CASRAI Dictionary

Category: Policy & Funding News

Reporting and briefings on external policy, regulatory, and funder developments affecting the research community worldwide.

  • New Expectations and Demands from Science (OECD)

    The OECD’s new working paper, “New expectations and demands from science: Rethinking research assessment frameworks,” maps the tensions, actors, and drivers reshaping how research is judged worldwide. Published as OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers, No. 2026/07, it is a companion to the OECD’s flagship policy brief “Reforming research assessment for better science” — and it does a different job: rather than prescribing solutions, it diagnoses why current assessment systems are misaligned with what science is now expected to deliver.

    New expectations and demands from science is the OECD’s shorthand for a widening gap: funders, governments, and the public increasingly expect research to be open, collaborative, and socially useful, while most assessment frameworks still reward narrow, quantitative output counts. The working paper is a system-level literature review — it identifies who holds power over assessment criteria, what forces are pushing reform, and where the friction actually sits.

    What the OECD’s companion paper actually says

    The working paper is a 43-page system-level overview, not a set of new rules. OECD (2026) states that research assessment frameworks “play a central role in shaping the priorities, direction, and culture of scientific research,” but that they have grown misaligned with “evolving policy priorities, public expectations, and new demands from science.” The core diagnosis is over-reliance on narrow performance measures — publication counts, journal impact factors, and citation metrics — which generates what the paper calls “perverse incentives and undesirable behaviours.”

    Critically, the paper argues these narrow measures systematically undervalue activities that funders and the public now expect: collaboration across disciplines and borders, open science practices, societal engagement, and direct support to policymaking. The paper does not stop at critique — it distils a set of common reform principles from a comparative review of the international literature, intended to help policymakers and institutions design frameworks that better reflect these expectations.

    How it differs from the flagship OECD report

    The two documents were released as a pair but serve distinct purposes, and treating them as interchangeable misses the news value of the working paper. The flagship document — “Reforming research assessment for better science,” OECD Policy Briefs, No. 56 — is the prescriptive, policymaker-facing output: a short brief calling for balanced, cost-effective, transparent assessment approaches “supported by open data and carefully governed use of AI.”

    “New expectations and demands from science” is the underlying evidence base. It is longer, more academic in register, and organised around system mapping rather than recommendations. Where the policy brief tells institutions what to do, the working paper explains why the system is under strain and who the competing actors are — making it the more useful read for anyone designing an institutional assessment policy rather than just citing OECD guidance.

    Assessment dimension Traditional practice (narrow metrics) OECD’s identified shift
    Research outputs recognised Publications, citation counts, journal impact factor Datasets, software, policy contributions, teaching, public engagement
    Data sources Proprietary bibliometric databases Open, interoperable data infrastructure
    Collaboration Individual authorship credit only Team science and cross-sector collaboration valued explicitly
    Societal role Largely absent from formal criteria Societal and policy impact incorporated
    Use of AI in evaluation Ad hoc, ungoverned Carefully governed, transparent use

    Mapping the actors and tensions in research assessment

    The working paper’s distinguishing contribution is its system-level actor map — it names who sets, applies, and is judged by assessment criteria, and where their interests conflict. This is the part a policy brief cannot do in a few pages.

    • Funders and governments, who set the policy priorities that assessment frameworks are meant to serve but often lag them in criteria design.
    • Universities and research institutions, which apply assessment for hiring, promotion, and tenure and are often the slowest layer to change.
    • Publishers and indexing services, whose proprietary metrics (as flagged in expert commentary on the paper, including from bibliometrics researcher Ludo Waltman of Leiden University’s CWTS) still dominate despite the OECD’s call to shift toward open alternatives.
    • Individual researchers, whose career incentives are shaped by all of the above and who bear the practical cost of misalignment.
    • Research infrastructure and standards bodies, which build the open data and interoperable systems needed to support broader, fairer assessment criteria.

    This tension between what funders say they want and what institutional reward systems actually measure is not a new observation — the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), building on the European Commission’s Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment finalised 20 July 2022, has been pushing the same reform agenda for four years. What the OECD paper adds is a comparative, OECD-wide synthesis rather than a Europe-centred coalition commitment, giving research administrators outside the EU a reference point that isn’t tied to CoARA membership.

    The timing also lines up with parallel European activity: Science Europe published its own position statement, “Connecting Open Science and Research Assessment Reform,” in April 2026, arguing that open science advances and assessment reform are “mutually reinforcing and inter-dependent drivers of research cultures.” Read together, the OECD working paper and the Science Europe statement show the reform agenda converging on the same point from two different institutional angles — global policy synthesis versus funder-coalition advocacy.

    Answer-first Q&A: what people are asking

    What is the OECD’s “New expectations and demands from science” paper?

    It is OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Paper No. 2026/07, published 29 April 2026 as a companion to the OECD’s policy brief “Reforming research assessment for better science.” It provides a system-level literature review mapping the actors, tensions, and drivers behind global research assessment reform, without itself issuing binding recommendations.

    Why does this OECD paper matter for research administrators?

    It gives research administrators and institutional leaders a non-EU-specific, evidence-based reference for redesigning hiring, promotion, and funding-review criteria. Because it maps competing actor interests explicitly, it is more useful for internal policy justification than a short recommendations-only brief.

    What does the OECD say about quantitative indicators in research assessment?

    The paper identifies over-reliance on narrow quantitative indicators — publication counts, citation metrics, journal impact factors — as the central structural problem, arguing it produces perverse incentives and undervalues collaboration, openness, and societal engagement that funders now expect.

    How does this relate to the CoARA reform agreement?

    CoARA’s Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, finalised by the European Commission on 20 July 2022, is a European funder-and-institution coalition commitment. The OECD’s 2026 paper covers similar ground but at OECD-wide scope, functioning as an evidence synthesis rather than a signatory pledge.

    Implications and what comes next

    For research administrators, the practical takeaway is not to wait for a single global standard. The OECD paper’s actor map is a useful diagnostic tool for institutions auditing their own promotion and funding-review criteria against the gap between stated priorities (openness, societal impact, collaboration) and what is actually measured (publication counts and journal placement).

    The convergence of OECD, CoARA, and Science Europe positions in 2026 suggests assessment reform is moving from advocacy toward implementation detail — governance of AI in evaluation, and the shift away from proprietary bibliometric data, are likely to be the next flashpoints. Institutions building or revising assessment frameworks, including those documenting contributor roles through standards such as CRediT, should treat this OECD synthesis as a system-level map to check institutional policy against, not a checklist to copy verbatim. For teams working through the practical mechanics of research administration and assessment criteria, CASRAI’s research administration resources track how these standards intersect with day-to-day institutional practice.

  • Horizon Europe Cluster 6 Work Programme 2026: Open Data Rules for Applicants

    The Horizon Europe Cluster 6 Work Programme 2026 requires every funded project to meet the standard Horizon Europe open-research-data baseline — a FAIR-compliant Data Management Plan and immediate open access to publications — plus a Cluster 6-only layer: biodiversity and genetic-resource data must go through recognised repositories, follow Darwin Core-style standards, and satisfy the EU’s Nagoya Protocol access-and-benefit-sharing rules. Research offices supporting Cluster 6 applicants need to track both layers separately, because the biodiversity-specific obligations do not appear in the general Horizon Europe Annotated Grant Agreement text that administrators may already know from other clusters.

    Cluster 6 is the Horizon Europe pillar funding research and innovation on “Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment”, organised into seven policy destinations under the European Green Deal, the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Farm to Fork strategy.

    What open data rules apply across all Horizon Europe clusters?

    Every Horizon Europe grant, regardless of cluster, operates under the Commission’s stated principle of making research data “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”. This baseline applies identically to Clusters 1 through 6 and is not something Cluster 6 changes or adds to.

    Three obligations sit inside this baseline. First, a living Data Management Plan is due within the first six months of the project and must be updated as the work progresses. Second, research data must be handled according to the FAIR principles — Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. Third, all peer-reviewed publications arising from the grant must be made immediately open access, either via an open-access journal or by depositing the accepted manuscript in a trusted repository with no embargo.

    According to the Horizon Europe Annotated Grant Agreement, beneficiaries must deposit machine-readable data and metadata in a trusted repository. None of this is Cluster 6-specific — it is the floor every applicant, in every cluster, must clear.

    What extra biodiversity data-sharing duties does Cluster 6 add?

    Cluster 6’s thematic link to the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 brings a second, additional layer that does not appear in the general programme text. This is the part administrators most often miss, because it is scattered across topic-level annexes rather than stated once in the core rules.

