UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is the umbrella non-departmental public body that funds and coordinates research and innovation across the United Kingdom. It was established on 1 April 2018 under the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, bringing together seven previously separate research councils, the higher-education funding functions that became Research England, and the business-innovation agency Innovate UK into a single organisation sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). For a research administrator, “UKRI funding” rarely means a single scheme — it means one of nine constituent bodies, each with its own remit, application system in some cases, and funding rules layered underneath a shared UKRI-wide framework.
What UKRI is and why it exists
Before 2018, the UK’s seven discipline-based research councils operated as independent legal entities, each with its own funding streams, governance, and administrative conventions. The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 merged them into UKRI alongside Research England (which absorbed the research-funding functions previously held by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, HEFCE) and Innovate UK (formerly the Technology Strategy Board). The stated purpose was to give UK research and innovation a single strategic voice, enable cross-council and interdisciplinary funding that individual councils could not easily coordinate on their own, and simplify the funding landscape for institutions and businesses working across disciplinary boundaries.
UKRI is funded by Parliament through grant-in-aid — a public-finance mechanism distinct from a project research grant — paid via its sponsoring department. UKRI then allocates the large majority of that funding onward as competitively awarded grants, fellowships, and studentships through its constituent councils.
The nine constituent parts of UKRI
UKRI is not a single funding programme; it is a federation of nine organisations, each retaining its own subject remit, scheme names, and (for most of the research councils) shared application infrastructure:
- AHRC — Arts and Humanities Research Council. See AHRC Funding: Schemes, Rates, and How to Apply.
- BBSRC — Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
- ESRC — Economic and Social Research Council, the UK’s largest funder of economic, social, behavioural, and human data science research.
- EPSRC — Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. See EPSRC New Investigator Award.
- MRC — Medical Research Council.
- NERC — Natural Environment Research Council.
- STFC — Science and Technology Facilities Council.
- Research England — funds and oversees research and knowledge exchange at English universities, largely through block-grant (“quality-related,” or QR) allocations informed by the Research Excellence Framework (REF), rather than through individually assessed, competitively awarded project grants. Because most of its funding is block-allocated rather than project-level, Research England’s awards are not tracked project-by-project in UKRI’s public Gateway to Research database the way research-council grants are.
- Innovate UK — the UK’s innovation agency, funding business-led research and development and technology commercialisation rather than academic research per se. Innovate UK runs its own competitions through a separate Innovation Funding Service platform, distinct from the UKRI Funding Service the seven research councils share, with no shared account data between the two systems.
Each research council retains its own scheme names, panels, and (in some cases) discipline-specific rules — a Standard Research Grant means something different at AHRC than at EPSRC — but they now share a common funding platform, common overarching policies (open access, research integrity expectations, full economic costing), and a common narrative-CV format for applicants.
How much UKRI funds, and where the money goes
UKRI’s total budget was approximately £8.8 billion in the 2025-26 financial year, with an allocation of roughly £9.2 billion set for 2026-27 — a multi-year settlement that UKRI and the government have also described cumulatively as around £39 billion across a four-year funding period. Allocations across the seven research councils vary in scale and change year to year with each government spending review; recent published figures put the Medical Research Council and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council among the largest individual council budgets (each several hundred million pounds annually), with the Arts and Humanities Research Council among the smallest. Because these figures move with each annual budget-allocation announcement, treat any specific year’s number as a snapshot rather than a stable constant, and check UKRI’s own published “Budget allocations” explainer for the current settlement before citing a figure as current.
How UKRI funding actually works
Full economic costing
UKRI research council grants, fellowships, and studentships are costed on a full-economic-cost (fEC) basis. UKRI funds successful proposals at 80% of fEC, with the host institution expected to find the remaining 20% from its own resources. UK universities use the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) methodology, UKRI-validated, to calculate the fEC of a proposed project; other eligible research organisations may apply dispensation rates or their own UKRI-validated rates instead. This 80%/TRAC structure applies uniformly across all seven research councils — it is a UKRI-wide policy, not something set independently by each council.
