Metascience Research Grants Round 2 (2026): UKRI Historical Reference

Metascience Research Grants Round 2 (2026): UKRI Historical Reference

The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Metascience Research Grants Round 2 was a closed funding opportunity for research into how research and development (R&D) is conducted, funded, organised, evaluated, and improved. This page is now a historical reference. The official UKRI opportunity page lists the call as closed, and its closing date was 23 April 2026 at 4:00pm UK time. The page does not announce a subsequent round, so there is no current application date to add here.

The call was jointly supported by UKRI councils and co-funders including the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and Coefficient Giving. It sought evidence that could help government, funders, universities, research institutes, charities, journals, and other research organisations make better decisions about the R&D system. The subject was not a normal disciplinary grant about a new result in physics, medicine, history, or computer science. The central object of study had to be the way research is produced or supported.

Round 2 at a glance

The front matter retains 2026-04-23 because it is the real closing date for this completed call. historicalReference = true tells the site that the date belongs to an archive entry, not to an application that readers can still submit. It would be misleading to replace the closed date with a guessed future date or with rolling.

What UKRI meant by metascience in this call

UKRI described metascience as a field that uses scientific methods to understand how research is conducted, funded, and supported, and how those practices can be improved. Round 2 was intended to generate actionable evidence, rather than only broad commentary about problems in academia. Projects could be empirical or theoretical, but they needed a clear connection to decisions made by public bodies, funding organisations, research institutions, or other participants in the R&D system.

Applications had to fit one of three themes. A proposal that did not fit one of these themes was outside the scope of the opportunity.

1. Science of AI for Science

This theme examined how the adoption of artificial intelligence is changing research and how governments, industry, and funding organisations should respond. UKRI defined AI broadly as software that learns by example, including generative AI, machine learning, and uses embedded in hardware such as self-driving laboratories. The relevant question was the effect of AI inside scientific research or inside the research ecosystem, for example in peer review or research portfolio evaluation.

This theme was not a general AI ethics or safety call. UKRI said it would not fund work focused primarily on industrial applications such as clinical medicine, law, or fintech. It also excluded frontier computer science research that studied the science of AI itself rather than the use and consequences of AI in research. A suitable project might therefore evaluate how an AI-assisted review process changes reviewer behaviour, proposal assessment, reproducibility, or equity across multiple research settings. It would need a defensible design, a defined comparison, and outcomes that matter beyond one software product.

2. Effective design and leadership of research organisations

This theme covered empirical comparisons of institutional models, the drivers of programme-manager and research performance, and the use of management or behavioural science to improve research structures and practices. It also included interventions intended to support inclusive, high-performing research cultures.

A strong proposal in this area would define the organisational choice being studied and explain how results would be measured. For example, a team might compare two approaches to programme management, test a change in how research teams set priorities, or assess an intervention designed to improve inclusion and performance. The project would need more than a description of what institutions currently do. It should explain the source of variation, the comparison or intervention, the data available, and the route by which evidence could inform institutional decisions.

3. Scientometric approaches to research excellence, efficiency, and equity

This theme supported the development, validation, and generalisable use of metrics and indicators for research quality, influence, and impact. It also covered indicators that could help curate and synthesise science at scale, as well as the behavioural consequences of using metrics in research evaluation and funding decisions.

Applicants needed to treat metrics as objects of study rather than assume that a convenient measure was a valid measure of excellence. A credible project could validate an indicator against a meaningful outcome, compare how different evaluation systems affect behaviour, or study whether a metric changes who receives attention or funding. The proposal should address limits, incentives, missing data, and the risk that participants adapt their behaviour to the measure itself.

Funding, duration, and collaboration

The full economic cost of a project could be up to £250,000 when all organisations were UK-based and eligible for funding. The ceiling could rise to £350,000 when the project included an international partner. UKRI’s rule was important: the additional funds above £250,000 had to be used solely for costs relating to the international partners. If the UK costs alone exceeded £250,000, the application would be treated as over budget and rejected.

UKRI funded 80% of the full economic cost. The project lead’s research organisation was expected to provide the remaining 20%, under the normal full-economic-cost arrangement. The page stated that there was no separate requirement for matched funding beyond that standard 20%. Third-party project partners could still make direct or in-kind contributions, and the application had to describe those contributions.

Awards were expected to run for six to 24 months and to start no later than 1 December 2026. The duration and latest start date mattered when planning staff time, data access, institutional pilots, ethics review, dissemination, and any international work. A project could not use the higher international ceiling merely to increase the UK part of the budget.

International researchers could apply as a project co-lead (international). Other international collaborators, as well as UK partners that were not based at approved organisations, were to be included as project partners. UKRI strongly welcomed collaborations between researchers and organisations such as funders, research organisations, charities, think tanks, and journals, particularly where a partner could help implement or test the findings.

