NERC urgency funding

Full Job Description

Opportunity status: Open

Funders:

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

Funding type: Grant

Maximum award: £100,000

Publication date: 24 September 2026

Opening date:

24 September 2026 9:00am UK time

Closing date:

Open - no closing date

Apply for funding to respond rapidly to transient environmental research opportunities arising from unexpected natural events, such as earthquakes, droughts, floods or ephemeral events in ecosystems.

Funding supports the collection of critical early data, before the research opportunity is lost. Projects can request up to £100,000 full economic cost (FEC), with NERC funding up to 80% FEC. Projects can last up to one year.

You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for NERC funding.

Applications are accepted at any time.

Who Is Eligible To Apply

To be a project lead or a project co-lead you must be based at an organisation complying with standard eligibility rules.

This funding opportunity is open to organisations with standard eligibility. Check if your organisation is eligible.

Before applying for funding, check the following:

• Individual eligibility

• Check your project is in our remit, if you are unsure whether your proposed research falls within the remit of NERC

Who Is Not Eligible To Apply

You cannot be named on an application if you have been a project lead or project co-lead on another full application to this scheme in the previous two years.

Project partners fund their own involvement. We will only fund minor incidental expenses, such as some travel costs, if needed for project partners.

International Researchers

We do not fund overseas organisations, except for specific costs for project co-leads from Norway. Read more about this in the NERC eligibility guidance for applicants.

You should include all other international collaborators (or UK partners not based at approved organisations) as project partners. This includes organisations from the business or financial sectors.

Resubmissions

We will not accept uninvited resubmissions of projects that have been submitted to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Find out more about UKRI’s resubmission policy.

Equality, Diversity And Inclusion

We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.

We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:

• career breaks

• support for people with caring responsibilities

• flexible working

• alternative working patterns

UKRI can offer disability and accessibility support for UKRI applicants and grant holders during the application and assessment process.

Demand Management

Demand management is being applied to this funding opportunity at the individual level. Further details are provided in the ‘Who can apply’ section.

Scope

The NERC urgency funding opportunity supports researchers to respond quickly to transient, unexpected environmental research opportunities created by sporadic natural occurrences such as earthquakes, droughts, floods, or ephemeral events in ecosystems.

The aim of this funding is to help researchers collect valuable data at the start of the event before other events and actions affect the data collection.

You can apply for urgency funding only if there is an unexpected event you need urgent data on, and if applying through other available funding opportunities would result in a missed opportunity to undertake environmental research of high scientific importance.

Your project outline must be submitted within four weeks of the event start date; the event start date must be clearly evidenced.

Your project must fit predominantly within one or more of NERC’s Research Areas

We expect your project to last up to one year and to focus on urgent data collection and essential initial analysis only. You must have a clear strategy for taking the research forward once the urgent phase is complete.

We reserve the right to limit the number of urgency funding applications considered or supported relating to the same event or location.

The following are out of scope for this funding opportunity:

• time-limited research opportunities unrelated to a discrete environmental event, such as an unforeseen opportunity to take part in a particular experiment or programme, or the unexpected availability of staff or facilities

• research opportunities created by deliberate direct human actions or decisions

• events where planning could have allowed support via alternative funding opportunities. This can include seasonal, frequent or periodic natural events that you expect to be imminent but haven’t yet happened. This can include extreme weather conditions or volcanic eruptions

• operational monitoring to forecast hazardous natural events

• responses to unexpected research findings

• continuation of monitoring or other existing projects

• collection of data to inform urgent policy or national or international decision-making

Use Of Novel, Critical Technologies In Your Application

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is seeking to support researchers and innovators to develop and make use of novel, critical technologies including AI, engineering biology, future telecoms, semi-conductors and quantum technologies throughout its investment portfolio. We have also set out our aspirations for the future of data and technology in environmental science in our Digital Strategy 2021–2030.

In developing your application to this funding opportunity you should consider how the innovative use of critical technologies, and approaches addressing the ambitions of NERC’s digital strategy, might offer opportunities to address your research questions in new and novel ways. This might include the development of new collaborations across domains and disciplines.

Duration

The expected duration of this award is up to one year.

Funding Available

The FEC of your project can be up to £100,000.

NERC will fund 80% of the FEC with exception that eligible costs for international project co-lead (previously co-investigator) involvement would be funded at 100%.

What We Will Fund

We will fund NERC facilities costs.

What We Will Not Fund

We will not fund:

• PhD studentship costs

• requests for individual items of equipment of £25,000 and over. You may request smaller items of equipment (under £25,000 individually) under ‘Consumables (other directly incurred costs)’ in your application

Services And Facilities

You can apply to use a facility or resource in your funding application, but all costs for these must be met within the overall grant limit and access must be feasible within the timeframe of the grant.

