GrantRadar

UK Research and Innovation (EPSRC)

Transformative sustainable AI technologies

UKRI funding for speculative, high-risk, technology-led research that could bring a step change in the sustainability of future AI systems, such as energy-efficient algorithms, smaller task-specific models, hardware and software co-design or repairable hardware. It is for researchers at UK research organisations eligible for UKRI funding, and research technical professionals such as research software engineers are welcome to lead. Projects can cost up to £602,500 full economic cost, of which UKRI pays 80% (£482,000), must start on 1 February 2027 and last up to 24 months. Decisions are made by distributed peer review, so every applicant team must review around eight to 10 other proposals in November 2026.

Apply on the funder’s site
You could get
£1 – £602,500
Deadline
23 days left
10 November
Effort
Heavy
budgets, references, often several stages

Who can apply

  • Standard UKRI eligibility: the project lead must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for UKRI funding and meet UKRI's individual eligibility rules, and only the lead research organisation submits
  • Research groups and individuals can apply, and applications led by research technical professionals (including research software engineers) involved in digital research infrastructure are welcome, as project lead or co-lead
  • Joint leadership is allowed with one agreed administrative lead
  • Each person can be involved in no more than two applications, and lead only one
  • International researchers can join only as project co-lead (international) under the UKRI-Research Council of Norway Money Follows Cooperation agreement or the UKRI-IIASA agreement; other international collaborators and UK partners not at approved organisations take part as project partners (partners can be in industry, academia, the third sector or government)
  • The Royal Academy of Engineering must not be approached as a partner or for a letter of support
  • By applying, teams agree to take part in distributed peer review; missing the review deadline means automatic rejection

What it funds

Potentially transformative, highly novel AI technologies, computational approaches, methods, tools, architectures and techniques that could significantly improve the sustainability of future AI systems, for example:

  • Creation of novel, energy efficient algorithms, architecture, systems or software
  • Creation of smaller task specific models that benefit the performance of AI systems
  • AI systems optimised for resource-constrained environments
  • Novel hardware and software co-design
  • Utilising emerging technologies or approaches to develop efficient processors
  • Hardware that is repairable, easier to disassemble for critical materials recovery or to update the system
  • Costs: contribution to the salary of the project lead and co-leads
  • Research, technical and project management staff
  • Research consumables including compute costs
  • Travel and subsistence, including cohort activities such as the annual workshop and networking
  • Data preservation, data sharing and dissemination
  • Estates and indirect costs

the focus is the AI compute, IT infrastructure, and algorithms and data parts of the AI value chain. The primary focus should be developing and demonstrating the technology, not solely assessing or benchmarking its sustainability. Projects are not expected to produce tangible outcomes such as new AI models or spinouts within two years, and applicants must explain why the work cannot be funded through other routes such as responsive mode.

What it will not fund

  • Applications that consist of majority non-technical research such as purely social science, environmental, legal, policy or ethical studies
  • Incremental work lacking ambition to push the boundaries of sustainable AI
  • Continuation of existing projects
  • Projects focused on benchmarking against existing tools and techniques or replicating what exists within industry
  • PhD studentship costs
  • Equipment with a value over £25,000 per item (including VAT)
  • Uninvited resubmissions of projects submitted to UKRI or any other funder
  • No-cost extensions for reasons not related to people

How to apply

  1. Make sure your research organisation is registered on the UKRI Funding Service (Je-S is not used)
  2. Start an application on the UKRI Funding Service and confirm you are the project lead
  3. Write a Vision and Approach document of no more than 3 sides of A4 (plus an optional page for a diagrammatic workplan) and upload it as a single PDF
  4. Answer the remaining questions, including applicant and team capability, ethics and RRI, resources and cost justification, and risk and reward
  5. Nominate one or two team members, including the project lead, for distributed peer review; they must be available throughout November 2026
  6. Send the application to your research office, which checks it and submits it to UKRI by 4pm on 10 November 2026
  7. Review the around eight to 10 proposals allocated to your team, with three weeks for each review

funding for this opportunity is subject to full business case approval. There is no project lead response or panel step. Failing to nominate at least one reviewer means rejection.

Have ready

  • Vision and Approach document: up to 3 sides of A4, 11-point Arial or equivalent with margins of at least 2cm, as a single PDF no bigger than 8MB, named with the Funding Service number followed by 'Vision and Approach'
  • Letters or emails of support from each named project partner, one side of A4 per partner, as a single PDF, in English or Welsh

do not send letters of support from the host or project co-leads' research organisations. Partner letters are needed only if you have project partners.

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