Who was eligible

The project lead had to be based at a UK research organisation eligible for UKRI funding. The official page referred applicants to the standard organisational eligibility rules, so a prospective applicant needed their institution’s research office to confirm eligibility rather than rely on a general assumption that every research group or company could apply.

The call encouraged applications from a diverse range of researchers and described support for career breaks, caring responsibilities, flexible working, alternative working patterns, and disability or accessibility needs. Those provisions did not remove the requirement for an eligible host organisation or an eligible project team. International collaborators could add expertise and comparative evidence, but the lead organisation still had to be an eligible UK host.

The scheme was aimed at teams able to connect research methods with decisions in the R&D system. Useful capability could include quantitative analysis, qualitative research, causal inference, scientometrics, management or behavioural science, AI evaluation, research policy, data governance, and engagement with institutions that might use the results. A proposal did not need every method, but it did need a convincing match between its research questions, available evidence, team skills, and intended users.

What an application needed to explain

The Funding Service application asked for a plain-English summary, a vision, an approach, applicant and team capability, ethics and responsible research and innovation, data management and sharing, resources and cost justification, project partners, and international collaboration where relevant. The official page listed assessment areas corresponding to those sections.

The vision should state what the project hoped to achieve, why it mattered, what new understanding it would produce, and who could use it. The approach should make the design inspectable: research questions, data sources, sampling, comparison or intervention, analysis, work packages, risks, and dependencies. The capability section should show what the whole team could deliver, including relevant contributions from project partners. The resources section should justify substantial costs such as staff, fieldwork or collaboration travel, unusual consumables, facilities, infrastructure, and exceptional items. UKRI also asked applicants to cost activities for impact, public engagement, responsible innovation, and annual Metascience cohort events.

Data management was not an afterthought. UKRI required funded research data to be well managed so it could be reused where possible. Applicants using grant records, peer-review information, employment data, interviews, or other sensitive material needed to address consent, confidentiality, anonymisation, security, legal constraints, and the conditions under which data or code could be shared. The plan also needed to identify relevant information standards and explain how the team would avoid making later reuse impossible.

Ethics and responsible innovation were similarly central. A project could influence funding, careers, institutional reputations, or research priorities. The proposal therefore needed to consider foreseeable benefits, harms, misuse, conflicts of interest, and how those issues would be monitored throughout the project. A partner’s access to data or a decision-making setting was valuable only if the governance and permissions were clear.

How the application process worked

The round used the new UKRI Funding Service. Applicants could not use the Je-S system. The project lead was responsible for the application, while all team members and project partners were expected to contribute relevant information.

The official instructions described the following process:

1. Select Start application on the UKRI Funding Finder page.
2. Confirm that you are the project lead.
3. Sign in or create a Funding Service account, select your organisation, verify the email address, and set a password.
4. If the organisation was not listed, contact [email protected]. UKRI advised allowing at least 10 working days for an organisation to be added, and suggested creating an organisation Administration Account as well.
5. Answer the application questions in the Funding Service text boxes. Answers could be saved and completed later, or drafted offline and pasted into the service. Where the service requested a document, the applicant had to follow the upload instructions.
6. Review the application in read-only view before sending it to the research office.
7. Send the completed application to the research office for checking.
8. The lead research organisation submitted the checked application to UKRI.

That process is preserved for historical use only. UKRI’s deadline instruction was explicit: it had to receive the application by 23 April 2026 at 4:00pm UK time, and applicants could not apply after that time. Internal institutional deadlines were earlier and varied by organisation. Because the call is closed, these steps cannot be used to submit a Round 2 application now.

Distributed peer review and assessment

Round 2 used distributed peer review (DPR). Applicants were also assessors: people who submitted a proposal agreed to review other proposals in the same opportunity. UKRI said each applicant would receive a maximum of 10 proposals to review, rate them, and provide feedback under the DPR rules and guidelines. Failing to complete the assigned reviews by the required deadline would lead to automatic rejection of the applicant’s own proposal.

UKRI planned to use reviewer pools, budgets, and an allocation algorithm so that scoring another application would not affect the ranking of the reviewer’s own application. The UKRI Metascience Unit intended to evaluate the DPR process and seek feedback from participants. This obligation was a material part of applying, not a minor administrative detail, and teams needed to ensure that named applicants could meet it.

UKRI also reserved the right to take a portfolio approach so the final set of awards covered disciplines and themes appropriately. Applicants should therefore have explained not only why their question was important, but also how it added evidence that decision makers could act on.

Contact and archival note

For questions about the opportunity, UKRI listed [email protected]. Questions about costings and institutional submission were directed first to the applicant’s research office. Technical questions about the Funding Service went to [email protected].

The official page is the source of record for Round 2. It identifies the opportunity as closed, confirms the 23 April 2026 closing date, and does not announce a next round. This entry therefore keeps the completed cycle’s verified facts, marks it as historical, and avoids presenting an expired call as available funding.