    • Recognised repositories: biodiversity and species-occurrence data generated under Cluster 6 topics is expected to flow into internationally recognised infrastructures, most commonly the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), using the Darwin Core data standard maintained by the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) community.
    • Research infrastructure alignment: proposals are expected to draw on established European research infrastructures for biodiversity and life-science data, including LifeWatch ERIC and ELIXIR, rather than building bespoke, one-off data platforms.
    • Access and benefit-sharing (ABS): where a project accesses genetic resources — for example in agrobiodiversity, microbiome or bioeconomy topics — applicants must comply with Regulation (EU) No 511/2014, the EU’s implementing legislation for the Nagoya Protocol, including due-diligence declarations at key project checkpoints.
    • Global Biodiversity Framework alignment: the draft and adopted 2026-2027 destinations reference the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, adopted at CBD COP15 in December 2022, whose Target 21 specifically calls for improved availability of biodiversity data to decision-makers.

    None of these four points is a restatement of the general FAIR/DMP baseline. They are additive obligations that only attach to Cluster 6 — and, in the case of Nagoya Protocol compliance, to any topic across any cluster that touches genetic resources, but they surface most frequently in Cluster 6’s Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and Circular Economy and Bioeconomy Sectors destinations.

    How does Cluster 6 compare with Clusters 4 and 5 on data requirements?

    Administrators who support applicants across multiple clusters sometimes assume the extra biodiversity layer is programme-wide. It is not. Clusters 4 and 5 remain governed by the general Horizon Europe open-data baseline described above, with no equivalent dedicated data-sharing regime published in their 2026-2027 work programmes.

    Cluster Domain Cluster-specific data-sharing regime beyond the Horizon Europe baseline?
    Cluster 4 Digital, Industry and Space No dedicated cluster-wide regime; individual topics may reference EU common data spaces
    Cluster 5 Climate, Energy and Mobility No dedicated cluster-wide regime; individual topics may reference Copernicus and Destination Earth datasets
    Cluster 6 Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Yes — biodiversity/genetic-resource data via GBIF-compatible standards and Nagoya Protocol ABS compliance

    This distinction matters for institutional research offices: a Data Management Plan template built for a Cluster 4 or Cluster 5 grant will not, by default, cover the ABS due-diligence declarations or repository-mapping steps a Cluster 6 biodiversity topic requires.

    Which 2026 Cluster 6 calls are open now, and what are the deadlines?

    The Cluster 6 Work Programme 2026-2027 groups more than 58 topics into seven calls across seven destinations, following Info Days held in Brussels on 22-23 January 2026. As of July 2026, several calls have already closed their first round while others remain open or are still to launch.

    Call Destinations covered Opened Deadline(s) Status (July 2026)
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-01 Biodiversity; Circular economy and bioeconomy; Zero pollution 17 Apr 2026 17 Sep 2026 Open
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-02 Farm to Fork; Climate action; Communities 14 Jan 2026 14 Apr 2026 Closed
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-03 Governance and digital solutions 14 Jan 2026 15 Apr 2026 Closed
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-04 (COFUND) Governance — Partnership on Agriculture of Data 25 Aug 2026 26 Nov 2026 Not yet open
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-01-two-stage Biodiversity; Circular economy; Zero pollution 12 Feb 2026 Stage 1: 16 Apr 2026 / Stage 2: 23 Sep 2026 Stage 2 pending
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-02-two-stage Farm to Fork 12 Feb 2026 Stage 1: 14 Apr 2026 / Stage 2: 15 Sep 2026 Stage 2 pending
    HORIZON-CL6-2026-03-two-stage Governance 12 Feb 2026 Stage 1: 15 Apr 2026 / Stage 2: 30 Sep 2026 Stage 2 pending

    Research offices with Stage 1 applicants who passed through in April should now be finalising the ABS due-diligence and repository-mapping annexes ahead of the September Stage 2 deadlines — this is precisely where the biodiversity-specific obligations from the previous section get tested in a live submission.

    Cluster 6 open data: frequently asked questions

    What is the 2026 Work Programme of Horizon Europe?

    The 2026 Work Programme is the European Commission’s annually detailed set of funding calls implementing Horizon Europe’s 2025-2027 Strategic Plan. It is published per cluster, sets topic-level budgets, deadlines and eligibility conditions, and forms the legal basis on which applicants submit proposals through the Funding and Tenders Portal.

    What is the Cluster 6 Horizon Work Programme?

    Cluster 6 is the Horizon Europe funding stream for Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment. Its 2026-2027 edition funds over 58 topics across seven destinations, combining Research and Innovation Actions, Innovation Actions and Coordination and Support Actions with a combined 2026 budget exceeding €580 million.

    What is the 6 cluster Horizon Europe?

    Cluster 6 targets environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and unsustainable resource use by funding transformative research across food systems, the circular bioeconomy, pollution control and climate-resilient land and ocean management. It sits within Pillar II of Horizon Europe, alongside Clusters 1 to 5.

    What are the topics of Cluster 6?

    Cluster 6 topics span seven destinations: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Circular Economy and Bioeconomy Sectors, Clean Environment and Zero Pollution, Fair, Healthy and Environment-Friendly Food Systems, Land, Ocean and Water for Climate Action, Communities, and Governance, Observations and Digital Solutions.

    What this means for research offices supporting Cluster 6 applicants

    Institutional research offices that reuse a single, cluster-agnostic Data Management Plan template risk under-serving Cluster 6 applicants. The template needs a supplementary checklist covering repository selection against GBIF or Darwin Core compatibility, an ABS screening question for any genetic-resource sampling, and a named contact for Nagoya Protocol due-diligence sign-off.

    This is also useful evidence for funder-liaison teams explaining why a Cluster 6 proposal’s data section takes longer to clear internal review than a Cluster 4 or Cluster 5 submission — it carries more compliance surface, not administrative overcaution.

    Administrators tracking related programme rules — including broader research administration compliance requirements — should treat the biodiversity-data layer as a standing item on Cluster 6 proposal-development checklists through the remainder of the 2026-2027 work programme, since the underlying Nagoya Protocol and GBIF-alignment expectations are set to persist across subsequent Cluster 6 call rounds.

  • UK Association to Horizon Europe: 2026 Status

    UK association to Horizon Europe remains in force through 2026: the UK has participated as a fully associated country since 1 January 2024, UK-based applicants can lead consortia and receive grants directly from the European Commission, and — because association status legally treats UK grantees as equivalent to EU institutions — those grantees are bound by the same immediate open-access and data-management obligations as any beneficiary in an EU member state.

    Horizon Europe is the European Union’s research and innovation funding programme, running from 2021 to 2027 with a budget of €95.5 billion; UK association is the bespoke agreement, effective 1 January 2024, that lets UK-based researchers, universities and businesses participate in it on equivalent terms to EU member states.

    Where does UK association actually stand in 2026?

    The UK’s association to Horizon Europe is not provisional or under renegotiation — it is a settled, operating arrangement. The UK and EU signed the Joint Statement on UK association on 7 September 2023, and association took legal effect on 1 January 2024, according to both the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the European Commission’s own country page for the United Kingdom.

    All Horizon Europe calls from Work Programme 2024 onward are covered directly by association. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) confirms this remains the case in its guidance updated 9 February 2026: UK applicants “are eligible to receive funding directly from the European Commission” for calls issued between 2024 and 2027, the remaining lifetime of the current programme.

    According to Universities UK’s analysis published 27 May 2026, the first full year of association reversed a multi-year decline in UK research funding that followed the post-Brexit interruption — a data point that matters for institutional strategy, not just headline status.

    How UK grantees access funding: guarantee scheme vs direct EU payment

    UK-based institutions currently sit across two distinct funding mechanisms depending on when their grant was awarded, plus one narrow exclusion. Research offices managing legacy awards alongside new Horizon Europe grants need to track which regime applies to which project.

    Funding route Applies to Paid by Status in 2026
    UKRI Horizon Europe Guarantee Work Programmes 2021–2023 UK government (UKRI) Legacy; over £1 billion awarded as of April 2023, per UKRI
    Direct EU association funding Work Programmes 2024–2027 European Commission Active — current default route for new UK awards
    EIC Accelerator (equity/blended finance) Innovation Council fund N/A — excluded UK entities remain excluded from this specific fund, per the European Commission

    The exclusion is narrow and frequently misunderstood: it applies only to the equity and blended-finance component of the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator, not to Horizon Europe participation generally. UK organisations remain eligible for EIC Accelerator grant-only funding and for every other pillar of the programme.

    HM Treasury’s 2021 Spending Review earmarked £6.9 billion (roughly €6.5 billion) to cover Horizon Europe association costs through 2025 — spanning both the transitional guarantee scheme and subsequent association-fee payments — a figure widely cited by pan-European research-advocacy analysis of UK reassociation costs.

    What open access and data rules apply to UK grantees?

    Because association is legally equivalent participation rather than a side arrangement, UK-based grant holders sign the same Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement as any EU beneficiary, and Article 17’s open science conditions apply without modification. There is no “UK variant” of the mandate.

