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.

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:

UKEuropeInternational

UK Research and Innovation

@UKRI_News

CIVIS Europe's Civic University Alliance

@civis_eu

Research Africa

@ResearchAfrica

Medical Research Council

@The_MRC

The Guild

@GuildEU

World Health Organization

@WHO

Economic and Social Research Council

@ESRC

Horizon Europe Nine Framework Programme

@FP9_EU

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

@FAO

Arts and Humanities Research Council

@AHRCPress

Horizon Europe

@HorizonEU

USAID

@USAID

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

@BBSRC

The League of European Research Universities

@LERUnews

UN Development

@UNDP

Natural Environment Research Council

@NERCScience

Science Europe

@ScienceEurope

UK Collaborative on Development Research

@ukcdr

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

@EPSRC

Young Academy of Europe

@yacadeuro

African Academy of Sciences

@AASciences

Innovate UK

@InnovateUK

Academia Europaea

@acad_euro

African Research Universities Alliance

@ARUA_News

The Royal Society

@RoyalSociety

European Research Council

@ERC_Research

UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

@FCDOGovUK

Wellcome

@WellcomeTrust

Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions

@MSCActions

UK Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office Science, Technology, Innovation, Research, Evidence

@FCDOResearch

Inside Higher Ed

@insidehighered

 

Canada's International Development Research Centre

@IDRC_CRDI

Leverhulme Trust

@LeverhulmeTrust

 

UK's All Party Parliamentary Group for Africa

@AfricaAPPG

The British Academy

@BritishAcademy_

 

The World Bank

@WorldBank

   

Universities UK International

@UUKIntl

   

National Institute for Health and Care Research Global Health

@NIHRglobal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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/blogs 

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/

Royal Society: https://royalsociety.org/-/media/about-us/governance/royal-society-strategic-plan-2022-2027.pdf?la=en-GB&hash=DF6CDE5012A3BED373CDF366B1736988

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