Horizon Scanning
Horizon scanning involves looking for new opportunities and identifying trends in funding that will enable you to develop ideas and the teams needed to develop those ideas into a proposal for the right call at the right time. Tracking funding trends through watching what funders and sector news channels are highlighting is a good way to get a sense of what trends are emerging. Mailing lists and social media accounts are good sources of information on what is happening across the funding landscape.
Mailing Lists
Clicking on the links below will take you to the sign-up pages for the mailing lists of some of the UK's key funders:
Royal Society: https://royalsociety.org/stay-in-touch/email-newsletters/
UKRI: https://www.ukri.org/news/
Wellcome Trust: https://wellcome.org/news-and-reports/newsletters
NIHR: https://nihr.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?id=570d86f9cb&u=299dc02111e8a68172029095f
UKCDR: https://www.ukcdr.org.uk/subscribe-to-our-newsletter/
British Council: https://www.britishcouncil.org/education/he-science/contact/subscribe
British Academy: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/about/
GCID: E-mail Mary.Ryan@glasgow.ac.uk and ask to be added
X Accounts
Here are some of the X handles for useful funders, news outlets and professional bodies that offer insights into the UK and international funding landscape:
| UK | Europe | International |
|---|---|---|
|
UK Research and Innovation |
CIVIS Europe's Civic University Alliance |
Research Africa |
|
Medical Research Council |
The Guild |
World Health Organization |
|
Economic and Social Research Council |
Horizon Europe Nine Framework Programme |
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations |
|
Arts and Humanities Research Council |
Horizon Europe |
USAID |
|
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council |
The League of European Research Universities |
UN Development |
|
Natural Environment Research Council |
Science Europe |
UK Collaborative on Development Research |
|
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council |
Young Academy of Europe |
African Academy of Sciences |
|
Innovate UK |
Academia Europaea |
African Research Universities Alliance |
|
The Royal Society |
European Research Council |
UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office |
|
Wellcome |
Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions |
UK Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office Science, Technology, Innovation, Research, Evidence |
|
Inside Higher Ed |
Canada's International Development Research Centre |
|
|
Leverhulme Trust |
UK's All Party Parliamentary Group for Africa |
|
|
The British Academy |
The World Bank |
|
|
Universities UK International |
||
|
National Institute for Health and Care Research Global Health |
LinkedIn Accounts
Clicking on any of the names below will take you directly to their LinkedIn page.
Additional Sources of Information
| Funder Blogs |
AHRC: https://www.ukri.org/councils/ahrc/blog/ Wellcome Open Research: https://blog.wellcomeopenresearch.org/ UKRI: https://www.ukri.org/blog/ NIHR: https://www.nihr.ac.uk/about-us/blog.htm Royal Society: https://royalsociety.org/blog/ British Academy: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/?order=-published_date |
| Funder Strategic Plans, Delivery Plans and Published Priorities |
UKRI Strategic Plan: https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/our-vision-and-strategy/our-strategy-2022-to-2027/ UKRI Delivery Plans: https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/our-vision-and-strategy/delivery-plans/ Wellcome: https://wellcome.org/who-we-are/strategy NIHR: https://www.nihr.ac.uk/about-us/our-key-priorities/ British Academy: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/about/the-british-academy-strategic-plan-2023-2027/ |
| UKRI Funding Finder - Lists all funding opportunities from across UKRI | https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/ |
| UKRI Gateway to Research - Details of all past UKRI awards. Very useful for landscape analysis. | https://gtr.ukri.org/ |
| Research Professional - includes a funding search function, but be sure to check details on the funder web pages as RP may include inaccurate or improperly categorized calls. Sign in with your GUID/institutional account. You can also set up e-mail alerts for funding. | https://www.researchprofessional.com/funding.html |