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?
- Who is eligible to apply for Round 11?
- Round 11 timeline: key dates
- What changed between Round 10 and Round 11
- Answer-first Q&A
- Implications for research offices
- What happens next
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.