Infections and Immunity Programme

UKRI is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Our organisation brings together the seven disciplinary research councils, Research England, which is responsible for supporting research and knowledge exchange at higher education institutions in England, and the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.

Apply for funding for a programme of research focused on infections and immunity. You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for MRC funding. This includes MRC units and centres.

You must have:

• at least a postgraduate degree
• a record of securing funding and delivering research.

There is no limit to the funding you can apply for. Applicants typically apply for £1 million or more. We will usually fund up to 80% of your project’s full economic cost.Your programme can last up to five years. This is an ongoing scheme. Application rounds open every February, June and October.

What we're looking for: The Infections and Immunity Board funds research into infectious human disease and disorders of the human immune system. The board supports a diverse portfolio of research of relevance to the UK and globally and to address both long-standing questions and support the investigation of emerging higher-risk opportunities.

Research we fund includes, but is not limited to, the following areas:

• Discovery research relating to: -human pathogens -pathogenicity -antimicrobial resistance -host pathogen responses including inflammation and the development function and disorders of the immune system where this informs mechanism of disease. *Immune disease including:

• allergy (except asthma and other organ-based disorders)
• transplantation immunology
• systemic immune disorders
• auto-immune disease. Including use of in silico systems, relevant animal models and experimental studies in humans throughout the life course.

Population-level research using epidemiological, genetic and omic approaches, and computational modelling, to:

• elucidate disease risks, aetiologies and progression
• understand the evolution of pathogen populations and epidemic preparedness.
• research to inform novel strategies for preventing and controlling infectious and immune disease, including:
• vector control
• predictive modelling
• early development research to inform future intervention strategies including vaccines.

We encourage you to contact us first to discuss your application, especially if you believe your research may cross MRC research board or research council interests. If your application fits another research board remit better we may decide to transfer it there to be assessed.

We define a programme as a coordinated and coherent group of related projects. You may develop these projects to address an interrelated set of questions across a broad scientific area. We do not expect you to find answers to all these questions within the duration of the grant. Parts of the programme may be a continuation of current activity, but we expect other elements to be innovative and ambitious.

Programmes are a large investment for the MRC, so we expect you to show how your application fits within MRC strategy.

You can request funding for costs such as:

• a contribution to the salary of the principal investigator and co-investigators
• support for other posts such as research and technical
• research consumables
• equipment
• travel costs
• data preservation, data sharing and dissemination costs
• estates and indirect costs.

The focus of this funding opportunity is infections and immunity. There are similar opportunities across other areas of medical research within the MRC remit, including:

• molecular and cellular medicine
• population and systems medicine
• neurosciences and mental health.

There are also other types of awards including:

• new investigator
• research
• partnerships.

Who can apply: Any UK-based researcher with an employment contract at an eligible research organisation can apply for a programme grant. You will need to show that you will direct the proposed research yourself and be actively involved in the work.

You must have:

• a postgraduate degree, although we expect most applicants to have a PhD or medical degree
• a substantial record of securing research funding and delivering high-quality research. You can include one or more industry partners as project partners in your application. You can also include international co-investigators if they provide expertise that is not available in the UK.

You are not eligible to apply for a programme grant if you are:

• from an MRC institute
• a core-supported programme or group leader from MRC units and the Francis Crick Institute.

A principal investigator can usually hold only one programme grant at a time.

We won’t fund:

• research involving randomised trials of clinical treatments
• funding to use as a ‘bridge’ between grants
• costs for PhD studentships
• publication costs.

You should contact us if you are not sure which opportunity to apply to.