The ESRC New Investigator Grant is a dedicated funding route within the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) responsive-mode portfolio, designed to help early-career researchers make the transition from working on someone else’s grant to leading their own first independent research project as principal investigator (PI). It sits alongside ESRC’s standard, open-ended Research Grants scheme but carries its own eligibility rules, review criteria, and support requirements calibrated specifically to a first-time PI rather than an established one.
This guide covers who is eligible, what disqualifies an applicant, the mentor requirement, how the award is funded and structured, how it differs from ESRC’s standard Research Grants and from EPSRC’s equivalent scheme, and how to apply through the UKRI Funding Service. ESRC is one of the seven discipline-based research councils that sit inside UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), alongside Innovate UK and Research England.
What Is the ESRC New Investigator Grant?
The New Investigator Grant exists to support new researchers at the start of their careers in becoming independent investigators, by giving them direct experience of managing and leading a research project and a research team. It runs as a responsive-mode scheme — proposals can address any topic within ESRC’s remit rather than a themed call — and is administered through periodic assessment rounds (for example, sequential “round one” and “round two” competitions) even though applications themselves can be submitted at any time via the UKRI Funding Service.
Because the scheme is aimed specifically at the moment a researcher first leads their own grant, its eligibility rules focus less on years since PhD or job title and more on an applicant’s actual funding and leadership history — the same design principle EPSRC uses for its own New Investigator Award (see the comparison section below).
Who Is Eligible
- Project lead status: the “new investigator” must be the project lead who submits the application — this is not a co-investigator or team-member route.
- Eligible research organisation: the applicant must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for ESRC funding, and can be from anywhere in the world, with or without a permanent academic post.
- No prior ESRC/UKRI PI role: applicants cannot be a current or former principal investigator on an ESRC grant or any other UKRI research council grant, with one specific exception — holding an ESRC postdoctoral fellowship does not disqualify an applicant.
- No professorship: applicants who already hold a professorship are not eligible, on the reasoning that a professorial appointment itself indicates an established, rather than transitioning, research career.
Social Science Focus Requirement
Proposals are not restricted to a single discipline, but the social sciences must represent more than 50% of the research focus and effort. Interdisciplinary proposals combining social science with another field are acceptable under the New Investigator Grant on the same basis they are under ESRC’s other schemes, provided that majority threshold is met; administrators supporting a borderline interdisciplinary application should check ESRC’s current remit guidance before submission.
The Mentor Requirement
All applicants are required to have a named mentor based at the research organisation where the grant would be held. The mentor acts as the primary point of support for the project lead across the life of the award and is expected to be an academically accomplished researcher — typically someone other than the applicant’s former PhD supervisor, since the intent is to broaden the applicant’s professional support network rather than extend an existing supervisory relationship. Naming a credible, appropriately senior mentor is treated as part of the application package, not an administrative afterthought, and reviewers can and do assess whether the proposed mentoring arrangement is adequate.
Funding Value and Duration
Awards range from £100,000 to £350,000 at 100% full economic cost (fEC), with ESRC funding 80% of that fEC figure and the host research organisation expected to find the remaining 20% — the same 80%/20% fEC split that applies across UKRI-funded research grants generally. Projects can run for up to five years (60 months), a notably longer maximum duration than many early-career mechanisms, reflecting the scheme’s purpose of establishing a genuinely independent research programme rather than funding a single short project.
How to Apply
Applications are submitted through the UKRI Funding Service (funding-service.ukri.org), which replaced the legacy Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) system as UKRI’s single online platform for finding opportunities, applying, and managing an award through to reporting. The scheme runs with no fixed closing date at the point of submission, though applications are grouped into periodic rounds for assessment.
Once submitted, proposals go through ESRC’s standard peer-review process: assessment by a minimum of three independent reviewers, consideration by a grant assessment panel, and a final funding decision from ESRC’s grants delivery process. Reviewers are asked to weigh originality, research design, value for money, planned outputs and impact, and — distinctively for this scheme — the applicant’s own skill and career development as part of the project. Because assessment criteria, panel dates, and the exact current funding envelope can change between rounds, administrators scoping a live application should always confirm the terms of the currently open round directly on the UKRI Funding Service rather than relying on a previous round’s listing.
ESRC New Investigator Grant vs. ESRC Research Grants
ESRC’s standard Research Grants (its core responsive-mode scheme for established investigators) fund proposals from roughly £350,000 to £1 million at 100% fEC, with no upper limit on prior PI experience. The New Investigator Grant is a separate, purpose-built route beneath that funding band — £100,000 to £350,000 — reserved for applicants who have not yet held ESRC or UKRI PI status and who are not already professors. A researcher who becomes ineligible for the New Investigator Grant (for example, on being promoted to professor, or after leading a first ESRC/UKRI grant) moves into the standard Research Grants applicant pool for future proposals. See CASRAI’s ESRC Funding overview guide for the full picture of ESRC’s scheme portfolio, including its doctoral and studentship routes.
ESRC New Investigator Grant vs. EPSRC New Investigator Award
ESRC is not the only UKRI council to run a “new investigator” mechanism. EPSRC (the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) operates a parallel scheme, the EPSRC New Investigator Award (NIA), built on the same underlying logic — support researchers moving from working under someone else’s grant to leading their own — but with EPSRC-specific thresholds: an applicant is disqualified from the NIA if they have already held, as PI or a significant co-investigator, more than six months of postdoctoral researcher time, capital equipment costing more than £20,000, or a grant exceeding £100,000 fEC on a single award. Both schemes require a named mentor and both assess actual funding history rather than years since PhD, but the specific disqualifying thresholds, funding bands, and subject remits differ by council — a researcher working across an ESRC/EPSRC interdisciplinary boundary should check both councils’ current criteria rather than assuming one scheme’s rules apply to the other. See CASRAI’s EPSRC New Investigator Award guide for the full EPSRC-specific eligibility detail.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a postdoctoral researcher without a permanent academic post apply?
Yes. ESRC’s eligibility guidance does not require a permanent post; the applicant can be based at an eligible UK research organisation with or without a permanent academic appointment, provided the other eligibility criteria (project-lead status, no prior ESRC/UKRI PI role, no professorship) are met.
Does holding an ESRC postdoctoral fellowship disqualify an applicant?
No — it is the one explicit exception to the “no prior PI role” rule. An ESRC postdoctoral fellowship does not count as disqualifying prior PI experience for New Investigator Grant purposes.
Is there a fixed application deadline?
No single fixed annual deadline — the scheme is submitted through the UKRI Funding Service with no closing date at submission, though ESRC groups applications into periodic assessment rounds. Check the current live opportunity listing on the UKRI Funding Service for the assessment timetable in force at the time of application.
Who chooses the required mentor?
The applicant identifies and names their own mentor as part of the application, typically an academically accomplished researcher at the same research organisation, usually someone other than their former PhD supervisor.
What happens after a researcher is no longer eligible for the New Investigator Grant?
Once a researcher has held a New Investigator Grant (or otherwise gains ESRC/UKRI PI experience, or is promoted to professor), they move into ESRC’s standard Research Grants applicant pool for subsequent proposals rather than remaining eligible for further New Investigator awards.
