AHRC standard research

This grant supports collaborative research projects that require leadership from more than one scholar. You must include a principal investigator and at least one co-investigator jointly involved in the development and management of the project and co-authored research outputs.

You can apply for funding of between £50,000 and £1 million (full economic cost) for projects of up to five years.

We also have an early careers research grant for smaller projects with funding of up to £250,000.

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:

• a single institution or a combination of institutions
• researchers working in different research areas
• disciplines within the arts and humanities, or between an arts and humanities discipline and another subject area. In such collaborations the arts and humanities element of the project should lead in shaping the research questions, methods etc.
• researchers working in other sectors
• researchers based abroad.

The proposed collaboration should be appropriate for the specific needs of the research project.

We expect the principal investigator and any co-investigators to devote an average of at least four hours per week to the project.

You can apply if you are a researcher at an eligible research organisation including:

• UK higher education institutions that receive grant funding from one of the UK higher education funding bodies
• UKRI-recognised research institutes
• UKRI-recognised independent research organisations
• UKRI-recognised public sector research establishments (PSREs).

Your proposal must include a principal investigator and at least one co-investigator. Each team member must contribute to:

• the development of the research proposal
• project leadership and management
• joint publication of authored research.

Principal investigators 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:

• employed by the research organisation submitting the proposal
• have an existing written formal arrangement with the research organisation confirming that you will be able to carry out the research as if you were an employee
• scheduled to move to the research organisation before the proposed start date of the grant.

For more information on eligibility read our research funding guide (PDF, 1MB).

We also encourage international researchers to participate as co-investigators. Recipients of research council fellowships, who are initially supported as postdoctoral research assistants (PDRAs) 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 no longer support project studentships within open research grant funding opportunities.