    • Immediate open access — peer-reviewed publications must be deposited in a trusted repository and made openly accessible at the moment of publication, with no embargo period permitted.
    • CC BY licensing — publications must carry a Creative Commons Attribution licence (or equivalent), with alternative CC licences permitted for long-form outputs such as monographs.
    • Trusted-repository deposit — a machine-readable copy of the accepted manuscript or published version must be deposited, independent of the journal’s own access model.
    • Data management and sharing — funded projects must maintain a data management plan aligned with FAIR principles and include a data-access statement in resulting publications.

    For UK research offices, the practical consequence is that Horizon Europe compliance sits on top of — not instead of — UK funder open-access policy (UKRI’s own OA policy) and REF-related outputs guidance. Grant agreement terms take precedence for Horizon Europe-funded outputs specifically, so institutions need workflows that flag Horizon Europe grants for the stricter, no-embargo standard even where a parallel UK funder policy would tolerate a delay.

    Answer-first Q&A

    Is the UK associated to Horizon Europe?

    Yes. The UK has been a fully associated country since 1 January 2024, under the Joint Statement signed with the EU on 7 September 2023. Association covers the remainder of the current programme, through 2027, and UK applicants participate on equivalent terms to EU member-state institutions.

    When did the UK join Horizon Europe?

    The UK’s association took legal effect on 1 January 2024, though eligible UK researchers had already been receiving guaranteed funding for successful Work Programme 2021–2023 bids via the UKRI guarantee scheme while the formal agreement was finalised.

    How much does the UK contribute to Horizon Europe?

    The UK government’s 2021 Spending Review earmarked £6.9 billion (around €6.5 billion) to cover Horizon Europe association costs through 2025, funding both the transitional guarantee scheme and the ongoing EU association-fee payments now in effect.

    Can UK organisations lead Horizon Europe project consortia?

    Yes. Under association, UK entities can coordinate and lead Horizon Europe consortium bids, not merely participate as partners — a right that was not guaranteed during the pre-2024 transitional period and is a material change for UK research administrators structuring proposals.

    What’s next: implications and the FP10 outlook

    For institutional leaders, the near-term implication is operational stability: association funding, eligibility and open-access terms are fixed for the remaining lifetime of Horizon Europe, so 2026–2027 planning can proceed on settled rules rather than provisional guidance. Research offices should treat any Horizon Europe award as automatically subject to immediate-OA and FAIR data-management terms, and audit existing compliance workflows against the Model Grant Agreement rather than domestic OA policy alone.

    The longer-term question is the successor programme, informally referred to across the sector as “FP10,” covering the EU’s next multiannual research cycle from 2028. The UK’s current association agreement is specific to Horizon Europe and does not automatically roll forward; continued UK participation in whatever follows will require a fresh negotiation, and institutions with multi-year projects spanning the transition should watch for European Commission and UKRI guidance on successor-programme terms as they emerge.

    For research administrators, the compliance takeaway is unambiguous: UK-based status does not create a lighter open-science obligation. Horizon Europe grantees in the UK operate under identical publication, licensing, repository and data-sharing terms to their EU-based collaborators, and that parity — not exemption — is what UK association was negotiated to secure.

  • Horizon Europe Pillars vs FP10: Four vs Three

    Horizon Europe currently runs on three pillars; the European Commission’s FP10 proposal — published 16 July 2025 as “Horizon Europe 2028-2034” — restructures the programme around four pillars, adding a dedicated European Research Area pillar and shifting roughly €80 billion in additional funding toward competitiveness-linked research. For research administrators, the practical task is mapping existing pillar-based compliance workflows onto this new architecture before the programme’s expected 2028 start.

    Horizon Europe is the European Union’s current €95.5 billion research and innovation framework programme (2021-2027), organised into three pillars plus a horizontal strengthening-the-ERA strand. Its proposed successor, provisionally branded Horizon Europe 2028-2034 and widely referred to by its sequence number as FP10 (the EU’s tenth framework programme since 1984), would roughly double that budget and reorganise it into four pillars.

    What is the current Horizon Europe pillar structure?

    Horizon Europe’s three pillars separate funding by research logic rather than by discipline. Pillar I, “Excellent Science,” funds bottom-up frontier research through the European Research Council (ERC) and researcher mobility through Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA). Pillar II, “Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness,” is the largest pillar, funding collaborative research across six thematic clusters — health; culture, creativity and inclusive society; civil security; digital, industry and space; climate, energy and mobility; and food, bioeconomy and environment. Pillar III, “Innovative Europe,” supports market-creating innovation primarily via the European Innovation Council (EIC).

    A horizontal strand, “Widening Participation and Strengthening the European Research Area,” sits outside the three numbered pillars and funds capacity-building in lower-performing research systems — a structural detail that FP10’s proposal absorbs into a new, standalone pillar rather than leaving as a side strand.

    How does FP10’s proposed pillar structure differ?

    The Commission’s proposal keeps the “Horizon Europe” brand but restructures the programme into four pillars, according to the Commission’s own 16 July 2025 announcement and its accompanying Multiannual Financial Framework factsheet. Pillar I remains “Excellent Science” largely intact. Pillar II is renamed “Competitiveness and Society” and reoriented around four “competitive” research themes — clean transition and industrial decarbonisation; health, biotech, agriculture and bioeconomy; digital leadership; and resilience, security, defence and space — plus three “society” themes covering global societal challenges, the New European Bauhaus Facility, and EU Missions. Pillar III becomes “Innovation,” with an expanded EIC that adds dedicated support for defence and dual-use start-ups. The structural headline is Pillar IV: “European Research Area,” an entirely new pillar funding research and technology infrastructure and a “single, borderless market for research, innovation and technology across the EU.”

    Current Horizon Europe (2021-2027) Proposed FP10 / Horizon Europe 2028-2034 Proposed budget
    Pillar I: Excellent Science Pillar I: Excellent Science (largely unchanged) €44.079bn
    Pillar II: Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness (6 clusters) Pillar II: Competitiveness and Society (4 “competitive” + 3 “society” themes) €75.876bn (+41.8%)
    Pillar III: Innovative Europe Pillar III: Innovation (EIC expanded, adds defence/dual-use focus) €38.785bn
    Horizontal strand: Widening Participation & Strengthening ERA Pillar IV: European Research Area (new standalone pillar) €16.262bn

    The Commission also proposes tying Horizon Europe more tightly to a new European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), enabling joint “moonshot” projects that move research through to real-world deployment. Named moonshot candidates include:

    • The Future Circular Collider
    • Clean aviation
    • Next-generation AI
    • Data sovereignty
    • Automated transport and mobility
    • Regenerative therapies
    • Fusion energy
    • Space economy
    • Zero water pollution and ocean observation

    What are the budget and legislative timeline changes?

    The Commission’s proposal totals €175 billion for Horizon Europe within a €410 billion European Competitiveness Fund envelope, of which €234 billion covers other funding schemes, per the European Commission’s official 16 July 2025 news release. That compares with Horizon Europe’s current €95.5 billion allocation for 2021-2027 — close to a doubling in nominal terms.

    Neither the FP10 proposal nor the wider EU long-term budget (MFF) is final. Both require the ordinary legislative procedure, meaning the European Parliament and the Council of the EU must jointly agree amendments before adoption. The House of Commons Library reports that a final agreement is expected late in 2027, synchronised with the broader MFF negotiations, ahead of a planned 2028 programme start.

    The Commission’s interim evaluation of the current programme — cited in its own press materials — states that every euro of EU contribution is estimated to generate up to €11 in GDP gains by 2045, and that Horizon Europe had funded over 15,000 projects worth more than €43 billion as of January 2025. That evaluation, alongside the Draghi and Letta competitiveness reports, forms the explicit policy rationale the Commission cites for the pillar restructuring.

    Horizon Europe pillars: answer-first Q&A

    What is Horizon Europe Pillar 1?

    Pillar 1, “Excellent Science,” is Horizon Europe’s frontier-research pillar, funding investigator-led work through the European Research Council and researcher mobility through Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. Under the FP10 proposal it keeps its name and structure, with earmarked funding rising to €44.079 billion.

    What is Horizon Europe Pillar 2?

    Pillar 2 is currently “Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness,” Horizon Europe’s largest and most application-oriented pillar, spanning six thematic clusters. FP10 proposes renaming it “Competitiveness and Society” and raising its budget to €75.876 billion, a 41.8% increase, with roughly €68 billion co-managed alongside the new European Competitiveness Fund.

    What is the Pillar 3 of Horizon Europe?

    Pillar 3, “Innovative Europe,” funds market-creating innovation chiefly through the European Innovation Council. FP10 renames it “Innovation” and proposes €38.785 billion, expanding EIC support to include defence and dual-use start-ups alongside its existing scale-up mandate.

    What should research administrators do now?

