UK Research and Innovation (BBSRC)

BBSRC standard research grant: applicant-led mode

BBSRC's always-open responsive grant for excellent investigator-led research across its whole bioscience remit: plants, microbes, animals and humans, and the tools and technology underpinning biological research, from molecules to landscapes. It can fund research projects, equipment or facility use, community resources and infrastructure, research networks and summer schools, including industry-partnered (IPA, LINK) and international lead-agency projects. The project lead must be at a UK research organisation eligible for BBSRC funding and hold a lecturer-level or equivalent post. Projects can cost up to £2 million full economic cost, of which BBSRC pays 80%, for up to five years; there is no deadline.

Apply on the funder’s site

You could get: £1 – £2,000,000; no fixed round
Deadline: Rolling; apply any time
Effort: Heavy; budgets, references, often several stages

Who can apply

Open to organisations with standard UKRI eligibility: the project lead must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for BBSRC funding, and only that lead research organisation submits
Organisations based overseas and business-based applicants are not eligible; they can join as project partners
Project leads and co-leads must be UK resident (183 or more days in the tax year, or moving to the UK for an already agreed contract) for the whole project, and hold an academic or technical post at lecturer level or equivalent with a contract extending beyond the grant, or an assurance from the submitting organisation that it will be extended (a formal non-salaried arrangement with the organisation also qualifies)
Eligible roles include research council institute staff at Band E (NERC Band 5), research technical professionals with responsibilities equivalent to lecturer, postdoctoral fellows at lecturer-equivalent level whose fellowship was won in open competition (UKRI, bodies such as the Royal Society and Wellcome, or internal university fellowships), and senior research personnel funded centrally by their institution
Research associates and technicians who are not eligible to lead can be researcher co-leads
Early-career lecturers seeking their first major grant can use the parallel BBSRC new investigator award instead
UKRI-SBE (US) lead agency applications need an approved expression of interest first
No institutional matched funding is required beyond the standard 20% FEC

What it funds

Excellent investigator-led biotechnology or biological research in plants, microbes, animals and humans, and tools and technology underpinning biological research, across scales from molecules and cells to tissues, whole organisms, populations and landscapes, including:

Research projects, including data intensive and technology development projects
Equipment or use of existing facilities
Community resources, new facilities, or infrastructure
Research networks and coordination
Summer schools
Industrial Partnership Awards (industry partners contribute in cash at least 10% of full project costs) and LINK projects (at least 50% of full project cost from industry)
Joint projects with Brazil (FAPESP), Luxembourg (FNR) and the US (UKRI-SBE lead agency), with international partners funded by their own agencies

multidisciplinary proposals crossing into other councils' areas are welcome but the primary focus must be within BBSRC's remit. The UK component of FAPESP lead agency projects must not exceed £1 million FEC. Reasonable adjustment costs may exceed the funding limit.

What it will not fund

Projects whose primary focus falls outside BBSRC's remit
Uninvited resubmissions of projects submitted to UKRI or any other funder
International partners' costs in lead agency applications (funded by their own agency)

How to apply

Check your project fits BBSRC's remit (email remit@bbsrc.ukri.org if unsure) and confirm your eligibility with your research office (or eligibility@bbsrc.ukri.org)
Decide which scheme you are applying through: standard, Industrial Partnership Award (IPA), LINK, Brazil (FAPESP), Luxembourg (FNR) or UKRI-SBE lead agency; for UKRI-SBE, get an approved expression of interest first
Make sure your research organisation is registered on the UKRI Funding Service (Je-S is not used), then start an application (https://funding-service.ukri.org/OPP1272/apply/1303) and confirm you are the project lead
Answer the questions: scheme, remit classification (committee A to D), summary (550 words), core team, vision (550), approach (3,300, with an embedded Gantt chart and how accessibility and inclusiveness are built in), applicant and team capability (1,650, R4RI format), project partners and their statements of support, resources and cost justification (1,000), data management and sharing (500), facilities (500), ethics and RRI (500), animals, genetic technologies, human participation, and Trusted Research and Innovation
Upload any scheme-specific documents as a single PDF (IPA, LINK, FAPESP, FNR or UKRI-SBE only)
Send the application to your research office for checking; they submit it whenever it is ready, as there is no deadline
Respond to the expert reviewers' comments when invited, before the moderating panel

the closing date on Find a Grant (29 April 2027) and on the Funding Service is a system requirement only. If your application is rejected before peer review you can resubmit a revised version immediately.

Have ready

Statements of support from each named project partner, in English or Welsh (not from the host or co-leads' organisations or from collaborators)
Scheme-specific documents as a single PDF of up to 8MB: for IPA or LINK, a letter from your technology transfer office on managing outputs; for FAPESP, the FAPESP proposal form, consolidated budget form and letter of eligibility; for FNR, CVs of international collaborators and the FNR 'INTER' budget form and cost justification; for UKRI-SBE, the NSF budget form
Animal research forms, if the project involves animals

a standard application with no project partners needs no uploads beyond what the Funding Service requests; the rest is answered in text boxes.

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