ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council)

<p>The <strong>ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council)</strong> is the UK statutory research council responsible for funding economic, social, behavioural, and human data science research. It is one of the seven discipline-based research councils operating as constituent parts of <a href='/dictionary/term/ukri-funding-service'>UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)</a> — a body qualifies as "ESRC-funded" when its award is made under an ESRC scheme (responsive-mode grants, ESRC-badged fellowships and studentships, or ESRC-led cross-council calls) and its subject matter falls within ESRC's social-science remit, as distinct from awards made by UKRI's other councils (EPSRC for engineering/physical sciences, MRC for biomedical/clinical research, BBSRC for biosciences, and so on) or by non-statutory private funders.</p>

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 23 Jul 2026

Worked examples

Is an instance

A £600,000 ESRC Research Grant (Standard Grant) awarded to a university sociology department to study labour-market effects of automation — falls within ESRC's remit and is administered under ESRC's responsive-mode scheme via the UKRI Funding Service.

Is an instance

An ESRC New Investigator Grant awarded to an early-career political scientist for a first standalone project, or an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship supporting a recent social-science PhD graduate into an independent research career — both ESRC-badged schemes sitting within UKRI's shared funding infrastructure.

Is an instance

A studentship funded through an ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP), where cohorts of PhD students across a consortium of universities are funded together under ESRC's postgraduate training model.

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance

A clinical trial evaluating a new diabetes drug funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) — same UKRI umbrella, but the subject matter (biomedical/clinical) falls within MRC's remit, not ESRC's, so it is not an ESRC award even though both councils sit inside UKRI.

Not an instance

A qualitative social-policy study funded by the Nuffield Foundation — a privately endowed charitable trust, not a statutory public body, so it is a foundation grant rather than an ESRC award even though the subject matter would otherwise fall within ESRC's remit. See Research council for the statutory-vs-private distinction.

ESRC is the UK’s largest public funder of economic, social, behavioural, and human data science research. Along with six other discipline research councils, plus Innovate UK and Research England, it is one of the nine constituent organisations of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), formed in April 2018. Before that, ESRC operated as a separate legal entity; it now holds its own council board, budget line, and subject remit inside UKRI’s shared structure rather than running fully independent systems.

Origins

ESRC traces its lineage to 1965, when it was established as the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). It was restructured and renamed the Economic and Social Research Council in 1983. That history means ESRC predates UKRI by more than five decades — UKRI is a relatively recent administrative umbrella, not the origin of the council itself.

What ESRC funds

ESRC’s remit covers the social sciences broadly: economics, sociology, psychology, political science, human geography, demography, social policy, education, law, and management and business research, including the application of data science methods to social and economic questions. Interdisciplinary proposals that combine social science with another council’s remit (health, environment, engineering) are common and are often routed through cross-council calls or co-funded studentships rather than ESRC funding alone; UKRI’s councils assign borderline or interdisciplinary proposals to whichever remit best fits rather than leaving the choice to the applicant.

Main funding routes

Research Grants (Standard Grants) — ESRC’s core responsive-mode scheme, with no fixed closing dates, funded like all UKRI grants at 80% of full economic cost (fEC), with the host institution expected to find the remaining 20%.
New Investigator Grants — for researchers within a set number of years of PhD completion running their first standalone project as principal investigator. See ESRC New Investigator Grant.
Postdoctoral Fellowships — supporting recent social-science PhD graduates into independent research careers. See ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) — ESRC’s cohort-based postgraduate training model, funding groups of PhD studentships across a university or consortium rather than one studentship at a time.

Where to apply

Like the other UKRI councils, ESRC opportunities, applications, and award management increasingly run through the shared UKRI Funding Service rather than a fully standalone ESRC system; the legacy esrc.ukri.org domain now largely redirects into UKRI’s central site. Applicants and research administrators should treat ukri.org as the authoritative current source for live ESRC deadlines and guidance rather than relying on older bookmarked ESRC-specific URLs.

ESRC in context among the UKRI councils

ESRC is one of seven UKRI discipline research councils — alongside AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, MRC, NERC, and STFC — each with its own subject remit and, in most cases, its own badged scheme names, sitting inside UKRI’s single shared funding and reporting infrastructure. For the broader institutional category ESRC is an instance of, see Research council; for how the nine UKRI organisations fit together, see UKRI Grants: How the Nine Councils and Funding Service Fit Together and UKRI Funding: How UK Research and Innovation Works.

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