EPSRC Grants on the Web is a legacy name for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s public grant records, which today live inside UKRI’s Gateway to Research (GtR) — not a standalone EPSRC portal. Research administrators who search “EPSRC grants on the web” are usually looking for pipeline intelligence — who has been funded, at what value, on what panel — and that data is now accessed through GtR’s project, person, organisation and publication search tabs, with facets and Boolean syntax most users never open.
EPSRC Grants on the Web is the name research administrators still use for EPSRC’s public record of funded projects, even though EPSRC itself no longer runs a separate database under that title. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) — the body that has governed EPSRC since its formation in April 2018 from a merger of seven UK research councils, Research England and Innovate UK — now reports funding data centrally through Gateway to Research. This guide explains where the old records went, how to run an effective search across UKRI’s award database, and which search fields administrators most often overlook.
- What is EPSRC Grants on the Web?
- Where did EPSRC’s “Grants on the Web” go?
- How do you search UKRI’s award database for EPSRC awards?
- How does EPSRC’s data compare with MRC, NERC and BBSRC?
- Answer-first Q&A
- What this means for research administrators
What is EPSRC Grants on the Web?
EPSRC Grants on the Web is a defined term: a public register of grants awarded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, historically published as a searchable database in its own right and now consolidated into UKRI’s cross-council Gateway to Research service. The phrase persists in search behaviour and in older bookmarks, guidance documents and institutional wikis, but the underlying dataset is maintained centrally by UKRI rather than by EPSRC alone.
For funding decisions made before 2018, EPSRC’s historic “funding rates” data — what the council called success and funding rates prior to the UKRI merger — sits in the UK Government Web Archive rather than in any live, searchable interface. That distinction matters for benchmarking: pre-2018 figures require an archive lookup, not a GtR query.
Where did EPSRC’s “Grants on the Web” go?
EPSRC’s council-specific funding page on ukri.org — last updated 29 September 2025 — directs users to Gateway to Research (gtr.ukri.org) for “research and training grants funded by EPSRC,” alongside a Tableau dashboard of panel outcomes. There is no standalone “EPSRC Grants on the Web” URL left to bookmark; the consolidation happened as UKRI centralised funding reporting across its research councils.
This is a genuine source of confusion in the sector, because not every council followed the same path. NERC still operates its own distinct “Grants on the Web” portal at gotw.nerc.ac.uk, separate from Gateway to Research. Administrators who assume EPSRC has an equivalent standalone tool will end up on an archived or dead link instead of the live dataset.
- EPSRC-funded projects, people and organisations: searchable live via Gateway to Research.
- EPSRC panel outcomes and funding application results: a dedicated Tableau dashboard, linked from ukri.org.
- Pre-2018 EPSRC funding/success rates: UK Government Web Archive snapshot only.
- NERC awards: a separate, still-branded “Grants on the Web” portal at gotw.nerc.ac.uk.
How do you search UKRI’s award database for EPSRC awards?
Gateway to Research is built on Elasticsearch and Apache Lucene, so it supports full Boolean and field-level search syntax that most casual users never invoke. To find EPSRC awards specifically, run a keyword search and then apply the “Funder” facet to restrict results to EPSRC — the same mechanism works for MRC, NERC, BBSRC, ESRC, AHRC, STFC, Research England and Innovate UK, since all sit inside the same index.
The search fields research administrators most often miss are the ones below the basic keyword box:
- Quoted phrases — wrapping a term in quotation marks (e.g.
"quantum sensing") matches the exact phrase rather than the individual words, which cuts noise dramatically on common technical terms. - Boolean operators —
AND,ORandNOTmust be capitalised to function; lower-case “and” is treated as a stray keyword, not an operator. - Wildcards — a question mark (
?) matches a single character and an asterisk (*) matches zero or more, useful for catching spelling variants across a large grant corpus. - Fuzzy and proximity search — a tilde after a term (
test~0.8) finds near-matches; a tilde after a quoted phrase ("test blood"~10) finds terms within a set word distance of each other. - Resource-type tabs — Projects, Persons, Organisations and Publications each expose a different advanced-search form, so a search run on the Projects tab will not surface matching Person or Organisation records by default.
