Small research grants and large research grants are not separate funding systems — they sit on one UKRI governance spectrum, and award size is what determines review depth, application structure and post-award reporting burden. A small grant such as the British Academy/Leverhulme scheme (up to £10,000, single-stage) can be assessed in weeks; a NERC large grant (£1.12 million to £3.45 million, two-stage outline-then-full) can take a year to award and five years to report against.
A small research grant is a fixed-ceiling, typically single-stage award — commonly £5,000 to £20,000 — for a discrete, short piece of work. A large grant is a multi-year, competitively tiered award of £1 million or more that funds a full research programme through a staged review process.
- What counts as a small grant vs a large grant?
- How do application and review processes differ?
- What reporting and governance burden applies after award?
- Common questions about small and large UKRI grants
- What this means for research administrators
What Counts as a Small Grant vs a Large Grant?
UKRI research councils do not use one shared threshold for “small” and “large” — each council sets its own ceiling, and some (EPSRC) avoid fixed tiers altogether. NERC operates three explicit tiers under its Discovery Science route: Pushing the Frontiers, Large Grants and Urgency funding. EPSRC, by contrast, runs a single scalable Standard Research Grant with no fixed upper or lower limit, plus targeted smaller-scale mechanisms such as the New Horizons pilot. The British Academy, working with the Leverhulme Trust, funds a dedicated small-grants scheme capped well below research-council large-grant thresholds.
| Scheme | Funding limit | Timing | Typical duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| NERC Urgency funding | Up to £100,000 (100% FEC; 80% NERC-funded) | Always open; two-stage, fast-track | Up to 12 months |
| BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants | Up to £10,000 (direct costs only, not FEC) | Fixed annual round deadline | 1–24 months |
| EPSRC New Horizons | Up to £200,000 | Anonymised, two-stage pilot call | Project-dependent |
| NERC Pushing the Frontiers | Up to £950,000 (100% FEC; 80% NERC-funded) | Always open; no submission deadline | Typically 3–4 years |
| EPSRC Standard Research Grant | No fixed ceiling | Open call, no deadline | Project-dependent |
| NERC Large Grants | £1.12m–£3.45m (100% FEC; 80% NERC-funded) | Two-stage: outline (typically March), full by invitation (typically November) | Up to 5 years |
A widely repeated but inaccurate assumption is that every UKRI council mirrors NERC’s named small/large split. It does not: EPSRC’s model deliberately avoids a labelled “small grants” scheme, using one scalable Standard Research Grant assessed by the same peer-review process regardless of size. Anyone searching for “EPSRC small grants” is really looking for New Horizons or a modestly scoped Standard Research Grant submission, not a distinct low-tier programme.
How Do Application and Review Processes Differ?
The core distinction is single-stage versus two-stage review, and it tracks award size closely across every council studied here. Small and mid-tier schemes generally use one submission, assessed directly by a review college or panel; large-grant schemes add a competitive outline stage before a full proposal is even invited.
- Single-stage: BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants (Flexi-Grant submission, assessed by the Academy’s peer review college) and NERC Pushing the Frontiers (expert review with a moderating panel) both go straight from submission to decision.
- Two-stage: NERC Large Grants require an outline application assessed by a panel; only invited applicants then submit a full proposal for expert review and moderation. NERC Urgency funding is nominally two-stage too, but the outline exists purely to confirm eligibility quickly, with a target six-week turnaround from full application to decision.
- EPSRC New Horizons uses an anonymised two-stage process specifically to reduce reviewer bias on smaller, higher-risk proposals — a governance choice distinct from NERC’s competitive-filtering rationale for its own two-stage large-grant process.
For applicants, this means the administrative lead time scales with award size far more than with subject area. A £10,000 British Academy grant and a £950,000 NERC Pushing the Frontiers award both clear in one review cycle; a £3 million NERC Large Grant does not clear a panel until it has survived outline competition first.
What Reporting and Governance Burden Applies After Award?
Post-award governance splits along the same research-council/charitable-trust line as the application process. UKRI research councils — NERC and EPSRC included — route grant holders through the Researchfish platform for standardised annual reporting on outputs, outcomes and impact, continuing for at least five years after the grant ends. The British Academy, which is not a UKRI council, instead requires its own end-of-award report submitted directly to the Academy rather than through Researchfish.
Full economic costing (FEC) is the other structural divide. NERC and EPSRC research-council grants are costed at 100% FEC, with the council paying 80% and the host institution covering the remainder — a standard UKRI convention that applies uniformly across small and large research-council tiers alike. The BA/Leverhulme scheme sits outside FEC entirely: its £10,000 ceiling covers direct research expenses only, with no institutional overhead contribution and no allowance for replacement teaching or computing equipment.
Common Questions About Small and Large UKRI Grants
What is considered a large grant?
Under NERC, a large grant specifically means an award of £1.12 million to £3.45 million at 100% full economic cost, assessed through a two-stage outline-then-full process and tenable for up to five years. Other UKRI councils apply different, uncapped, or scheme-specific thresholds rather than sharing one fixed definition.
What are the different types of UKRI funding?
UKRI funding spans applicant-led responsive-mode grants (like NERC Discovery Science or EPSRC Standard Research Grants), targeted strategic or highlight calls tied to specific priorities, fellowships for individual researchers, and doctoral training and infrastructure funding. Award size and review structure vary by route, not by a single UKRI-wide small/large rule.
What is NERC funding?
NERC is one of UKRI’s seven research councils, funding environmental science through applicant-led routes including Pushing the Frontiers, Large Grants and Urgency funding, alongside strategic programmes. All applicant-led NERC awards are costed at 100% full economic cost, with NERC funding 80% of that total.
What This Means for Research Administrators
For research administration teams, the practical planning question is not “which scheme pays more” but “which governance track the proposal must clear.” A discrete, well-scoped pilot study fits the single-stage BA/Leverhulme or NERC Pushing the Frontiers route; a multi-institution, multi-year programme should be budgeted and staffed for NERC’s outline-then-full large-grant cycle from the outset, including the reviewer-moderation delay built into that second stage.
Institutions that misjudge this distinction typically lose time in one of two ways: submitting a large, complex case for support to a single-stage small-grant scheme that cannot accommodate it, or under-resourcing the sustained Researchfish and FEC reporting obligations that follow a successful large-grant award for years after the project itself ends. Mapping proposal scope to the correct tier before submission — rather than after an outline is rejected — remains the single highest-leverage step research administration teams can take across NERC, EPSRC and BA/Leverhulme funding routes alike.