    The proposal is not yet law, so no institution needs to rebuild compliance workflows immediately. But three planning actions are worth starting now:

    1. Map current pillar-owned processes (ERC/MSCA eligibility checks, cluster call monitoring, EIC scouting) against the proposed four-pillar labels, since Pillars I and III largely preserve existing scope while Pillar II absorbs new “society” themes and Pillar IV is genuinely new.
    2. Track the legislative timeline rather than the July 2025 proposal text as final — amendments through the European Parliament and Council are expected through 2027, and pillar names, budgets and cluster groupings may still change.
    3. Watch association status for non-EU institutions. The UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said in September 2024 it was “interested in potentially associating to FP10,” and the UK’s 2025 Spending Review allocated funding to cover the programme’s first two years of association, per parliamentary reporting.

    Institutions that already organise grants administration around Horizon Europe’s pillar logic — rather than around individual instruments like the ERC or EIC — will find the FP10 mapping more mechanical: three of the four proposed pillars are renamed continuations of existing pillars, and the one genuinely new pillar, European Research Area, formalises work (widening, infrastructure) that many research administration offices already track as a distinct compliance category today.

  • Horizon Europe FP10 Explained: The €175bn Framework Proposal

    FP10 is the working name for the European Commission’s proposed tenth Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, presented on 16 July 2025 as the successor to Horizon Europe for 2028-2034. The Commission proposed a €175 billion budget, roughly double the current programme, nested inside a wider €451 billion European Competitiveness Fund, with legal texts still under negotiation.

    Horizon Europe FP10 is the name the European Commission has chosen to keep for the tenth Framework Programme, though “FP10” persists as shorthand in policy circles ahead of formal adoption. Understanding its structure now, while Parliament and Council are still negotiating the text, matters for anyone planning EU grant strategy or open-access compliance.

    What is FP10 and how does it differ from Horizon Europe?

    FP10 is the European Union’s tenth multiannual Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, and the direct successor to Horizon Europe (2021-2027). The Commission presented its legislative proposal on 16 July 2025 as part of the wider Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) package for 2028-2034, according to its own research and innovation news portal.

    Unlike previous transitions between Framework Programmes, FP10 retains the “Horizon Europe” brand rather than adopting a new name. The structural change is not cosmetic: for the first time, the Framework Programme sits formally alongside a newly proposed European Competitiveness Fund (ECF), with the two vehicles described by the Commission as “tightly connected.”

    Horizon Europe (current) vs FP10 proposal, at a glance
    Feature Horizon Europe (2021-2027) FP10 proposal (2028-2034)
    Programme name Horizon Europe Horizon Europe (retained)
    Proposed budget €93.5 billion €175 billion
    Structural position Standalone Framework Programme Standalone programme nested inside a €451bn European Competitiveness Fund
    Pillars Three pillars plus Widening Four pillars: excellent science; competitiveness and society; innovation; European Research Area
    Legal status (July 2026) In force Under negotiation by Parliament and Council

    How much money is proposed, and how does the Competitiveness Fund fit in?

    The Commission’s proposal doubles the Framework Programme budget to €175 billion, up from €93.5 billion under the current Horizon Europe programme, according to the European Research Area platform and Science|Business. That figure is not the whole story: FP10 sits inside a larger €451 billion European Competitiveness Fund.

    The Commission has confirmed the ECF itself will not finance research activities directly. Collaborative research for competitiveness — the part of Horizon Europe closest to industrial priorities — will instead be governed jointly by the Commission’s research and industrial-policy directorates, funding the same priority areas as the ECF. That joint governance model is new; today’s research directorate manages Horizon Europe alone.

    Budget negotiations are unsettled. The European Parliament’s budgets committee is reviewing a draft report from rapporteurs Siegfried Mureşan (EPP) and Carla Tavares (S&D) arguing the proposed €175 billion is worth only around €155 billion once adjusted for inflation, and calling for a real-terms uplift to €173 billion. Treat €175 billion as a ceiling under active negotiation, not a confirmed figure.

    What are FP10’s four pillars?

    The FP10 proposal restructures Horizon Europe around four pillars: excellent science, competitiveness and society, innovation, and the European Research Area, according to Science|Business analysis of the Commission text — a shift from today’s three-pillar-plus-Widening structure.

    • Excellent science — continues to house the European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, both in line for budget increases under the proposal.
    • Competitiveness and society — collaborative research and innovation aligned with the Competitiveness Fund’s industrial priorities.
    • Innovation — houses the European Innovation Council (EIC), which Science|Business analysis identifies as the largest proportional winner if the proposal is adopted unchanged.
    • European Research Area — widening participation, research infrastructure, and system-strengthening measures for countries with less advanced research systems.

    One detail worth flagging early: the EIC is piloting a staged funding instrument called “advanced innovation challenges” in 2026, modelled on the US Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), ahead of a wider ARPA-style rollout planned from 2028 under FP10.

    What happens next: timeline and negotiating positions

    FP10 is a legislative proposal, not adopted law. On 5 November 2025, German MEP Christian Ehler (EPP) was confirmed as the European Parliament’s lead rapporteur for Horizon Europe, with René Repasi (S&D) as rapporteur for the separate “specific programme” implementing legislation. Ehler has publicly warned that top-down industrial policy “should not dictate” the research agenda.

    In the Council, talks are further advanced on instruments supporting fundamental research than on the links between Horizon Europe and the Competitiveness Fund, or on how much say member states retain over strategic priority-setting. Several Widening-eligible states want budget diplomats kept out of a role historically held by research ministries.

    The UK government has published its own negotiating position via GOV.UK, describing FP10 as the successor programme tasked with “harnessing excellence-based research and innovation,” reflecting the UK’s continued association to Horizon Europe. None of this is final: co-decision on the MFF and FP10 legal texts is expected to run through 2026 and into 2027, ahead of a planned January 2028 start.

    What does FP10 mean for open science mandate continuity?

    This is the question competitor coverage of FP10 has largely skipped, and it is the one research administration teams and OA officers should start tracking now. Horizon Europe’s current Model Grant Agreement mandates immediate open access to peer-reviewed publications and FAIR-aligned data management, with only narrow, justified opt-outs. Nothing in the July 2025 proposal text explicitly reconfirms that these obligations transfer unchanged into FP10’s legal instruments — the specific programme text where such provisions would sit is still being drafted.

    Two structural features make this worth watching. First, Research Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva confirmed the future Horizon Europe will be “dual-use by default” — meaning all parts of the programme could support projects with both civilian and defence applications. Dual-use classification is a recognised basis for restricting publication and data-sharing under EU export-control rules, so a default dual-use posture could expand the grounds on which grantees claim exemptions from open-access obligations that currently apply almost universally.

    Second, joint governance of the Competitiveness Fund-linked research strand by the Commission’s research and industrial-policy directorates introduces a second rule-setting authority into a space open-science mandates have, until now, sat under a single directorate. Neither the July 2025 announcement nor subsequent Council progress reports have clarified whether the current open-access mandate carries forward unchanged, is tightened, or becomes conditional on a project’s dual-use classification. Research administration teams should treat the FP10 specific programme text, once published in draft, as a priority document to check line by line rather than assume continuity.

    Frequently asked questions

    What is EU FP10?

    FP10 is the common shorthand for the European Union’s tenth Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, the successor to Horizon Europe covering 2028-2034. In July 2025, the European Commission confirmed the programme will keep the “Horizon Europe” name rather than adopt a new title, despite the FP10 label persisting in policy discussion.

    Is the UK eligible for Horizon Europe funding?

    Yes. The UK is associated to the current Horizon Europe programme and has published a formal negotiating position on FP10 via GOV.UK, describing the successor programme as central to “excellence-based research and innovation.” UK eligibility for FP10 specifically will depend on a future association agreement, not yet concluded.

    What is the Horizon Europe Programme 2028-2034?

    It is the proposed successor to the current Horizon Europe programme, presented by the European Commission on 16 July 2025 with a proposed €175 billion budget. It retains the Horizon Europe name, restructures around four pillars, and sits inside the new €451 billion European Competitiveness Fund.

    What research administrators should track now

    FP10 will not be finalised soon: Parliament and Council negotiations on the MFF and the specific programme are expected to run through 2026 and into 2027, ahead of a planned January 2028 start. But the direction of travel is clear enough to act on — a larger headline budget inside a competitiveness-oriented fund, joint directorate governance, a dual-use-by-default posture, and no confirmed statement yet on open-access mandate continuity.

    Institutions and funders should follow the specific programme text as it emerges from trilogue, checking its open-access, data-management, and dual-use provisions against the current Model Grant Agreement rather than assuming no change. Engaging now, while the text is open, beats reacting after adoption.

  • Horizon Europe Budget: Parliament’s €200bn Push Against FP10’s €175bn Plan

    The European Parliament is demanding a €200 billion Horizon Europe budget for FP10 (2028-2034), €25 billion above the European Commission’s €175 billion proposal, while the Council’s Cypriot presidency has floated a lower €167.9 billion opening figure. With trilogue negotiations running through 2026 alongside the wider EU Multiannual Financial Framework talks, research offices planning Horizon-scale pipelines face a genuine funding-envelope range, not a confirmed number.

