AHRC Design Generators Round Two: A £1 Million Fund Awarding £150,000 to £200,000 per Project for Design-Led Green Transition Research — Applications Close 29 September 2026

AHRC Design Generators Round Two: A £1 Million Fund Awarding £150,000 to £200,000 per Project for Design-Led Green Transition Research — Applications Close 29 September 2026

The Arts and Humanities Research Council has opened the second round of Design Generators, a funding call that asks design researchers to stop describing the green transition and start intervening in it. The call opened on 21 July 2026 and closes at 4:00pm UK time on 29 September 2026.

The structure is unusually tight for an AHRC grant. There is £1 million in the pot. Individual awards run from £150,000 to £200,000 at 80 percent of full economic cost. Projects run for 9 to 12 months and must start by 1 February 2027. Do the arithmetic and the fund supports roughly five or six projects — AHRC has not published a target number, but the range leaves little room for more.

What makes this call distinct from most research funding is the co-lead requirement. Every application must include at least one non-academic co-lead drawn from business, the public sector, the third sector, civil society, or a community organisation. This is not a “letter of support from a friendly partner” arrangement. The non-academic co-lead is a named lead on the project, and their costs may account for up to 30 percent of the total funds requested. If you cannot name that person and explain what they will actually do, you do not have an application yet.

Key Details at a Glance

What the Money Is Actually For

The framing AHRC uses is “creating interventions within existing systems.” That phrase is doing real work, and it is worth reading closely.

The call is not looking for speculative futures work, and it is not looking for a from-scratch redesign of an industry. It is looking for projects that enter a system that already exists — healthcare, food networks, governance structures, financial infrastructures are the examples AHRC names — and use design methods to change how that system behaves in ways that support the green transition.

The activities AHRC lists as fundable give a clear picture of what a strong project looks like in practice:

• Design research and innovation prototyping
• Building multidisciplinary design research capabilities
• Exploring circular and regenerative business models
• Strengthening third sector resilience
• Supporting skills transition
• Developing strategies for policymaking
• Delivering training and facilitating public participation
• Paying participants for their time, explicitly framed as removing barriers to engagement

That last item is a genuine signal about the kind of research AHRC wants. Participant payment is named as a legitimate cost, not something to be squeezed into a contingency line. If your project involves communities whose participation is unpaid labour under any other funding arrangement, budget for paying them and say why in the cost justification.

The disciplinary requirement is firm: at least 50 percent of the project must fall within the AHRC subject remit, and the majority of the disciplinary focus must sit there. On top of that, the project must be “primarily rooted within the design discipline.” A strong sustainability project led by engineers with a designer attached will not clear this bar. Neither will a humanities project that uses the word “design” as a metaphor.

Who Should Apply — and Who Should Not

The project lead must be of postdoctoral standing, meaning a doctorate or equivalent research experience, and must be employed by or hold a formal arrangement with the submitting research organisation. Beyond that, AHRC states the call is open to UK-based researchers at all career stages. In practice, an early-career researcher with a credible partner and a well-scoped 12-month intervention is a plausible lead here in a way they would not be for a five-year programme grant.

Several restrictions will decide eligibility before quality ever gets assessed:

• A lead research organisation may submit only one application as lead. It may co-lead on one other application, but that second project must be substantively different.
• An individual team member may participate in only one application.
• Job shares are not supported.
• PhD studentships cannot be funded.
• Subcontractors are excluded.
• Non-UK-based individuals and freelancers are not eligible, and international activities and stakeholders are out of scope.
• Applicants who were unsuccessful in Round One may not resubmit the same proposal.

The single-application-per-institution rule matters more than it looks. If you are at a large university with an active design school, there is an internal competition happening before the external one. Contact your research office in the first week of preparation, not the last. Institutions typically run an internal selection process for capped calls, and those internal deadlines routinely fall four to six weeks before the funder’s date — which, for a 29 September close, means late August.

The Round One resubmission bar is worth reading precisely. It excludes the same proposal coming back. It does not exclude an unsuccessful Round One applicant from applying with a genuinely different project. If you were declined in the first round and you want to try again, the honest question is whether what you are submitting is a new project or the old one with a new title. Panels that assessed Round One will recognise the difference.

The Application Itself: Sections and Word Limits

Applications go through the UKRI Funding Service, not the retired Je-S system. If you have not used the Funding Service before, register early — account setup and organisational linking can take days, and the 4:00pm deadline is enforced by the system, not by a person.

The published section structure and word limits are:

Project partner letters of support are submitted as a single PDF, with a maximum of two A4 pages per partner. Images are permitted, subject to a 5MB limit and specified file formats, and each needs a descriptive caption — which also serves accessibility. If your project involves animals, genetically modified organisms, or human participants, additional sections must be completed.

Two things stand out in this structure. First, Approach at 2,200 words is by far the largest section, and it is where the assessment turns on whether your design method is credible for green transition work. Second, Applicant and Team Capability uses R4RI — Résumé for Research and Innovation — which is a narrative CV format, not a publication list. If your team includes a community organiser or a local authority officer, R4RI is the format that lets their contribution count properly. Use it that way rather than translating everyone into an academic template.

How You Will Be Assessed

AHRC lists seven assessment criteria: Vision; Approach; Applicant and Team Capability; Ethics and RRI; Resources and Cost Justification; Project Partners; and Data Management and Sharing.

