CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: ukri fec grant guidance

  • UKRI Open Access Block Grant: How It Works

    The UKRI open access block grant is an annual allocation UK Research and Innovation pays to eligible research organisations to help them meet the costs of complying with UKRI’s open access policy for research articles. It is not paid to individual researchers, and it is separate from — and administered differently to — the wider RCUK/Plan S open access mandate debate. This guide explains how the allocation is calculated, what it can and cannot fund, and what institutions must now report back to UKRI.

    A UKRI open access block grant is a lump-sum award, calculated from an institution’s UKRI-funded research volume, that research organisations distribute internally to cover open access publication costs rather than a grant researchers apply for directly.

    How is the UKRI block grant calculated and paid?

    UKRI does not divide a fixed pot equally between universities. Instead, the amount an organisation receives is calculated using an algorithm that uses directly incurred and directly allocated staff costs on UKRI awards as a proxy for research volume, according to UKRI’s own open access funding and reporting guidance. Institutions with a very small UKRI research footprint may receive nothing at all.

    For administrative reasons, only organisations whose calculated entitlement is £5,000 or more are offered an award. Every block grant allocated from 2022 onwards is published on UKRI’s Gateway to Research service, giving institutions and auditors a transparent, checkable record of what each organisation received and when.

    Payment is not a single annual cheque. Under the 2025–26 block grant terms and conditions, the grant covering 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 is paid via the EPSRC Research grants pay run process in four quarterly instalments, mirroring the cash-flow pattern of a standard research grant rather than a one-off subvention. UKRI’s own figures put total block grant spend at approximately £40 million per year across the research-article scheme, separate from the long-form publications fund described below.

    What can the block grant fund — and what can’t it fund?

    The block grant is deliberately flexible. Research organisations can spend it on any activity that supports compliance with UKRI’s open access policy, not just article processing charges (APCs). UKRI’s terms and conditions and the sector guidance built around them (for example Jisc’s publisher-facing compliance guide) converge on a consistent list of eligible and ineligible spend.

    • Eligible: APCs for fully open access journals and platforms.
    • Eligible: the “publish” element of Jisc-approved transitional (read-and-publish) agreements.
    • Eligible: membership or participation fees for alternative open access models, such as subscribe-to-open schemes.
    • Eligible: repository and green-route infrastructure costs, and staff time spent administering compliance, deposit checking and the block grant itself.
    • Not eligible: APCs for hybrid journals outside an approved transitional agreement.
    • Not eligible: page charges and colour charges.
    • Not eligible: long-form outputs — monographs, book chapters and edited collections sit under a separate, dedicated £3.5 million UKRI open access fund with its own caps (up to £10,000 for a book processing charge, £1,000 for a chapter processing charge, and £6,000 for participation in an alternative open access model, rising by a further £3,000 where an organisation has two or more eligible outputs in a period).

    Researchers cannot normally claim these costs directly from their research grant budget; the block grant exists precisely so that publication costs are pooled and administered centrally by the research organisation rather than budgeted line-by-line inside every award.

    How does UKRI’s grant compare with Wellcome, CRUK and BHF?

    Institutional open access teams frequently administer several funders’ block grants side by side, and confusion between them is a real, current problem. In particular, Cancer Research UK is winding down its own open access block grant from 1 April 2026, with a new CRUK policy taking effect on 1 October 2026 under which CRUK will no longer pay for open access publishing at all. That change concerns CRUK’s scheme only — it does not alter UKRI’s block grant, its eligibility rules or its payment schedule, though several university library guides bundle the funders together in ways that can make the two easy to conflate.

    Funder Scheme status (mid-2026) Hybrid journals covered? Repository deposit required?
    UKRI Ongoing annual block grant, ~£40m/year Only within Jisc-approved transitional agreements Europe PMC deposit required for MRC/BBSRC-funded articles
    Wellcome Ongoing; DOAJ-listed journals only No Europe PMC deposit required; rights retention statement required
    Cancer Research UK Ending — no APC funding after 1 October 2026 N/A (scheme closing) N/A
    British Heart Foundation Ongoing Yes, for original articles Europe PMC deposit required

    For research administrators, the practical takeaway is to treat each funder’s block grant as a distinct compliance stream with its own terms, rather than assuming a single institutional “open access fund” rulebook covers all of them.

    What are institutions’ reporting and assurance duties?

    Reporting obligations on the UKRI block grant have tightened materially for the 2026–27 cycle. Research organisations must already provide high-level information about their block grant spend through their Final Expenditure Statement, the same mechanism used for standard UKRI grant financial reporting, and block grant expenditure now falls within scope of UKRI’s Funding Assurance Reviews. Institutions need governance, financial and risk-management processes capable of demonstrating that funds were used for their intended purpose if selected for review.