You should discuss your application with the facility or service as early as possible to:

• discuss the proposed work in detail

• receive confirmation that they can provide the services required within the timeframe of the funding

The facility will provide a technical assessment that includes the calculated cost of providing the service. NERC services and facilities must be costed within the limits of the funding.

You should not submit the technical assessment with the application, but you must confirm you have received it.

For more information, see the NERC research grants and fellowships handbook.

Read the full list of NERC facilities that require a technical assessment.

High Performance Computing (HPC), Marine Equipment (SME) and the large research facilities at Harwell have their own policies for access and costing.

Ship Time And Marine Facilities

While it is not feasible to request ship-time through this funding opportunity, given the quick timelines for delivery, there may be other NERC marine facilities that can be utilised.

If you intend to apply for NERC’s marine facilities, you should contact marineplanning@nerc.ukri.org to discuss your requirements as soon as possible. We reserve the right to reject an application requesting marine facilities if we do not have assurance that delivery is feasible within the timeframes proposed.

If you wish to use NERC marine facilities, you must complete an online ship-time and marine equipment (SME) or autonomous deployment (ADF) application form available from Marine Facilities Planning. Include the SME or ADF number on the ‘Facilities’ section of your application.

SMEs or ADFs must be submitted and approved by NERC Marine Planning (email: marineplanning@nerc.ukri.org) by the time your funding application is submitted. A PDF of the SME or ADF can be attached as a facility form to your application. If you do not do this, your request may not be considered for inclusion in the NERC Marine Facilities Programme.

British Antarctic Survey (Bas) Antarctic Logistics Support

BAS will seek to support requests for NERC BAS Antarctic logistics where possible within the scope of this funding opportunity.

If you wish to request NERC BAS Antarctic logistics support, you must engage with the Antarctic Access Office (AAO) at BAS (email: afibas@bas.ac.uk) at the earliest possible stage, ideally before submitting an outline.

You must also complete a pre-award operational support planning questionnaire (OSPQ) online as early as possible.

You must email the AAO at BAS stating your name, institution and project title.

The AAO will set up a new and numbered pre-award OSPQ and send the link to you along with instructions for completion.

Any funding applications that request Antarctic logistic support without having received prior logistic approval will not be awarded. All funding applications wishing to use Antarctic logistics support must add this to the ‘Facilities’ question in their application.

You should also be aware of the NERC update on polar research planning.

Supporting Skills And Talent

We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.

Trusted Research And Innovation (Tr&I)

UKRI has a long-standing and continuing commitment to supporting and enabling safe and effective collaboration in research and innovation. UKRI is equally committed to ensuring that this takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks.

Our Principles and expectations set out the principles that UKRI applies to TR&I and our general expectations of the research organisations (including businesses, research institutes, and research technical organisations) that we support. Organisations supported by UKRI should be able to provide evidence that their internal controls and processes meet these expectations.

See further guidance and information about TR&I, including where applicants can find additional support.

Data Management

You must adhere to UKRI open research policy and NERC data policy and complete the ‘Data management and sharing’ question.

For details of data centres, see the NERC Environmental Data Service.

We will pay the data centre directly on behalf of the programme for archival and curation services, but you should ensure that you request sufficient resource to cover preparation of data for archiving by the research team. Additional services from the data centres, such as database development or a specialist in project data management during your project, will need to be discussed with the relevant data centre prior to submission, costs for additional services will need to be funded from your grant.

Responsible Research

Through our funding processes, we seek to make a positive contribution to society and the environment. This is not just through research outputs and outcomes but through the way in which research is conducted and facilities managed.

All NERC grant holders are to adopt responsible research practices as set out in the NERC responsible business statement.

Responsible research is defined as reducing harm or enhancing benefit on the environment and society through effective management of research activities and facilities. Specifically, this covers:

• the natural environment

• the local community

• equality, diversity and inclusion

You should consider the responsible research context of your project, not the host institution as a whole. You should take action to enhance your responsible research approach where practical and reasonable.

Outline Application

Before submitting a full application, you must first outline your project on one side of A4 and send this to urgencygrants@nerc.ukri.org for approval. This must be no later than four weeks after the environmental event first occurs.

Your outline application must include:

• a brief summary of the proposed research

• justification for the urgency including evidence of the event start date.

• brief objectives and methods of your proposed research

• a list of the organisations and core team involved

• a proposed project start-date and duration

After approval of an outline, you will be invited, via an email from urgencygrants@nerc.ukri.org, to submit a full application through the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service and must do so within 10 working days.

Invited Full Application

We are running this funding opportunity on the Funding Service so please ensure that your organisation is registered. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.

The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application.

Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI.

To Apply

Once invited, select the Funding Service link sent via email from urgencygrants@nerc.ukri.org to start an application:

• Confirm you are the project lead.