Assessment is by expert panel, with AHRC making the final funding decision. The panel may construct a balanced portfolio across geographies and themes. That last point has a practical implication: a strong application can be declined because three similar projects in the same region or on the same theme were also strong. You cannot control for this, but you can make your project’s specificity — its place, its system, its partner — legible enough that it is not read as interchangeable with another.

The criteria that most often separate funded from unfunded applications in calls of this shape are Project Partners and Resources. A partner letter that restates the project summary in the partner’s letterhead reads as a formality. A partner letter that names what the partner is contributing, who from their organisation is involved, and what changes in their operations if the project works reads as a commitment. Similarly, AHRC explicitly flags “vague consultancy fees and unrelated overheads” as not funded. Every line in your budget should map to an activity in the Approach section.

What Is Not Funded

AHRC is direct about exclusions, and each one is a real rejection reason:

• Applications not primarily rooted within the design discipline
• Generic approaches that lack direct thematic engagement with the green transition
• PhD studentships
• Subcontractors
• International elements or stakeholders
• Vague consultancy fees and unrelated overheads
• Resubmissions of unsuccessful Round One applications

“Generic approaches lacking direct thematic engagement” is the one that catches good researchers. A well-run participatory design project about, say, community wellbeing, with a paragraph added about environmental co-benefits, is a generic approach with a green label. The thematic engagement needs to be structural — the green transition should be the reason the project exists, not a framing added for the call.

Preparation Strategy for the Nine Weeks Available

From the 21 July opening to the 29 September close there are roughly ten weeks, and August is a difficult month for securing partner sign-off in the UK. A workable sequence:

Weeks 1–2 (late July). Confirm with your research office that your institution is not already committed to another lead application. Identify and approach your non-academic co-lead. Do not start writing until this person has verbally agreed — the co-lead requirement is not something you can retrofit.

Weeks 3–5 (August). Scope the intervention with the co-lead in the room. Agree what system you are entering, what changes, and what you can honestly deliver in 9 to 12 months. Draft the Approach section first; Vision is easier to write once you know what you are actually doing. Request partner letters now, with a specific brief on what each letter should evidence, because August absences will otherwise cost you three weeks.

Weeks 6–8 (early to mid September). Build the budget against the Approach line by line. Check the 30 percent cap on non-academic co-lead costs and the 80 percent FEC calculation with your finance team. Write Resources and Cost Justification, Ethics and RRI, and Data Management. Note that project data will be shared with Future Observatory, the Design Museum’s green transition programme — factor that into your data management plan rather than discovering it after award.

Week 9 (week of 21 September). Internal review, institutional approval, and submission. Submit at least 48 hours early. The Funding Service is busiest immediately before a deadline, and support lines close at 4:30pm on Fridays.

AHRC permits the use of generative AI in developing applications, with caution advised. Treat that as permission to draft and edit, not to generate substance — panels reading twenty applications on the same theme are unusually good at spotting text that describes a project rather than emerging from one.

Common Mistakes

Treating the non-academic co-lead as a partner. They are a lead. Their role should appear in the Approach, in Team Capability, and in the budget, not only in a letter appended at the end.

Missing the internal deadline. The one-lead-application-per-organisation cap means your institution decides who submits. Late notice means no submission at all, regardless of quality.

Budgeting to the ceiling without justification. The £200,000 maximum is not a target. A £160,000 project with every cost tied to an activity assesses better than a £199,000 project with an unexplained consultancy line.

Under-scoping the timeline. Nine to twelve months with a hard 1 February 2027 start is short for community-engaged work. Recruitment, ethics approval, and partner onboarding all consume time before any design work begins. Show the panel you have accounted for that.

Including an international collaborator. International researchers and activities are ineligible. A single non-UK named collaborator can make an otherwise strong application fail eligibility screening.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I apply if I was unsuccessful in Round One? Yes, but not with the same proposal. Resubmissions from unsuccessful Round One applications are explicitly excluded. A substantively different project is permitted.

Does my institution need to provide matched funding? There is no matched funding requirement beyond the standard arrangement — AHRC funds 80 percent of full economic cost, and the research organisation carries the remaining 20 percent as it does for other UKRI awards.

Can a freelance designer be the non-academic co-lead? No. Non-UK-based individuals and freelancers are named as ineligible. The co-lead should come from a business, public sector body, third sector organisation, civil society group, or community organisation.

Can I pay community participants? Yes. Paying participants for their time is named as a fundable activity, framed as removing barriers to engagement. Justify the rate and the number of participants in the cost justification.

Can I fund a PhD student on this grant? No. PhD studentships are not funded under this call.

When will I hear back? AHRC aims to complete assessment within three months of the 29 September closing date, which points to decisions around late December 2026 or January 2027 — consistent with the 1 February 2027 latest start date.

What if my project is 40 percent design and 60 percent environmental science? It will not be eligible. At least 50 percent must fall within the AHRC remit, the majority of disciplinary focus must sit there, and the project must be primarily rooted in the design discipline.

Official Links and Contacts

• Opportunity page: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/design-generators-round-two/
• Opportunity-specific questions: [email protected]
• UKRI Funding Service technical support: [email protected], 01793 547490 (Monday to Thursday 8:30am–5:00pm, Friday 8:30am–4:30pm)

AHRC states that accessibility and disability support is available for applicants who need it; contact the opportunity mailbox to arrange it rather than working around a barrier on your own time.

AHRC has not published a webinar or briefing session for this round. Check the opportunity page periodically in case one is added, and read the full published guidance on that page before finalising your application — the summary here is a preparation aid, and the official page governs.