ESRC Responsive Mode: Research Grants Round Two (Open Ongoing Call)

ESRC Responsive Mode: Research Grants Round Two (Open Ongoing Call)

This opportunity is a core ESRC responsive-mode grant stream run through the UK Research and Innovation Funding Service. The page is currently marked Open and is designed for applicant-led, social-science-driven proposals with no fixed single closing date. It is one of the more practical UK-wide opportunities when a team has a live project idea and wants to move into grant writing without waiting for an annual launch event.

The opportunity is attractive for teams aiming at investigator-led work that is strong in method and impact, and that can sit within ESRC’s remit. It is not a fellowship, challenge, scholarship, or internship. It is a grant route with broad topic flexibility, competitive peer review, and a standard UKRI assessment process.

As of the latest update in the UKRI posting (11 May 2026), it remains open, with a funding range of £350,000 to £1,000,000 in full economic cost (FEC) per award. ESRC contributes up to 80% of FEC. Projects may run for up to five years (60 months), and there is no single published cycle deadline.

Key details

What this opportunity funds

The call funds research-driven projects in any discipline where ESRC can confirm remit fit. UKRI describes this as including:

• Standard research projects
• Methodological development
• Large-scale surveys and infrastructures that benefit social science research

This is unusually broad for a major UK funding call. The page states that projects can draw from wider sciences, but social sciences must remain the majority of focus and effort (more than 50%). The call is therefore useful for interdisciplinary teams as long as social-science centrality is explicit and demonstrable.

The opportunity explicitly supports ambitious, novel proposals with scientific, economic, or societal impact potential. It is designed to catch a wide research portfolio rather than one narrow theme. ESRC also notes work across disciplines and methods is possible, including projects that connect quantitative, qualitative, and infrastructure perspectives.

There is currently an AI-focused highlight notice for this call. The page says there is no additional ring-fenced budget, but applications aligned with AI for social science are welcome and assessed under the same criteria. If you are building AI-enabled social research, you should frame this as an integrated method for the same substantive problem, not as a separate “AI-only” project.

Who is eligible

Eligibility on this call is about organisational route and role structure, not only individual status. The key rules from the official text are:

1. The project lead must be at a UK organisation eligible for ESRC funding and must remain eligible for the project duration.
2. Applicants may submit jointly, but exactly one person must be the project lead.
3. Non-UK project leads are not eligible, but non-UK project co-leads can be included.
4. UKRI Funding Service role structure applies, including new role types.
5. One lead research organisation only submits the application.
6. Uninvited resubmissions to UKRI are not accepted.

In practice this means early-stage and established teams can both apply, but institutions must be the key submission point. ESRC expects the team’s skills, knowledge, and experience to match project ambition. If your team claims a broad or technically demanding project, your team capability section must show why the mix of disciplines is robust.

Because the opportunity allows both specialist partnerships and cross-sector involvement, teams can include business, public sector, or third sector co-leads where eligible under UKRI role rules, but the lead remains UK-based within ESRC eligibility.

If you are outside the UK and are unsure whether the proposed topic is considered within ESRC remit, the safest path is to use ESRC’s remit check process before writing. Your topic framing should make it easy for reviewers to see social science centrality and beneficiary relevance.

What this call will not fund

The official list is clear, and this is one of the most important filters during proposal planning:

• Unspecified, undefined research work
• Work already carried out
• Writing up prior research
• Literature-only surveys
• General conference attendance disconnected from project delivery
• General travel for study
• Expeditions
• Events where conferences/workshops are the core deliverable
• Preparation of curriculum materials and software development where these are the main outputs
• Independent studentships

In assessment terms, this means this is a research-output, output-to-impact call, not a professional development grant. If you cannot tie every major planned activity to a concrete research or impact output, this may be read as weakly scoped.

To avoid mismatch, map every task in your plan to one of:

• New empirical work
• Method development
• Data generation and analysis infrastructure
• Concrete dissemination and impact pathway

Application process and practical timeline

The page gives a formal process but does not demand waiting for a deadline. UKRI states there is no fixed deadline on the opportunity page, but a closing date appears in the Funding Service by round. Crucially, they recommend submitting when ready, because assessment starts when applications arrive.

A practical timeline for a 2026/2027 submission window is:

Week 0: Eligibility and structure

1. Confirm lead organisation is ESRC-eligible and has Funding Service access.
2. Confirm all co-leads and team roles map to permitted roles.
3. Decide whether this proposal is best written as a single lead institution bid or distributed consortium.

Weeks 1-2: Proposal framing

1. Define one-page problem statement.
2. Draft “What is new and why now” in plain English.
3. Confirm data strategy and ethics implications early.

Weeks 3-4: Section drafts

1. Build Vision (500 words max), Approach (2,500 max), and Team Capability (1,500 total).
2. Prepare Data Management and sharing content in early form.
3. Confirm infrastructure and facilities access if required.

Weeks 5-6: Internal review and compliance

1. Ensure research impact and innovation claims are explicit.
2. Check budget with ESRC cost rules.
3. Verify references and word counts.
4. Run internal line review and corrections.

Final stage

Submit through project lead institution, check read-only view, and send to research office with enough time for institutional checks.