    FP10 is the working name for the tenth EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, the successor to Horizon Europe, covering the 2028-2034 spending period. The final horizon europe budget figure will not be settled until the Parliament, Council and Commission conclude trilogue negotiations on the broader Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), a process expected to continue through 2026 and potentially into 2027.

    Where does the FP10 budget standoff stand right now?

    Three EU institutions currently hold three different numbers. The European Commission’s 16 July 2025 proposal set Horizon Europe’s FP10 budget at €175 billion for 2028-2034, nested inside a much larger €410 billion European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) envelope that also covers industrial, digital and defence-related spending. The European Parliament has rejected that figure as too low. The Council of the EU, representing member states who ultimately vote the budget through, has pushed in the opposite direction.

    Institution Proposed FP10 budget (2028-2034) Position, as of mid-2026
    European Commission €175 billion Original proposal, published 16 July 2025
    European Parliament €200 billion Formal negotiating position, led by rapporteur MEP Christian Ehler
    Council of the EU (Cypriot presidency) €167.9 billion Lower counter-figure floated during the presidency’s first-half-2026 term
    Outgoing Horizon Europe (2021-2027, for reference) €95.5 billion Confirmed, includes €5.4bn from NextGenerationEU

    The gap between the Council’s and Parliament’s positions is roughly €32 billion — comparable to the entire current budget of Horizon Europe’s Pillar 3 innovation programme. That spread is the single biggest source of uncertainty for any institution trying to model FP10-era grant income today.

    Why does the European Parliament want €200bn, not €175bn?

    MEPs argue that the Commission’s proposal, while a nominal near-doubling of the outgoing programme, does not keep pace with Europe’s stated ambitions on strategic autonomy, the green transition and competitiveness with the US and China. Parliament’s lead negotiator, MEP Christian Ehler, has described the €200 billion demand as “clear and firm.”

    A second, structural objection sits alongside the topline number. Parliament has raised concerns that folding a large share of Horizon Europe’s Pillar 2 collaborative-research funding into the new European Competitiveness Fund ties scientific excellence too closely to industrial-policy objectives, potentially crowding out curiosity-driven, frontier research in favour of pre-defined competitiveness priorities.

    How would the money split across Horizon Europe’s four pillars?

    Under the Commission’s July 2025 proposal — the baseline both Parliament and Council are negotiating against — the four Horizon Europe pillars would be reshaped as follows:

    • Pillar 1 (frontier research): rises from €25 billion to €44 billion, funding the European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) — a near-76% increase.
    • Pillar 2 (collaborative research): rises from €53.5 billion to €75.8 billion, split into €68.2 billion for “competitiveness” (managed jointly with the ECF) and €7.6 billion for “society” themes such as migration, democracy and social cohesion.
    • Pillar 3 (innovation): nearly triples, from €13.6 billion to €38.7 billion, mainly funding the European Innovation Council (EIC) for start-up and equity funding.
    • Pillar 4 (research policy): rises from €3.4 billion to €16.2 billion, absorbing research-infrastructure funding moved from Pillar 1 and a boost to the Widening programme, from €3 billion to €5.3 billion.

    Two notable casualties sit outside the headline growth. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) does not appear by name in the Commission’s proposal, and Horizon Europe’s five current Missions are funded only until 2030 under the plan as published.

    What does the standoff mean for research office planning?

    Research administrators cannot wait for a final MFF signature before adjusting institutional strategy. Grant pipelines that assume Horizon-scale funding continuity into 2028 need contingency planning now, because the range on the table — €167.9 billion to €200 billion — is wide enough to change call volumes, success rates and priority-area weighting regardless of which figure prevails.

    • Model a range, not a point estimate. Build FP10 income projections against both the Council floor and the Parliament ceiling, not just the Commission’s midpoint proposal.
    • Track the Pillar 2/ECF split closely. Because collaborative-research funding is being partly absorbed into the European Competitiveness Fund, eligibility and priority-area alignment for consortium-based grants may shift more than the topline number suggests.
    • Watch the Missions and EIT decisions. Institutions with active Mission-funded projects or EIT Knowledge and Innovation Community involvement should flag the 2030 funding cliff and the EIT’s absence from the current proposal as live risks.
    • Re-check association terms for non-EU partners. The UK, associated to Horizon Europe since January 2024 under its bespoke agreement, has no formal vote in the FP10 trilogue but will need to renegotiate its own contribution rate once a final MFF figure is agreed — a step that historically lags the EU-internal settlement by months.
    • Time major FP10 proposal investment to the 2026 MFF milestones rather than to the Commission’s original proposal date, since work-programme detail cannot be finalised until the budget envelope is fixed.

    For institutions building broader research-administration capacity around Horizon-scale funding cycles, this is also a useful moment to revisit internal grant-pipeline governance — see CASRAI’s research administration resources for related planning frameworks.

    Answer-first Q&A on the FP10 budget fight

    What will happen to Horizon Europe after 2027?

    Horizon Europe’s current 2021-2027 programme will be succeeded by FP10, running 2028-2034. The Commission has proposed a €175 billion FP10 budget, but the final figure depends on trilogue negotiations between the Commission, Parliament and Council, expected to conclude in 2026 as part of the broader Multiannual Financial Framework agreement.

    Has the Horizon Europe budget doubled?

    Nominally, yes: the Commission’s €175 billion FP10 proposal is roughly 84% higher than the outgoing programme’s confirmed €95.5 billion (2021-2027) budget. Whether that increase survives negotiation intact depends on the outcome of the Parliament-Council standoff, where positions currently range from €167.9 billion to €200 billion.

    What is the successor to Horizon Europe?

    FP10 is the working name for Horizon Europe’s successor programme, covering research and innovation funding for 2028-2034. It restructures the current four-pillar model and links a large share of collaborative-research funding to the new European Competitiveness Fund, a broader €410 billion instrument proposed alongside it.

    How much does the UK pay into Horizon Europe?

    The UK has been an associated country to Horizon Europe since January 2024 under a bespoke association agreement, paying a contribution calibrated to its participation level rather than full EU membership rates. Its FP10-era contribution will need fresh negotiation once the EU-internal horizon europe budget figure is finalised.

    Whichever figure the trilogue eventually lands on, the direction of travel is clear: FP10 will be larger than Horizon Europe, more tightly coupled to industrial-competitiveness priorities through the European Competitiveness Fund, and slower to finalise in operational detail than institutions may be assuming. Research offices that build planning ranges now, rather than waiting for a single confirmed number, will be better placed when the 2028 work programmes eventually open.

  • UKRI Terms and Conditions: 2025-26 Grant Changes

    UKRI updated its standard terms and conditions for both research grants and training grants for the 2025–26 academic year, with the most consequential changes taking effect on 1 April 2025 and 1 October 2025. The revisions raise the minimum PhD stipend, extend medical leave provisions, change how equipment costs are funded, and add new national-security compliance requirements. Research organisations need to update internal compliance checklists to reflect all four changes before their next award cycle.

    UKRI terms and conditions are the contractual obligations that UK Research and Innovation attaches to every research and training grant it awards, covering governance, eligible costs, reporting, and — since October 2025 — Trusted Research and Innovation compliance. They apply automatically to any research organisation that accepts UKRI funding, regardless of which of the seven research councils, Research England, or Innovate UK makes the award.

    Why UKRI’s terms and conditions changed for 2025–26

    UKRI published its policy statement: review of the training grant conditions on 30 January 2025, setting out a package of changes following an equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) review of doctoral training conditions. The review drew on the EDI Caucus appraisal of the UKRI training grant conditions, an internal advisory exercise UKRI commissioned specifically to test whether existing rules created barriers for disabled students and those needing extended leave.

    The standard terms and conditions of training grant, and the accompanying training grant guidance, were formally replaced with updated versions on 1 October 2025. UKRI republished the training grant terms and conditions as an accessible HTML document on 1 April 2026, retiring the previous PDF-only format — a change that affects how institutions cite and archive the current wording, not the substance of the obligations.

    What changed in the training grant terms and conditions

    The doctoral training changes are the most visible part of the update. UKRI raised the minimum stipend for UKRI-funded PhD students by 8% to £20,780, effective from 1 October 2025 — described by UKRI as the largest real-terms increase to the minimum stipend in over two decades. This is a floor, not a fixed rate: individual training grants and doctoral training partnerships may set stipends above the minimum.

    Alongside the stipend increase, the revised conditions:

    • Allow doctoral students up to 28 weeks of medical leave, with clearer routes to extend their studentship following medical or other leave.
    • Require research organisations to remove procedural barriers that could prevent disabled students from accessing agreed support.
    • Set out explicit expectations for transparency and fair treatment in how leave, extensions, and part-time study arrangements are communicated to students.
    • Clarify Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) stipend calculation for part-time students and require the expected submission date to be recorded on the student record.
    • Introduce clearer processes for flexible or phased returns to study, including a documented plan of study.

    The same 1 October 2025 update also folded in Trusted Research and Innovation requirements that were previously handled separately, so training grant conditions now sit alongside research grant conditions on national security compliance rather than being addressed only through supplementary guidance.