    The most significant near-term change is that UKRI is reintroducing dedicated block grant reporting in 2026 to 2027 through a co-developed, lightweight, standardised template, explicitly designed to close evidence gaps around what institutions actually spend the money on. This marks a shift away from the lighter-touch, largely self-certified approach that has applied since the block grant scheme was last simplified, and research offices should expect to log spend by category (APCs, transitional agreements, repository costs, staff time) in a form that maps to that template rather than an internal ad hoc breakdown.

    1. Confirm which team owns block grant financial tracking (library, research office, or finance).
    2. Categorise 2026–27 spend against UKRI’s eligible-cost list as it is incurred, not retrospectively.
    3. Retain invoices and journal/agreement documentation in case of a Funding Assurance Review.
    4. Complete the Final Expenditure Statement and the new standardised reporting template on time.

    Answer-first Q&A

    What is the UKRI block grant policy?

    The UKRI open access block grant policy gives eligible UK research organisations an annual lump sum, sized to their UKRI-funded research volume, to cover eligible open access publication costs for research articles. It is administered by the institution, not claimed per-article from a researcher’s own grant.

    How is the UKRI block grant amount calculated?

    UKRI uses an algorithm based on directly incurred and directly allocated staff costs charged to UKRI awards as a proxy for an organisation’s research volume. Only organisations whose calculated entitlement reaches £5,000 or more are actually offered a grant.

    Do researchers apply for the UKRI block grant directly?

    No. Researchers do not apply to UKRI for block grant funding. The research organisation receives and administers the award, and individual authors instead request an APC payment or transitional-agreement cover through their own institution’s open access team.

    Do institutions have to report block grant spending to UKRI?

    Yes. Institutions must summarise spend through the Final Expenditure Statement, and block grants are now included within Funding Assurance Reviews. From 2026–27, a new standardised reporting template is being reintroduced specifically to capture more granular cost evidence.

    What this means for research administrators

    The direction of travel is towards more visibility, not less. A scheme that has run for over a decade on light-touch institutional discretion is moving into a period where UKRI wants comparable, standardised cost data across the sector. Institutions that build 2026–27 spend-tracking around UKRI’s eligible-cost categories now, rather than retrofitting records later, will find the reintroduced reporting template far less disruptive.

    Research administration teams should also keep the funder distinctions in this guide close at hand: UKRI’s own scheme continues on broadly the same basis it has run under since 2022, even as other funders in the same open access landscape — Cancer Research UK most visibly — withdraw block grant support altogether. Conflating the two risks under-claiming funding UKRI still provides, or over-promising APC cover a funder such as CRUK will no longer honour after October 2026.

  • UKRI FEC Grant Guidance: The 80% Recovery Rule

    UKRI FEC grant guidance sets out how UK Research and Innovation calculates and pays Full Economic Costing on research grants: UKRI funds a fixed 80% of a project’s full economic cost, the research organisation covers the remaining 20%, and costs are split into Directly Incurred, Directly Allocated and Indirect categories under the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) methodology.

    Full Economic Costing (FEC) is the UKRI funding model under which a research organisation states the total cost of delivering a project — including staff time, estates and administrative overheads — and UKRI reimburses a fixed proportion of that total rather than reimbursing itemised expenses alone.

    What is UKRI Full Economic Costing?

    UKRI’s guidance on FEC grant terms and conditions states the underlying principle directly: research organisations indicate the full economic cost of a project in their proposal, and UKRI pays “a fixed percentage of 80% of this sum unless stated otherwise.” The remaining 20% must come from the research organisation’s own resources.

    Where a project also has external co-funding, for example from an industry partner, that contribution is treated as additional to FEC — UKRI still funds 80% of the remaining resources needed, rather than reducing its own contribution pound-for-pound.

    Several categories of cost fall outside the 80% rule entirely. Associated studentships are funded at 100% of UKRI’s standard annual stipend and fee values, and externally contracted social surveys are funded at 100% under the “Exceptions” heading. Postgraduate students are also excluded from the full-time-equivalent (FTE) count used to calculate estates and indirect charges.

    How are FEC costs categorised?

    UKRI’s FEC guidance divides every grant budget into three cost categories, and getting this classification right is the first task for any research administrator building a proposal. Each category is audited, funded and adjusted differently if a grant changes scope or ends early.

    Cost category Definition How it is evidenced
    Directly Incurred (DI) Costs explicitly identifiable to the project — research assistant salaries, consumables, travel, equipment under £25,000 Auditable cash spend, supported by timesheets and invoices
    Directly Allocated (DA) Shared resources used by multiple projects, including investigator time, pool technicians and major facilities Estimates applied at proposal stage; not vired or re-audited during the grant
    Indirect Costs Non-specific overheads — central administration, general laboratory and office consumables, some departmental services A standard rate per research FTE, derived from the institution’s TRAC return

    Estates and indirect rates are not calculated per grant. Instead, a university’s whole-institution TRAC return sets a standard charge-out rate per research FTE, which is then applied to every proposal. Institutions with under £3 million in annual public research income may instead use TRAC dispensation default rates, reviewed annually by UKRI and the UK higher education funding bodies.