The official application sequence is:

1. Confirm you are project lead
2. Sign in / create Funding Service account
3. Enter answers in text fields, saving regularly
4. Return to copy-paste if drafting externally
5. Review in read-only mode
6. Submit to institutional research office for final check and submission

How proposals are assessed

ESRC uses expert review and then panel assessment. The process is designed for quality and competitiveness:

• Independent expert peer review first
• Applicant response window (where needed) for borderline or promising proposals
• Panel ranking and ESRC final decision

The core assessment criteria are:

• Vision
• Approach
• Data management and sharing
• Applicant and team capability to deliver
• Ethics and responsible research and innovation
• Resources and cost justification

What to include in each section

• Vision: be explicit on problem, beneficiaries, expected outputs, and why the proposal matters now.
• Approach: provide method, sequencing, feasibility, and risk management.
• Capabilities: show team readiness, not just CV list content.
• Data management: include data provenance, security, sharing pathway, and legal/ethical controls where relevant.
• Resources: justify major costs, not just list them.

The R4RI-based team section is important for this call because it is team-centric and reviewer-driven. Strong teams show balance between intellectual leadership, execution capacity, and user/community benefit.

Because this is responsive mode, the quality bar is often set by proposal coherence and execution readiness rather than compliance choreography alone.

Budget and administration notes that affect planning

The page explicitly says no extra matched funding is required beyond normal 20% FEC expectations. This removes one traditional barrier for many applicants, but teams should still secure institutional support for facilities, supervision, and project governance.

For cost justification, reviewers are not looking for line-by-line micro-management. They want confidence that requested spending is proportionate and tied directly to research quality. Higher-cost claims require clearer justification, especially:

• Project staff
• Field or collaboration travel above ordinary partner communication
• Equipment over £25,000
• Large consumables or exceptional quantities
• Facilities and infrastructure

Also important: if your project relies on a facility or major data resource, secure written support in advance where required.

The contact details section on the official page distinguishes two lanes:

• Research content questions: start with your institution first
• Funding Service technical issues: use UKRI [email protected]

This distinction matters during peak periods.

Common mistakes to avoid (specific to this opportunity)

1. Treating this like a fixed-cycle call with one obvious date and then waiting. This may work, but you lose momentum because UKRI advises submitting when ready.
2. Framing a UK-only project with no social science dominance when using broader scientific methods.
3. Submitting with unclear lead/role architecture.
4. Ignoring the “no resubmissions” policy.
5. Listing tasks that are not clearly research-delivery outputs.
6. Assuming conference attendance or curricular software development will pass because it is useful to team-building.
7. Underestimating impact language and user pathways.
8. Missing partner collaboration commitments when partner letters are expected.
9. Leaving ethics and RRI sections generic rather than tied to project specifics.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a hard deadline I need to plan around?

No fixed deadline is shown on the opportunity page. Closing dates are handled in Funding Service rounds. Even so, ESRC recommends submitting when your application is ready rather than waiting.

Can non-UK organisations lead?

Project leads from non-UK organisations are not eligible. Non-UK co-leads can be included under policy, including eligible international co-leads in some cases.

Can this support interdisciplinary AI projects?

Yes, especially under the AI-for-social-science emphasis, but AI remains assessed with the same criteria; it is not a separate easier lane.

Can international students or early-stage staff apply?

Yes where they satisfy role and institution rules. The page states “any stage of career” can apply, provided the team’s collective skills and experience fit the project.

What makes applications easier to assess quickly?

Clear and simple structure. ESRC calls on plain, evaluable claims in the five criteria. Applicants who write abstractly without feasibility plans usually lose ranking points.

Can the call fund anything in 2027?

Yes, because it is ongoing and rounds operate continuously. This is well aligned with the user’s 2026 and 2027 focus, provided your concept fits current criteria.

Preparation checklist for 2026/2027 applicants

Use this exact planning checklist to reduce preventable rejection reasons:

1. Remit check: confirm ESRC social-science emphasis >50%.
2. Lead role check: one lead, UK eligible org, correct lead/co-lead structure.
3. Scope check: no speculative or literature-only activities.
4. Output check: specify what changes after 60 months.
5. Evidence check: align team credentials with method demand.
6. Data check: include data security and sharing plan from draft stage.
7. Cost check: justify major resource requests and institutional support.
8. Impact check: identify user audiences and dissemination route.
9. Assessment check: map each sentence to a criterion.
10. Round check: confirm Funding Service close date before pressing submit.

If you have all ten items complete, your proposal will usually read as institutionally mature rather than exploratory.

Official links and monitoring

Primary official source:

• https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/esrc-responsive-mode-research-grants-round-two/
• https://funding-service.ukri.org (start application flow linked from the opportunity page)

Because the opportunity is active with ongoing rounds and policy updates, revisit the official page close to submission to confirm:

• Eligibility links and policy documents
• Contact details and any role rule updates
• Highlight notice status
• Any changes to section order or word limits

The safest method is to use only the official UKRI and ESRC pages for last-minute verification. Third-party summaries, even if convenient, can lag policy updates.

Final guidance for this opportunity

This is not a “big themed national campaign” call; it is a broad, flexible research funding route. That can make it ideal for teams with a clear problem and a strong implementation plan, and less suitable for teams that need a rigid theme or pre-packaged template.

What makes this call strong for many applicants is the combination of broad remit and explicit assessment criteria. The downside is that only teams with disciplined proposal architecture tend to perform well. For 2026 and 2027, this opportunity is a practical fit if you can:

• Maintain social science centrality
• Keep scope realistic for your requested budget
• Show measurable and responsible execution plans
• Produce a coherent team narrative around vision, approach, and capability

If your team fits these conditions, this is one of the most usable UK social science funding channels for ongoing application cycles because there is no single missed deadline cliff; you can move through preparation and submit at a strategically chosen moment.