UKRI Metascience Research Grants

Funding to support innovative and ambitious metascience research projects.

The Metascience Grants Programme funds cutting-edge research into more effective ways of conducting and supporting Research and Development (R&D). All projects must have the potential to inform science policy, R&D funding practices, or practice within research-performing organisations.

Jointly funded by UKRI and Open Philanthropy, this funding opportunity will support innovative and ambitious metascience research projects that use scientific methods to deepen understanding of how different incentives, institutional structures, and funding practices within the R&D system influence scientific research outputs and career outcomes. This funding opportunity will support empirical research that is focused on generating actionable insights for decision makers, including those in government, funding bodies, and research organisations.

UKRI and Open Philanthropy welcome proposals in the following areas:

• Talent and professional development, including the effectiveness of interventions in training and skills, talent retention, stimulating entrepreneurship, or employer assessment methods in research contexts.
• Allocation of research funding, including the impacts of different methods of peer review and different modes of funding (for example, fellowships, research grants) on the distribution of research funds and scientific and career outcomes.
• Modes of R&D delivery, including the efficacy of different institutional structures and sub-structures for conducting R&D.
• Research integrity, including issues of reproducibility and the impact of interventions such as preregistration, open data, and reproducible code.
• Improving the impact and dissemination of research outputs, including the role of technology transfer offices, different publication practices, conferences, and knowledge dissemination platforms.
• Understanding impact, including improving the nuance with which we can define and measure the impact of research projects and programmes.
• Understanding the impacts of AI on the research and innovation ecosystem, including the funding and delivery of R&D.

Applicants proposing innovative research proposals outside of these topic areas must clearly set out how they are addressing the overall aim and scope of this funding opportunity.

The duration of this award is between six months and 24 months. Projects must start by 31 January 2025.