Funding for humanities and social science researchers to build their skills and capacities to develop their current and future research. This includes core areas like quantitative skills, data science, digital humanities and languages.
Applicants are encouraged to be creative in their thinking about how these awards can help them develop skills and new methods that would advance their research, including through collaboration and dissemination.
The scheme is also designed for researchers who wish to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to their work and seek to advance their skills in a new area that may fall outside the traditional bounds of their subject discipline.
It provides early career researchers with the opportunity to develop specialist skills to support the foundations of their career, while offering mid-career and senior researchers the chance to diversify their skills and methodological approaches in response to new avenues of research interest.
These awards will be particularly useful for researchers wishing to expand the scope of their research with the intention of applying for larger grants in the long term. It also provides the opportunity to develop new partnerships – locally, nationally, or internationally.
ELIGIBILITY
Lead applicants must:
- be ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom
- be holding a current long-term appointment at a UK-based Higher Education Institution (HEI) or Independent Research Organisation (IRO), which will continue for the full duration of the proposed award
- be intending to pursue original, independent research within the Humanities or Social Sciences
There are no quotas for individual subject areas and no thematic priorities within the scheme.
VALUE AND DURATION
The maximum grant is £10,000.
Awards are to enable engagement activities to take place and are not intended as time buy-out for the award-holder.
This scheme is not offered on a Full Economic Costing (FEC) basis, and 100% of the awarded funds must be used solely for the purposes outlined in the application and agreed in the award letter.
Awards can be held for a minimum period of six months and up to a maximum period of 12 months (commencing no earlier than 1 March 2027 and no later than 31 March 2027).
KEY DATES
Deadline: 7 October 2026
Earliest start date: 1 March 2027
Full details can be found on the opportunity webpage and in the documents below.