    What changed in FEC, equipment costing, and Trusted Research rules

    UKRI moved to fund all equipment purchases at 80% of Full Economic Cost (FEC) from 1 April 2025, standardising a rate that previously varied by council and grant type. UKRI also raised the threshold at which a purchase must be classified as capital equipment from £10,000 to £25,000, which is intended to reduce the administrative burden of tracking smaller items through capital asset registers.

    On national security, UKRI’s terms and conditions now require research organisations to identify and, where relevant, notify acquisitions that fall under the National Security and Investment (NSI) Act 2021. UKRI states that grant suspension or repayment is a possible consequence of a breach. This is not a new UK law — the NSI Act has applied since 2021 — but its explicit incorporation into UKRI’s grant conditions is new, and it converts a general legal obligation into a specific, auditable grant term.

    Key UKRI terms and conditions changes, 2025–26
    Change Effective date Applies to
    Equipment funded at 80% FEC 1 April 2025 Research grants
    Capital equipment threshold raised to £25,000 1 April 2025 Research grants
    Revised training grant T&Cs published (stipend, leave, EDI, NSI Act) 1 October 2025 Training grants
    Minimum PhD stipend raised to £20,780 1 October 2025 Training grants
    Training grant T&Cs republished as accessible HTML 1 April 2026 Training grants

    Compliance checklist: what institutions must update now

    Research offices need to work through both the research-grant and training-grant strands separately, since they carry different obligations and effective dates. For research grants, finance and grants teams should confirm that costing models already reflect the 80% FEC equipment rate and the £25,000 capital threshold, and that any live proposals or awards agreed before 1 April 2025 are checked against the older rate where transitional provisions apply.

    For training grants, doctoral college and graduate school teams should verify that:

    • Studentship offer letters and stipend schedules reflect the £20,780 minimum from 1 October 2025.
    • Leave and extension policies explicitly reference the 28-week medical leave provision.
    • Disability support processes have been reviewed for the barriers UKRI’s EDI review identified.
    • Part-time student records capture FTE calculations and expected submission dates correctly.

    Across both strands, institutions need a documented process for identifying transactions or partnerships that could trigger National Security and Investment Act 2021 notification duties under the Trusted Research and Innovation conditions, since this is now an explicit grant term rather than a background legal obligation. Research administration teams responsible for post-award compliance are typically best placed to own this checklist, since it spans finance, HR/student records, and governance functions that individually may not see the full picture.

    Common questions about UKRI terms and conditions

    What are UKRI’s terms and conditions?

    UKRI’s terms and conditions are the contractual rules attached to every research or training grant it funds, covering eligible costs, governance, reporting, and compliance obligations such as open access and national security. Research organisations must accept and comply with them as a condition of receiving and retaining UKRI funding.

    What is the UKRI training grant minimum stipend for 2025–26?

    From 1 October 2025, UKRI’s minimum stipend for UKRI-funded PhD students is £20,780 a year, an 8% increase UKRI describes as the largest real-terms rise in over two decades. Individual doctoral training partnerships and grants may pay above this floor but not below it.

    Do UKRI terms and conditions apply to PhD students?

    Yes — doctoral students funded through UKRI training grants are covered by a dedicated set of standard terms and conditions of training grant, separate from the research grant terms that apply to principal investigators. These were substantially revised on 1 October 2025 to strengthen leave, extension, and disability-support provisions.

    What costs are eligible under UKRI terms and conditions?

    Eligible costs under UKRI’s Full Economic Costing (FEC) terms include directly incurred and directly allocated project costs, with equipment now funded at 80% of FEC from 1 April 2025. Costs must stay within the original grant cash limit, and exceptions funds cannot be used to cover ordinary directly incurred costs.

    What this means for research offices going forward

    The 2025–26 revisions show UKRI treating training grant conditions with the same review cadence it has long applied to fEC research grant terms — a pattern research offices should expect to recur. ARMA UK has previously flagged comparable UKRI fEC and training grant terms updates as requiring coordinated review across finance, HR, and doctoral college functions, and that cross-functional approach is again the practical requirement here.

    Institutions that have not yet reconciled their studentship offer templates, capital asset thresholds, and Trusted Research due-diligence processes against the 1 October 2025 and 1 April 2025 effective dates carry live compliance risk on active awards. The next practical checkpoint is UKRI’s 1 April 2026 republication of the training grant terms in accessible HTML format, which institutions should treat as a prompt to re-verify that internal policy documents still cite the current clause numbering and wording rather than the superseded PDF.

  • UKRI Global Talent Visa: What Changed in 2026

    The UKRI Global Talent visa endorsement route kept its core four-path structure in 2026, but two things around it changed: the Immigration Rules were tightened in March 2026 to clarify which research roles qualify, and a new £54 million Global Talent Fund now channels UKRI-endorsed recruitment through just 12 pre-selected institutions.

    The Global Talent visa is a UK immigration category — launched in 2020 — that lets researchers, academics and specialists recognised as current or future leaders in their field live and work in the UK, via endorsement from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) or one of three national academies, rather than a conventional sponsored job offer.

    What is the UKRI Global Talent visa?

    UKRI is one of several bodies that can endorse applicants for the Global Talent visa, alongside the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the British Academy. Endorsement is a separate step from the visa application itself, which is submitted afterwards on GOV.UK.

    According to UKRI’s guidance — last updated 1 July 2026 — there are four endorsement routes into the visa, each with different evidence requirements and processing speed.

    Route Type Key requirement
    Academic or research appointment Fast-track Statement of guarantee from an approved employer; role must require a PhD or equivalent research experience
    Individual fellowship Fast-track Award letter for an eligible fellowship held within the last 5 years
    Endorsed funder Fast-track Named on a UKRI or endorsed-funder grant, plus a statement of guarantee from the hosting organisation
    Peer review Standard CV and letter of recommendation; no job offer required

    Under the endorsed-funder route, UKRI can endorse anyone named on a funded grant application “as the principal investigator, co-investigator or other role at graduate level or above” — a category that explicitly includes postdoctoral researchers and research assistants, not just grant holders. University of Cambridge HR guidance notes that grants used for this route must be worth at least £30,000 and run for a minimum of two years.

    What changed in the endorsement rules for 2026?

    The headline change is a clarification, not a redesign. UK immigration practitioners tracking the March 2026 statement of changes to the Immigration Rules report that the academic and research appointment route now specifies that eligible roles must require a PhD or equivalent research experience — spanning academic, industrial or clinical research — and that research or innovation must be the role’s primary function, unless the applicant holds academic, research or innovation leadership responsibilities.

    That distinction matters most for applicants in roles adjacent to research rather than squarely inside it — for example, industry-facing positions where research is a minor part of a broader remit are less likely to satisfy the tightened wording than they were before.

    Separately, a new Design Industry endorsement pathway opened on 1 July 2026, widening the Global Talent visa’s scope beyond research, arts and digital technology. It sits outside the UKRI research route but is a further sign that the visa’s endorsing bodies were actively revising eligibility criteria through the first half of 2026.

    How does the £54 million Global Talent Fund affect recruitment?

    The more consequential 2026 development for institutions is not a rule change but a funding one. The Global Talent Fund, backed by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and administered by UKRI, awards institutional grants to a fixed list of 12 UK research organisations, letting them recruit international research teams and cover both relocation and research costs directly.

    UKRI’s own announcement of the scheme states the fund covers 100% of eligible costs, including the Immigration Health Surcharge, “with no requirement for match funding” — a materially more generous offer than most institutional relocation packages.

    The 12 funded organisations are:

    • Cardiff University
    • Imperial College London
    • John Innes Centre
    • MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
    • Queen’s University Belfast
    • University of Bath
    • University of Birmingham
    • University of Cambridge
    • University of Oxford
    • University of Southampton
    • University of Strathclyde
    • University of Warwick

    UKRI selected these institutions using a three-part formula: a minimum level of competitive European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) funding received between May 2022 and December 2024, a minimum proportion of academic staff classed as international under Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) 2023/24 data, and a minimum share of existing staff already holding UKRI-endorsed Global Talent visas. Funding is targeted at UK industrial strategy priority sectors, including advanced manufacturing, clean energy, digital technologies, financial services, life sciences, and professional and business services.

    Why has the Global Talent Fund’s institution selection drawn criticism?

    The selection process attracted scrutiny before the fund was even formally announced. Research Professional News reported on 30 June 2025 that the pre-selection of institutions raised concern about UKRI money “becoming politicised,” ahead of the fund’s official launch.

    A more detailed challenge followed from the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, which used a Freedom of Information request to obtain UKRI’s exact eligibility thresholds: a minimum £5 million in combined ERC/MSCA funding between May 2022 and December 2024, at least 35% of academic staff classed as international under 2023/24 HESA data, and at least 5% of staff holding UKRI-endorsed Global Talent visas.