Applying: the UKRI Funding Service
The seven research councils share a single online application and award-management platform, the UKRI Funding Service (funding-service.ukri.org), which replaced the older Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) system on a rolling basis from 2023 into 2024. Innovate UK is the exception: its competitions run through the separate Innovation Funding Service rather than the shared UKRI Funding Service, reflecting its distinct business-facing remit.
Narrative CVs: R4RI
Since 2024, UKRI has required applicants and, in some cases, reviewers to use the R4RI (Résumé for Research and Innovation) mandate, a structured narrative-CV format adapted from the Royal Society’s Résumé for Researchers concept, in place of a traditional publication-list CV for most funding opportunities.
Reporting and public data: Researchfish vs. Gateway to Research
Two UKRI-linked systems are frequently confused because both concern “what a UKRI grant produced,” but they serve different purposes and audiences:
- Researchfish is the grantee-facing, mandatory annual outcomes-reporting tool. Principal investigators on UKRI awards must submit an annual outcomes update as a condition of their grant terms and conditions, from early in the project until at least five years after it ends.
- Gateway to Research (GtR) is UKRI’s free, public-facing discovery portal, publishing project, funding, and organisation data (drawing in part on the outcome data collected via Researchfish) with no submission or login function for researchers.
Doctoral and postdoctoral funding through UKRI
UKRI funds doctoral training primarily through cohort-based Centres for Doctoral Training and Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs) rather than individual studentships awarded one at a time. UKRI sets a minimum doctoral stipend UK-wide — see UKRI PhD Stipend for current rates — and funds a range of career-stage fellowships and postdoctoral fellowships across its constituent councils.
UKRI vs. the individual research councils: which to reference
Because UKRI-wide policy (fEC/TRAC, the UKRI Funding Service, R4RI, Researchfish reporting) applies uniformly, most day-to-day administrative questions about how to apply, cost, or report on a grant are answered at the UKRI level regardless of which council is funding the work. Scheme names, panel structure, discipline-specific eligibility, and award value bands, by contrast, are set independently by each research council — for those specifics, consult the individual council’s own guidance (see the AHRC and EPSRC guides linked above) rather than treating UKRI-level policy as a substitute.
A common point of confusion: UKRI vs. UKRIO
UKRIO (the UK Research Integrity Office) is not part of UKRI, despite the near-identical acronym. UKRIO is an independent advisory body on research integrity, separate from UKRI’s funding and governance structure. Don’t conflate the two in policy or compliance documentation.
Frequently asked questions
What is UKRI?
UK Research and Innovation is the non-departmental public body, established in April 2018 under the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, that funds and coordinates UK research and innovation. It comprises seven research councils, Research England, and Innovate UK, and is sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
What are the seven UKRI research councils?
AHRC (arts and humanities), BBSRC (biotechnology and biological sciences), ESRC (economic and social research), EPSRC (engineering and physical sciences), MRC (medical research), NERC (natural environment), and STFC (science and technology facilities).
Is Research England part of UKRI?
Yes. Research England is one of UKRI’s nine constituent organisations, responsible for funding and overseeing research and knowledge exchange at English universities, mainly through block-grant allocations informed by the Research Excellence Framework rather than individually competed project grants.
How is Innovate UK funding different from research council funding?
Innovate UK funds business-led research, development, and innovation rather than academic research, and applicants apply through a separate Innovation Funding Service platform, not the UKRI Funding Service the seven research councils share.
Does UKRI fund all UK research?
No. UKRI is the largest public funder of UK research and innovation, but other funders — including NIHR, the Wellcome Trust, and various charities and industry sponsors — fund UK research independently of UKRI, sometimes under comparable but not identical rules (for example, several also use Researchfish for outcomes reporting).
Is UKRIO part of UKRI?
No. UKRIO (the UK Research Integrity Office) is an independent research-integrity advisory body, unrelated in governance to UKRI despite the similar name.
