ESRC sets out its plans for new funding awards
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is making major changes to its approach to its funding. This is, in its own words, to “encourage agility, innovation and excellence across all stages of research”.
ESRC has a number of funding streams. Its applicant-led research schemes are the new investigator grants that fund researchers at the start of their careers, the research grants that support basic, applied, and strategic disciplines within ESRC’s remit, and the secondary data analysis round that invites work on data resources created by ESRC and other agencies. These programmes will all close on 4 November.
These schemes are intentionally broad. They allow researchers at different stages of their career to apply for funding for a range of programmes across the whole ESRC portfolio. In spring this year ESRC launched two more targeted pilot funds. These were the connect awards which aimed to fund new and high-risk collaborations in emerging areas. The other was the react awards aimed to support frontline public services or policymaking.
At a townhall this week, ESRC was keen to stress that while there is no additional funding the funding council is seeking to embark on a new approach to applicant-led research schemes. Drawing on learning from the pilot funds, its three new funds – grow, explore, and challenge – provide opportunities for a greater range of applicants delivering research in a greater number of modes, while directing funding to ESRC’s key challenges.
The three funding pots are:
- Grow awards: designed to “support individual researchers at key career points to develop capabilities or pivot direction, strengthening the UK’s social science research base.”
- Explore awards: designed to “advance knowledge through ambitious, curiosity-driven social science”, supporting individuals or small teams to “pursue bold, novel ideas within ESRC’s remit that advance knowledge.”
- Challenge awards: designed to bring “expertise and ideas together in ambitious, larger-scale programmes [which] tackle major research, economic and societal challenges, generating impactful knowledge and innovation.”
The grow awards are aimed at both early career researchers and academics who are changing careers. The explore awards are aimed at teams of no more than four with a focus on generating new ideas. The scheme is open for novel approaches and methods, with the opportunity to put forward ideas that are high-risk high-reward.
During the town hall, the ESRC team spoke about the “flexibility” in the awards and the fact that applicants can bid for what they feel is the best way to tackle major research, economic, and societal challenges. Bids need to be “distinct” – but applicants do not have to have already held large awards. For example, this means that bidding for larger projects does not have to be done through a research centre.
Stian Westlake, executive chair of ESRC, described the funding council as looking for both projects that “push the frontiers of knowledge” and those that make a more immediate impact, while acknowledging that there are some programmes that may do both.
Substantively, this means that ESRC is moving away from a system with lots of routes to apply but more limited applications of funding to a more flexible system which organises its funding around encouraging individuals to pivot and develop their careers, the development of novel ideas through individuals and small teams, and with great flexibility in tackling large-scale challenges.
UKRI’s strategy commits the organisation to “simplifying access to applicant-led funding,” in 2026. ESRC is making it clear that who can apply to what is one measure among others in meeting that challenge.