- Facets — ordered alphabetically and additive; selecting facets across categories (funder, scheme, research topic, lead organisation) narrows a result set, but switching tabs clears facets from the previous search.
For institutional benchmarking, combine a funder facet (EPSRC) with an organisation facet and a date range, then bookmark the query URL — GtR search results are shareable by link, useful for a live funding-strategy dashboard rather than a static export.
How does EPSRC’s data compare with MRC, NERC and BBSRC?
Not every UKRI council presents its award data the same way. The table below summarises where each dataset actually lives, which is the detail administrators need before writing a search strategy that spans more than one funder.
| Council | Primary live database | Legacy/standalone portal | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPSRC | Gateway to Research (gtr.ukri.org) | None — retired into GtR | Panel outcomes tracked separately via Tableau; pre-2018 rates in the Government Web Archive |
| MRC | Gateway to Research (gtr.ukri.org) | None — retired into GtR | MRC award and studentship data reported through the same GtR index as EPSRC |
| NERC | Gateway to Research (gtr.ukri.org) | gotw.nerc.ac.uk (“Grants on the Web”) | NERC still runs a dedicated legacy portal alongside GtR |
| BBSRC | Gateway to Research (gtr.ukri.org) | Referenced as “Grants on the Web” in search behaviour, no dedicated live URL | Council-specific funding page links back to GtR |
A single, correctly faceted Gateway to Research query will retrieve EPSRC, MRC, BBSRC and most other UKRI council awards from one interface — but anyone chasing NERC records should also check gotw.nerc.ac.uk, since it is not a simple synonym for GtR.
Answer-first Q&A
What is an EPSRC grant?
An EPSRC grant is a funding award made by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to support research or training in engineering, mathematics, physical sciences and related disciplines. Awards are assessed at panel meetings, recorded centrally by UKRI, and searchable through Gateway to Research alongside awards from every other UKRI council.
What is the EPSRC standard grant?
The EPSRC standard grant is EPSRC’s core responsive-mode funding route, supporting investigator-led research proposals that fall within the council’s engineering and physical sciences remit. It sits alongside programme grants, fellowships and other UKRI application routes, and outcomes for standard-grant applications appear in the same panel-outcomes Tableau dashboard as other EPSRC schemes.
Who is eligible for EPSRC funding?
Eligibility for EPSRC funding generally requires an applicant to be based at an eligible UK research organisation and to hold, or be applying for, a role recognised by UKRI as suitable for a principal or co-investigator. Exact eligibility rules vary by funding scheme, so administrators should check the specific opportunity’s guidance on ukri.org before assuming a route applies.
Are UKRI and EPSRC the same?
No — UKRI and EPSRC are not the same body. UKRI is the umbrella organisation formed in 2018 that brings together seven research councils (including EPSRC and MRC), Research England and Innovate UK. EPSRC is one constituent council operating under UKRI’s governance, which is why EPSRC’s award data now reports through UKRI’s shared Gateway to Research rather than a council-only system.
What this means for research administrators
Treating “EPSRC Grants on the Web” as a live, separate URL wastes time chasing archived or dead pages. The efficient workflow is to query Gateway to Research directly, apply the EPSRC funder facet, and layer in Boolean, wildcard or proximity syntax when a common technical term returns too much noise. Institutions building funding-pipeline dashboards for research administration teams should bookmark faceted GtR query URLs rather than static exports, since the index updates as new awards are recorded.
As UKRI continues centralising reporting across its councils, expect fewer standalone legacy portals to survive outside NERC’s. Administrators who build benchmarking habits around GtR’s search syntax now will not need to relearn an interface if NERC’s “Grants on the Web” is eventually folded into the same system.