    Project leads and co-leads can be funded up to 100% of salary, calculated on a notional maximum of 1,650 hours a year (37.5 hours a week across 44 weeks) — but this investigator time is itself only reimbursed within the overall 80% FEC envelope once combined with the rest of the project’s costs.

    What changed in UKRI’s 2025–2026 FEC guidance?

    UKRI’s FEC grant terms and conditions are not static, and the guidance has been revised twice in the current funding cycle — a detail research administrators updating budget templates should not overlook.

    • Equipment funding at 80% FEC. From 1 April 2025, UKRI moved to fund all new equipment purchases at 80% of FEC rather than the fuller funding some equipment previously attracted, with limited exceptions for dedicated infrastructure opportunities, instrument development awards, and international partner costs in OECD Development Assistance Committee-listed countries.
    • Capital equipment threshold raised. The threshold above which an item counts as capital equipment rose from £10,000 to £25,000 on the same date, reducing the number of smaller purchases that require separate capital justification.
    • No default expectation of matched funding. UKRI clarified that, unless a specific funding opportunity states otherwise, there is no default expectation that institutions provide matched funding on top of the standard 20% FEC contribution.
    • Tighter no-cost extension limits from 1 April 2026. Non-people-related no-cost extensions are now capped at six months over a grant’s lifetime, except in defined exceptional circumstances (such as ethics delays or export-control licensing under Trusted Research and Innovation); extensions approved before 1 April 2026 do not count towards that limit.

    UKRI has framed these changes as a response to its own Research financial sustainability: insights paper, which found research costs have outpaced available funding — the same “sustainability gap” that independent analysis by the Innovation and Research Caucus has linked to persistently low FEC cost recovery.

    How do research administrators apply FEC to a grant budget?

    Building a compliant UKRI budget starts with classifying every cost line as Directly Incurred, Directly Allocated or Indirect before a single figure is entered, since each category is treated differently at award and close-out.

    • Confirm the institution’s current TRAC-derived estates and indirect rates per research FTE before costing investigator and technician time.
    • Cost equipment over £25,000 as capital equipment, and expect it to be funded at 80% FEC rather than assumed to be fully reimbursed.
    • Identify any Exceptions items — associated studentships and externally contracted social surveys — and cost these at 100% rather than 80%.
    • Keep the full FEC figure, not just the 80% UKRI contribution, visible in internal costing tools, since the 20% institutional contribution must be tracked and reported against.
    • Reduce Estates, Indirect and Infrastructure Technician claims proportionately if a funded post goes unfilled or a staff member leaves more than six months before the funded period ends.

    At grant start, only Directly Incurred, Directly Allocated or equipment costs can be drawn down — estates and indirect costs cannot be claimed until the Grant Start Confirmation is issued. At close-out, Directly Incurred costs settle against actual expenditure, while Directly Allocated and Indirect Costs are paid as requested, provided the grant runs its full course and stays within the cash limit.

    FEC grant guidance: frequently asked questions

    What percentage of research costs does UKRI FEC actually cover?

    UKRI funds a fixed 80% of a project’s Full Economic Cost, with the research organisation providing the remaining 20% from its own resources. Some cost types are treated as Exceptions and funded at 100%, including associated studentships and externally contracted social surveys, so administrators should check each cost line against the exceptions list before assuming the 80% rate applies universally.

    What is the difference between Directly Incurred and Directly Allocated costs?

    Directly Incurred costs are auditable cash amounts spent specifically on a project, evidenced by invoices and timesheets. Directly Allocated costs are shared resources — investigator time, pool technicians, major facilities — charged on estimates rather than actual audited spend, and these estimate-based figures cannot be re-audited or vired once the grant is underway.

    What is TRAC and why does UKRI’s FEC guidance depend on it?

    The Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) is the agreed sector methodology UK universities use to calculate the full economic cost of research activity from their financial statements. UKRI’s FEC guidance relies on each institution’s annual TRAC return to set the standard estates and indirect charge-out rate per research FTE applied across every grant proposal.

    Has UKRI changed how it funds research equipment?

    Yes. From 1 April 2025, UKRI moved to fund new equipment purchases at 80% FEC rather than fuller reimbursement, and raised the capital equipment threshold from £10,000 to £25,000. Institutions costing equipment-heavy proposals need to budget the 20% shortfall rather than assume equipment sits outside the standard cost-share rule.

    What this means for institutions

    The direction of UKRI’s FEC guidance since 2025 is toward tighter, more explicit cost-recovery rules rather than looser ones: equipment now sits inside the 80% rule, extensions are time-limited by default, and matched funding is explicitly not assumed. For institutions already struggling with the FEC recovery gap documented in UKRI’s own sustainability insights work, each of these changes shifts marginally more cost risk onto the research organisation’s 20% contribution.

    Research administrators building budgets should treat the FEC grant guidance document as a living compliance reference rather than a one-off read: rates, thresholds and exception lists are reviewed and republished, and the terms and conditions in force at the time of a purchase or activity — not at the time the grant was awarded — are the ones that apply for audit purposes.