Vision and strategy
UKRI’s first five-year strategy Transforming Tomorrow Together runs until 2027 and is underpinned by five core objectives:
- build a green future
- build a secure and resilient world
- create opportunities and improve outcomes in communities across the country
- secure better health, ageing and wellbeing for everyone
- tackle infections
Although these strategic themes are likely to continue shaping its investment decisions, UKRI is developing a new strategy, to be launched in Spring 2026, built around the following three missions:
- advancing knowledge
- improving lives
- driving growth
In addition to informing how researchers might align their projects with these strategic priorities in order to maximise their chances of securing funding, the new strategy will involve some practical changes to how UKRI itself operates.
Pauses to funding opportunities
To implement the necessary changes, UKRI has paused applications for some funding opportunities, principally to pave the way for its applicant-led opportunities being switched to ‘always open’. The two research councils currently affected are:
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
Paused BBSRC opportunities:
- New Investigator Grants
- Standard Research Grants
These two opportunities are expected to reopen by May 2026.
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Paused MRC opportunities:
- Applicant-led funding opportunities will reopen on 7 April 2026
- Experimental medicine opportunities will reopen on 30 April 2026
- The Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme stage one which will be reopen in July 2026 as MRC Proof of Concept
- The MRC Gap Fund will reopen in July 2026 as MRC Impact Acceleration Awards
Further details of paused BBSRC and MRC funding opportunities can be found here.
Across other research councils, funding opportunities continue as normal with new opportunities opening regularly.
Future funding opportunities
From June 2026, UKRI will provide quarterly information about upcoming funding opportunities as announced in the below update.
Visit the UKRI YouTube page for insights and reflections on engagement with the new strategy and what it means in practice for research organisations across the country.
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