    Its analysis found that seven research-intensive Northern universities — Manchester, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Lancaster, Sheffield and Durham — met the £5 million research-funding threshold, yet none were selected. It also noted that the 35% international-staff cut-off sits above the sector average of 33%, and that Cardiff University was funded despite recording only 32.1% international staff — below the threshold applied to excluded institutions.

    Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “it’s deeply disappointing that not a single Northern university will benefit — especially when the selection criteria were both arbitrary and inconsistently applied.”

    UKRI has not published institution-level data for the third criterion — the share of staff already holding Global Talent visas — which the Northern Powerhouse Partnership’s analysis says makes that part of the formula impossible to independently scrutinise.

    Common questions about the UKRI Global Talent visa

    How to qualify for a UK Global Talent visa?

    Applicants need endorsement through one of four routes — an academic or research appointment, an individual fellowship, an endorsed funder’s grant, or peer review — followed by a separate visa application on GOV.UK. Most research routes now require a PhD or equivalent research experience and a role where research is the primary function.

    How to get UKRI endorsement?

    UKRI endorses researchers named on a grant it funds, or on a grant from another UKRI-endorsed funder, provided the host organisation is UKRI-approved. Applicants submit the award letter naming their role plus a statement of guarantee from the employing or hosting organisation.

    Which jobs are eligible for a global talent visa in the UK?

    Eligible roles span academic and research appointments, individual fellowships, and endorsed-funder grant positions — including principal investigator, co-investigator, postdoctoral researcher and research assistant roles at graduate level or above — plus peer-reviewed research leadership and separate arts, culture and digital technology routes.

    Does UKRI offer visa sponsorship?

    UKRI can sponsor migrant employees under the UK’s points-based system for its own vacancies, but for the Global Talent visa it acts as an endorsing body, not a sponsor: it certifies eligibility so researchers apply directly to the Home Office via GOV.UK.

    What this means for institutions — and what happens next

    For research administrators, the practical effect of the 2026 changes is twofold. First, endorsed-funder and academic-appointment applications need tighter documentation of a role’s research content, since the clarified Immigration Rules give UK Visas and Immigration a sharper basis to query borderline cases. Institutions preparing statements of guarantee should confirm that job descriptions explicitly state research or innovation as the primary function, or document leadership responsibilities where that is not the case.

    Second, the Global Talent Fund has created a two-tier landscape for institutional recruitment support. The 12 funded organisations can now offer prospective hires fully covered relocation and research costs, a recruitment advantage that non-funded institutions — including several with strong international-funding track records — cannot currently match through this scheme.

    Whether that concentration proves temporary depends on decisions UKRI has not yet made public: neither the duration of the current funding round nor the criteria for any future allocation round have been confirmed. Institutions outside the initial 12 have grounds, based on the Northern Powerhouse Partnership’s published data, to press UKRI for a transparent, published methodology — including the currently unpublished Global Talent visa endorsement-share data — before any subsequent funding round is decided.

  • UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships: Round 11 vs 10 — Eligibility, Timeline and What Changed

    UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships Round 11 opened on 2 February 2026, with an application deadline of 16 June 2026, 4:00pm UK time for academic-hosted applicants, and 4 November 2026, 11:00am UK time for non-academic hosts. Round 11 keeps the core scheme structure intact but removes the explicit “early career” gating language used in Round 10’s eligibility criteria, pauses the disabled-applicant support pilot introduced in Round 10, and adds Medical Research Council (MRC) funding to expand clinical fellowship capacity. Institutions should update internal screening guidance accordingly before their own EOI deadlines.

    The UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships (FLF) scheme is UK Research and Innovation’s personal-award programme that funds researchers and innovators transitioning to, or establishing, independent leadership of their own research or innovation programme, hosted at an eligible UK organisation for up to seven years.

    What is the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships scheme?

    Future Leaders Fellowships are personal awards, not project grants: the funding follows the fellow, not the institution’s existing programme. UKRI states the scheme aims to “develop, retain, attract and sustain research and innovation talent in the UK” across academic, business and interdisciplinary boundaries, spanning the arts, humanities, social sciences and the five critical technologies named in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s Science and Technology Framework.

    Awards run for up to four years in the first instance, with the option to apply for a further three years of renewal, giving a maximum programme length of seven years. There is no minimum or maximum project cost, and UKRI funds 80% of the full economic cost (FEC), with the host organisation expected to commit an increasing share of the fellow’s salary as the award progresses.

    Who is eligible to apply for Round 11?

    Round 11 eligibility centres on career stage relative to independence, not job title or contract type. Applicants must be researchers or innovators who are either transitioning to, or establishing, independence, based at, and supported by, a UK organisation eligible for UKRI funding. There are no eligibility rules tied to permanent or open-ended contract status.

    • Applicants are not required to hold a PhD, provided they can demonstrate equivalent research or innovation experience.
    • Applicants from outside the UK are eligible if supported by an eligible UK host organisation; the Global Talent visa “exceptional promise” category applies to incoming fellows.
    • Job-share applications are permitted, with both applicants listed as “fellow”.
    • Applicants are not eligible if they have already achieved research or innovation independence — for example, by holding funding aimed at that career stage, or already managing a significant programme of work within a business — or if they are a senior academic or innovator.
    • Academic host organisations face a fixed cap on the number of applications they can submit; the Medical Research Council (MRC) is providing additional funding for Clinical FLFs, letting hosts nominate additional clinical applicants above their existing cap.

    Academic-hosted applicants apply through the UKRI Funding Service; non-academic-hosted applicants, including charities, apply through the Innovation Funding Service. Neither route uses the legacy Je-S system.

    Round 11 timeline: key dates

    UKRI runs Future Leaders Fellowships on separate tracks for academic and non-academic (business, charity, Catapult) hosts, each with its own opening and closing date. The table below sets out the confirmed Round 11 dates alongside the equivalent Round 10 deadlines for comparison.

    Milestone Round 10 Round 11
    Call opens Not separately published 2 February 2026
    Academic-hosted deadline 18 June 2025, 4:00pm UK time 16 June 2026, 4:00pm UK time
    Non-academic (Innovation Funding Service) opens Not separately published 22 June 2026
    Non-academic (Innovation Funding Service) deadline 5 November 2025, 11:00am UK time 4 November 2026, 11:00am UK time
    Host diversity-monitoring return deadline Aligned to application deadline 16 June 2026

    According to the funding competition listing on GOV.UK, Round 11 makes up to £110 million available for UK-registered organisations to deliver research and innovation and develop future leaders. Individual awards have historically ranged from £300,000 to over £2 million; UKRI asks applicants to notify the FLF team by email if a proposal is expected to exceed a £1.4 million soft cap, used to monitor application costs across the scheme.

    Host institutions set their own internal expression-of-interest and shortlisting deadlines well ahead of the UKRI dates above — research offices should confirm these locally, as UKRI cannot accommodate late submissions.

    What changed between Round 10 and Round 11

    Three substantive changes distinguish Round 11 from Round 10, based on UKRI’s published funding-opportunity pages for each round.

    • “Early career” language dropped from the headline eligibility test. Round 10’s “Who is eligible to apply” section opened with “you must be an early career researcher or innovator”. Round 11’s equivalent section drops that qualifier, framing eligibility around the transition-to-independence test and the “not eligible” exclusions (already independent, or a senior academic/innovator). UKRI’s aims section still references supporting “the best early career researchers and innovators”, so this is a change in explicit gating language rather than a wholesale redefinition — but it removes a phrase institutions used as a first-pass screening filter, and research offices should re-read the full eligibility text rather than screen on career stage alone.
    • Disabled-applicant support pilot paused. Round 10 ran a pilot, introduced following a Careers Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC) review, providing structured support to disabled applicants. UKRI has paused this pilot for Round 11 “while we review the scheme and our future approaches”; applicants requiring adjustments are directed to their host organisation and, for interview adjustments, to the FLF team directly.
    • MRC clinical funding expansion. The Medical Research Council is providing additional funding for Clinical Future Leaders Fellowships in Round 11, letting host organisations nominate additional clinicians above their standard demand-management cap — capacity that did not exist in the same form in Round 10.

    Two features carried over unchanged: there is still no outline-proposal stage (applicants submit a full proposal directly, as first introduced ahead of Round 10), and the funding model — up to 80% FEC, tapered host salary contribution, four-plus-three-year duration — is unchanged.

    Answer-first Q&A

    Who is eligible for the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship?

    Eligibility rests on career transition to independence, not job title: applicants must be researchers or innovators either establishing or transitioning to independent leadership of their own programme, based at an eligible UK host organisation. Applicants who have already achieved independence, or who are senior academics or innovators, are excluded.

    What is the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship?

    It is a personal award scheme run by UK Research and Innovation that funds individual researchers and innovators — rather than institutional projects — for up to seven years, covering salary, research costs and career-development support at 80% of the full economic cost.

    How long is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship?

