Overview of types of funding

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Commercialisation

Where a new technology is ready to be commercialised in the marketplace, there are funding sources available to help the commercialisation of your technology through industry collaborations.

Concept development

Where a new idea, discovery or invention is at a very early stage of development and not yet ready to be commercialised in the marketplace, there are funding sources available to help reach the proof of concept stage.

Development Funding

There are a variety of funding programmes that exist to support research at different stages in the technology development cycle, including industrial R&D collaboration options.

Fellowships

Fellowship funding awards are personal awards, usually lasting 3 to 5 years that enable academics to conduct independent research. These awards provide support with career development and help you to grow research groups. 

Follow-on-Funding

Follow on Funding grants support the translation of research findings into practical applications for economic, social and or cultural impact. Schemes can enable the engagement of research with new audiences or user communities, stimulating pathways to impact, and support knowledge exchange and public engagement or commercialisation activities. 

Impact Funding

These types of grants aim to accelerate the impact of research, including supporting engagement with new audiences or communities, policy development or engagement with industry. 

Managed mode research grant funding

Specified calls for proposals or initiatives for a pre-defined remit. This type of funding can be related to an emerging research opportunity where there is a need to develop research activity to stimulate a particular area.

Network Grants

Network grants are intended to facilitate discussion, mobility, exchange of ideas and debate between researchers and stakeholders on a specific problem. Funding can be used to host workshops, seminars, networks or other events.

New Investigator Awards

New Investigator Awards are intended to support strong researchers who are in the early stages of their independent research careers and have already shown that they can innovate and drive advances in their field of study.

Public Engagement Grants

Grants are available in a variety of sizes, and their aim is to enable individuals and organisations to engage the public in conversations about research, through funding activities, projects, creative spaces, people and organisations.

Responsive mode research grant funding

Awards are available to academics at different levels of expertise and enable them to support a team to deliver a coherent research project. Funders invite original research proposals to an unspecific call, within a remit set by the Funder’s primary mission and objective.  

Sandpit funding

Allocated through an intensive interactive event hosted by a funder, in which groups of researchers from different disciplines collaborate to develop research proposals. A Sandpit usually takes place over a number of days and funding is allocated during the event, with outcomes ranging from large single projects, to smaller projects or networking activities or visits.

Seed Funding

The aim of seed funding is to support various activities that will go on to contribute to a larger application for funding, for example the funding could be used to support experiments to provide primary data collation. View funds

Small Grants

Small grants fund a variety of activities and expenses. They can fund programs of activity to allow researchers to develop networks, provide support for pilot studies, equipment and can cover the cost of the expenses arising from a defined research project.

Small Grants for travel, short visits, conferences, workshops

Many funding bodies provide small grants for specialised travel, workshops conferences or short visits.

Translational Grants

The purpose of these grants are to help bridge the gap between the development of new inventions, technology or concepts that are the result of research, to when it is commercialised.  These grants fund the formation and development of new long-term relationships between a researcher, and an identified translational partner. These partners can be any non-academic user organisation which can translate research outcomes to the commercial field. Find out more

Visiting Fellowships

Enable Institutions to build capacity and promote collaborations by providing funding for institutions to host visits for researchers from other UK or International institutions, usually from between 3 – 12 months but there is also longer term funding available. Funding is intended to enable and encourage interdisciplinary research, international collaboration and networking activities.

Visiting Professorships 

Enable distinguished academics to spend time in other institutions primarily to enhance the skills of the host institution academic staff or student body. Schemes can cover maintenance, travel expenses and research costs. Institutions apply directly for this funding.