FEC of your project can be up to £11.5 million.
ESRC has a total fund of £9.2 million for this funding opportunity.
Eligible international costs
Applicant teams must include a project co-lead (international) (PcL (I)) in their application. All justified costs for the PcL (I) must be added under the exceptions cost heading. ESRC only covers specific costs of PcL (I)’s involved in applications led by UK project leads, up to a limit of 30% of the overall cost of the project. All costs must be fully justified and will be assessed in the context of the application as a whole.
There is an exception for applications involving partners from countries on the OECD DAC list (excluding India and China) DAC list of ODA recipients | OECD. ESRC will consider providing some overheads support for project co-leads in countries on the OECD DAC list (excluding India and China) and where it can be shown that it will assist in developing research capacity. In this case overheads are usually paid at 20% of the international research organisation’s directly incurred costs.
Please note that PcL (I)’s from business, third sector or government organisations cannot be included in the applicant team.
What we will not fund
We will not fund:
- a leadership team which does not include internationally-recognised experts in evidence synthesis methodology, including artificial intelligence
- a leadership team which does not include a PcL (I)
- a leadership team which does not include cutting-edge expertise in bridging research, evaluation and policymaking
- a team which is not able to demonstrate how it will work collaboratively and iteratively with partners both locally, in the UK and internationally
- an infrastructure which does not demonstrate the flexibility to adapt to changing priorities and partnerships, additional investment and opportunities
- bids led from a limited thematic angle (for example, bids focused on a single topic or disciplinary area), rather than from a broader perspective based on a foundational and transformational evidence synthesis infrastructure
Mobility: UK and international
As research is an increasingly international endeavour, we are keen to support grant holders in developing links with leading researchers in their field both in the UK and internationally. We encourage research visits to one or more internationally leading research organisations, either in the UK or abroad, for the purposes of research collaboration, training, or access to data or other resources not available at the applicant’s host organisation.
We encourage research applications that use and develop international comparative methods. The opportunities provided for mobility should support this.
Where a long-term overseas visit is planned, you are required to name a second mentor at the overseas host organisation. You must also articulate how the research team will be managed effectively while you are overseas. However, the majority of the your time should be in the UK at your host research organisation.
We also recognise that long-term mobility may be difficult or impossible for researchers with disabilities or caring responsibilities. You will therefore not be disadvantaged for not including a mobility element. In those instances, you may wish to consider alternative mechanisms for enhancing collaboration through your grant, such as hosting short visits from collaborators, or using information technology to develop and sustain collaborations.
Supporting skills and talent
We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.
Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I)
UKRI is committed in ensuring that effective international collaboration in research and innovation takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks. Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I) is a UKRI work programme designed to help protect all those working in our thriving and collaborative international sector by enabling partnerships to be as open as possible, and as secure as necessary. Our TR&I principles set out UKRI’s expectations of organisations funded by UKRI in relation to due diligence for international collaboration.
As such, applicants for UKRI funding may be asked to demonstrate how their proposed projects will comply with our approach and expectation towards TR&I, identifying potential risks and the relevant controls you will put in place to help proportionately reduce these risks.
Further guidance and information about TR&I, including where you can find additional support, can be found on the UKRI website.
ESRC data infrastructure
ESRC supports a range of data infrastructure. Where relevant, we encourage you to consider whether the use of these resources could add value to the project. See Facilities and resources for information on finding and using ESRC datasets which are available across the UK.
Where relevant, details of datasets and infrastructure to be used in your project should be given in the Facilities section.
Data requirements
ESRC recognises the importance of data quality and provenance. Data generated, collected or acquired by ESRC-funded research must be well-managed by the grant holder to enable their data to be exploited to the maximum potential for further research. See our research data policy for details and further information on data requirements. The requirements of the research data policy are a condition of ESRC research funding.
Where relevant, details on data management and sharing should be provided in the Data management section. See the importance of managing and sharing data and content for inclusion in a data management plan on the UK Data Service (UKDS) website for further guidance. We expect you to provide a summary of the points provided.
The UKDS datasharing@ukdataservice.ac.uk will be pleased to advise you on the availability of data within the academic community and provide advice on data deposit requirements.
Equitable partnership principles
When undertaking research and innovation activities outside the UK, you must recognise and address the possible impact of contextual, societal and cultural differences on the ethical conduct of those activities.
Researchers should also follow the principles of equitable partnerships to address inherent power imbalances when working with partners in resource-poor settings.
Applying the principles will encourage equitable access, especially in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), while maintaining incentives for innovation. You should consider the principles from the start of the research and development cycle.
Read UKRI’s guidance on research in a global setting.
Research ethics
ESRC requires that the research we support is designed and conducted in such a way that it meets ethical principles and is subject to proper professional and institutional oversight in terms of research governance. We have agreed a Framework for Research Ethics that all submitted proposals must comply with. Read further details about the Framework for Research Ethics and guidance on compliance.