• Sign in or create a Funding Service account. To create an account, select your organisation, verify your email address, and set a password.

• Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to complete them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. If we need you to upload a document, follow the upload instructions in the Funding Service. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the How to apply section on this Funding finder page.

• Allow enough time to check your application in ‘read-only’ view before sending to your research office.

• Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.

• Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.

Please be aware that research office and finance teams undertake checks on hosting arrangements and financial eligibility. The ultimate responsibility for ensuring compliance with all opportunity requirements lies with the applicant.

Where indicated, you can also demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant.

When including images, you must:

• provide a descriptive caption or legend for each image immediately underneath it in the text box (this must be outside the image and counts towards your word limit)

• insert each new image on a new line

• use files smaller than 5MB and in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format

Images should only be used to convey important visual information that cannot easily be put into words. The following are not permitted, and your application will be rejected if you include:

• sentences or paragraphs of text

• tables

• excessive quantities of images

A few words are permitted where the image would lack clarity without the contextual words, such as a diagram, where text labels are required for an axis or graph column.

For more guidance on the Funding Service, see:

• how applicants use the Funding Service

• how research offices use the Funding Service

• how reviewers use the Funding Service

References

References should be included within the word count of the appropriate question section. You should use your discretion when including references and prioritise those most pertinent to the application.

Hyperlinks can be used in reference information. When including references, you should consider how your references will be viewed and used by the assessors, ensuring that:

• references are easily identifiable by the assessors

• references are formatted as appropriate to your research

• persistent identifiers are used where possible

General Use Of Hyperlinks

Applications should be self-contained. You should only use hyperlinks to link directly to reference information. You must not include links to web resources to extend your application. Assessors are not required to access links to conduct assessment or recommend a funding decision.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (Ai)

Use of generative AI tools to prepare funding applications is permitted, however, caution should be applied.

For more information see our policy on the use of generative AI in application and assessment.

Deadline

We must receive your full application within 10 working days from official invitation to submit following approval of an outline application.

Note that the closing date provided within the Funding Service for this funding opportunity does not apply to individual applications, which will be processed as and when they are received, in accordance with the timeline outlined. This funding opportunity will periodically close and immediately re-open in order for UKRI to apply any necessary updates.

Following the submission of your application to this funding opportunity, your application cannot be changed, and submitted applications will not be amended. If your application does not follow the guidance, it may be rejected.

Processing Personal Data

NERC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your Funding Service account and the registration of your funding applications.

We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice.

As part of NERC’s commitment to evidence-based improvement, personal data submitted in connection with this funding opportunity (successful and unsuccessful submissions) may be used for monitoring, evaluation, analysis and learning activities. Such processing will be undertaken in accordance with applicable UK data protection legislation.

Analysis outputs will be aggregated and, where relevant, anonymised before reporting so that no individual can be identified. The purpose of this analysis is to support NERC’s internal learning and continuous improvement activities. However, high-level findings, trends and lessons learned may be shared with external audiences in a form that does not identify any individual.

Sensitive Information

If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email urgencygrants@nerc.ukri.org

Include in the subject line: NERC Urgency funding; sensitive information; your Funding Service application number.

Typical examples of confidential information include:

• individual is unavailable until a certain date (for example due to parental leave)

• declaration of interest

• additional information about eligibility to apply that would not be appropriately shared in the ‘Applicant and team capability’ section

• conflict of interest for UKRI to consider in reviewer or panel participant selection

• the application is an invited resubmission

For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read UKRI’s privacy notice.

Institutional Matched Funding

There is no requirement for matched funding from the institutions hosting the project lead, project co-leads or other staff employed on the application, beyond the standard 20% FEC. Expert reviewers and panels assessing UKRI funding applications must not consider levels of institutional matched funding as a factor on which to base recommendations. Direct and in-kind contributions from third party project partners are encouraged.

This policy does not remove the need for support from host organisations who must provide the necessary research environment and infrastructure for award-specific activities funded by UKRI. For example, research facilities, training and development of staff.

To be a project lead or a project co-lead you must be based at an organisation complying with standard eligibility rules.

This funding opportunity is open to organisations with standard eligibility. Check if your organisation is eligible.

Before applying for funding, check the following:

• Individual eligibility

• Check your project is in our remit, if you are unsure whether your proposed research falls within the remit of NERC

You cannot be named on an application if you have been a project lead or project co-lead on another full application to this scheme in the previous two years.

Project partners fund their own involvement. We will only fund minor incidental expenses, such as some travel costs, if needed for project partners.

Extracted from a public opportunity page using specific title, application/deadline, eligibility and benefit signals. Aggregator/news pages remain review-controlled unless an official provider page is successfully verified.