    Fellowships are funded for four years initially, with fellows able to apply to renew for a further three years during the award’s final year, giving a maximum total duration of seven years, subject to satisfactory progress review.

    What is the Future Leaders Fellowships programme in 2026?

    In 2026 the programme is running Round 11, which opened 2 February 2026, closes for academic hosts on 16 June 2026 and for non-academic hosts on 4 November 2026, and offers up to £110 million in total funding across the round, per the GOV.UK Innovation Funding Service listing.

    Implications for research offices

    Research offices administering internal FLF shortlisting should update screening documentation to reflect the removal of the explicit “early career” gate, rather than filtering candidates on career stage alone. Institutions running disability-support processes need to substitute local reasonable-adjustment provision for the paused UKRI pilot, and should brief clinical departments early on the MRC-funded expansion to clinical application caps, since additional clinician nominations sit outside the standard demand-management cap.

    The £1.4 million soft cap requires direct email notification to the FLF team rather than a form field, so research offices should build that step into costing sign-off workflows for large proposals ahead of the 16 June 2026 deadline.

    What happens next

    UKRI has signalled continuing scrutiny of value for money and Trusted Research and Innovation compliance across Round 11 assessment. Institutions preparing for Round 12 should treat Round 11’s eligibility wording, and the outcome of the paused disability pilot review, as the most likely areas for further change, and monitor UKRI’s published updates log on the Round 11 page ahead of the 16 June 2026 deadline.

  • REF 2029 Panel Members: Who Sets the Criteria

    REF 2029 panel members are the academics, practitioners and non-academic experts appointed to the four main panels and 34 sub-panels that will set discipline-level assessment criteria and judge institutional submissions for the UK’s next Research Excellence Framework. Recruitment ran through open application in 2024–2025 — a first for the REF, replacing the nomination system used in REF 2021 — and the panels appointed under that process are now the body directly shaping the criteria, after a short government-ordered pause in autumn 2025.

    REF 2029 is the UK’s next national research assessment exercise, run jointly by the four UK higher education funding bodies to allocate around £2 billion a year in quality-related research funding to higher education institutions based on the quality of their research outputs, impact and environment.

    What Is REF 2029 Panel Recruitment?

    Panel recruitment is the process by which the four UK higher education funding bodies — Research England, the Scottish Funding Council, Medr (Wales’ Commission for Tertiary Education and Research) and the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland — appoint the experts who will run REF 2029. There are two panel types.

    • Main panels (four in total) set the overall approach and criteria for assessing outputs, impact and environment within their disciplinary area, and approve final assessment outcomes.
    • Sub-panels (34 in total, one per Unit of Assessment) develop discipline-specific criteria and carry out the detailed assessment of institutional submissions.

    Each main panel includes its sub-panel chairs plus members with interdisciplinary, international and non-academic expertise. This structure mirrors REF 2021, but the route into panel membership does not.

    How Were REF 2029 Panel Members Recruited?

    For the first time in the REF’s history, every panel role was filled through open application rather than nomination. REF 2029’s own account of the process says this was designed “to support more transparent and consistent processes whilst removing barriers to application for everyone,” shaped with sector bodies and the REF 2029 People and Diversity Advisory Panel (PDAP).

    Recruitment moved through four stages:

    • Main panel chairs were recruited and confirmed first, ahead of the wider sub-panel campaign.
    • Sub-panel chairs and deputy chairs for all 34 Units of Assessment were then recruited, with applications for panel and sub-panel member roles closing by 28 April 2025, as the Royal Economic Society reported at the time; the appointed chairs and deputy chairs were announced on 22 May 2025.
    • Full panel membership — the wider pool of sub-panel members and assessors — was announced on 4 September 2025, described by the REF team as a “highly qualified and diverse group of experts” appointed across all 34 UoAs, including over two dozen panellists from industry, policy and third-sector organisations.
    • Further targeted recruitment is scheduled for 2027, informed by a sector-wide survey of submission intentions and any gaps in panel expertise identified during criteria setting.

    Shortlisting expertise was drawn from the REF Steering Group, relevant sector bodies and, once appointed, the panel chairs themselves. Applicants could optionally complete a diversity survey; that data was stripped from applications before assessment, in line with UKRI processes, and will be reported on separately in early 2026.

    Who Are the REF 2029 Main and Sub-Panel Chairs?

    The 34 sub-panels sit beneath four main panels, each covering a broad disciplinary group:

    • Main Panel A — Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
    • Main Panel B — Physical Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics
    • Main Panel C — Social Sciences
    • Main Panel D — Arts and Humanities

    For example, Sub-panel 1 (Clinical Medicine) is chaired by Peter Openshaw of Imperial College London, with Diana Eccles of the University of Southampton as deputy chair — one of 34 discipline-specific leadership pairs confirmed across the exercise. A small number of deputy chair appointments, including for Chemistry and Computer Science and Informatics, were finalised slightly later. The full, current roster for every Unit of Assessment sits on REF’s own panels pages rather than reproduced here, since composition is periodically refined through further recruitment rounds to 2027.

    What Does Panel Recruitment Mean for the REF 2029 Criteria?

    The timing of panel recruitment matters because it happened before a significant interruption to the criteria-setting timetable. In September 2025, UK Science Minister Lord Vallance announced at the Universities UK conference that the four funding bodies would pause criteria setting and final guidance “to take stock, ensure alignment with government priorities… and reflect on feedback from the sector.” The panels — chairs, deputy chairs and members — had already been appointed that same day, so they could begin criteria-setting work the moment the framework was confirmed, without a second recruitment cycle.

    When the pause concluded, the funding bodies published updated policy that changed how REF 2029 will actually be weighted:

    Assessment element REF 2021 weighting REF 2029 weighting
    Outputs / Contributions to Knowledge and Understanding (CKU) 60% 55%
    Engagement and Impact (E&I) 25% 25%
    Environment / Strategy, People and Research Environment (SPRE) 15% 20%
    Panel member selection route Nomination Open application

    SPRE replaces the previously trialled “People, Culture and Environment” element and builds on the REF 2021 Environment component, informed by a PCE pilot report published alongside the update. A recommended maximum of five outputs per researcher was reinstated, the minimum-of-one requirement was dropped, impact case study requirements were reduced to one for the smallest units, and the 2* qualifying threshold for underpinning research was removed.

    One further governance point deserves attention: the funding bodies confirmed there will be no formal consultation on the final guidance or the Panel Criteria and Working Methods, in order to hold the original REF 2029 timetable. That leaves the already-recruited panels — not a fresh sector-wide consultation round — as the primary mechanism through which discipline-level detail gets finalised. Panels began meeting in early 2026 to set criteria, which is why who sits on them, and how they got there, is now a governance question with direct consequences for submission requirements.

    Answer-First Questions on REF 2029 Panels

    What are the key changes for REF 2029?

    REF 2029 introduces Strategy, People and Research Environment (SPRE), weighted at 20%, replacing the trialled “People, Culture and Environment” element. Contributions to Knowledge and Understanding is weighted 55% and Engagement and Impact 25%. Outputs remain decoupled from individuals, and unit-level statements have been removed to reduce sector burden.

    How many units of assessment are there in REF 2029?

    REF 2029 retains 34 Units of Assessment (UoAs), unchanged in number from REF 2021. Each UoA is assessed by an expert sub-panel operating under one of four main panels covering medicine and health, physical sciences and engineering, social sciences, and arts and humanities.

    Who runs the REF?

    The REF is run by a REF team managed by Research England on behalf of the UK’s four higher education funding bodies — Research England, the Scottish Funding Council, Medr, and the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland — who jointly own it as a UK-wide programme of national research assessment.

    What is engagement and impact in REF 2029?

    Engagement and Impact (E&I), weighted 25% of the overall score, assesses the demonstrable benefit research has beyond academia. Impact case study requirements have been reduced to one for the smallest submitting units, and the previous 2* qualifying threshold for underpinning research has been removed.

    Implications for Institutions and Researchers

    Three practical points follow for research administration teams. First, panel composition is now discipline-owned: sub-panels, not a single central body, are writing the detailed criteria for each Unit of Assessment, so institutional REF contacts should track guidance at sub-panel level, not just headline main-panel weightings.

    Second, with no formal consultation round on the final guidance, engagement now runs through REF Talks, town halls and sector-body channels rather than written consultation — institutions wanting influence need to use those live channels while criteria setting is underway.

    Third, the 2027 top-up recruitment round means panel composition is not fixed until closer to the assessment phase; institutions with relevant expertise, including professional services staff, technicians and librarians (recruited into REF 2029 panels for the first time), retain a further opportunity to apply.

    Taken together, the shift to open recruitment and the post-pause weighting changes mean REF 2029’s criteria are being finalised by a panel population that looks structurally different from REF 2021: more open in its selection, more heavily weighted toward research environment, and operating with less formal sector sign-off. For research administration teams preparing Code of Practice submissions, that makes early, sub-panel-level engagement more valuable than in any previous REF cycle.