MRC Partnership Grant (Applicant-Led) 2026: Rolling Funding for Collaborative Capabilities

The MRC partnership grant: applicant-led opportunity is open on a rolling basis. It is for ambitious partnerships between researchers that create novel collaborative activities or capabilities in the Medical Research Council’s remit. The official UKRI page does not set a closing date: applications are accepted and processed continuously, so a ready application can be submitted without waiting for a particular round or deadline.

This is a live funding opportunity, not the pre-announcement described in older versions of this page. MRC published the opportunity and opened it on 7 April 2026. The Funding Service may display a notional future closing date because of a system requirement, but MRC says that date is not an actual deadline. That is why the metadata for this page uses rolling rather than retaining the old same-day date.

At a glance

What the grant is designed to support

MRC wants partnerships that add value to high-quality research activities. The underlying research may already have support from another award, or the partnership may create the capability needed for future funding within MRC’s remit. The partnership should help researchers work together in a way that would not be possible, or would be less effective, without a shared structure, resource, platform, or coordinated programme of activity.

The medical focus matters. MRC describes the purpose as transforming understanding of human health and the causes and mechanisms of disease, accelerating diagnosis, advancing treatment, and preventing human illness. A proposal therefore needs a credible connection to those aims. A technically interesting collaboration with no clear relevance to human health or disease mechanisms is not made suitable merely by adding a medical term to its summary.

The official examples of eligible collaborative activity include:

• Networking and partnership activity that establishes a multidisciplinary partnership or consortium, supports a national or international strategy, or enables knowledge sharing or knowledge creation across organisations. Networking must have a defined related activity or output; meetings alone are not enough.
• Infrastructure support for a unique shared resource or for making better use of one. This can include staff, systems, equipment, seminars, workshops, outreach, and travel where those costs support a defined partnership output.
• Platform activity, such as a specialist data platform, software platform, or shared research resource.
• Training, career development, and capacity building in an area of unmet need that supports future delivery of high-value research capabilities.
• Small-scale pump-priming projects, where they demonstrate the novel capability of the new partnership. A specific research question must not become the main purpose of the application.

These categories are examples rather than a closed list. The proposal should explain the overarching objective and show how each activity contributes to it. A strong application makes the partnership itself concrete: a shared method, accessible platform, trained community, coordinated resource, or durable way of working should exist as a result of the award.

What is out of scope

MRC is explicit about several exclusions. Partnership grants are not intended primarily to support research. If the central request is for a conventional research project, the research grant route is more appropriate. The opportunity also excludes applications that request only networking and collaboration-building without a defined related activity. Activities that are inward-looking, with insufficient openness or engagement with the wider community, are also out of scope.

This distinction should shape the whole case for support. Experiments, analyses, or pilot studies may be included when they are interdisciplinary, high risk or high gain, and demonstrate a new partnership capability. They should not be the reason the partnership exists. Describe what the collaboration enables, who else can benefit from it, and how the capability will be sustained or used after the grant.

Applicants are encouraged to contact the MRC programme manager relevant to their idea before applying. This is particularly important where the balance between capability-building and research is difficult to judge. MRC warns that out-of-scope applications will be rejected, so an early scope discussion can prevent a substantial application from being built around the wrong grant type.

Who can apply

The opportunity is open to organisations with standard UKRI eligibility. The project lead must be employed by an eligible research organisation and must either direct the project while being actively engaged in the work or contribute to the academic leadership of the partnership. The lead and team must be able to demonstrate the expertise and experience needed to deliver the aims, using interdisciplinary approaches where they are appropriate.

The application should make the team’s roles clear. MRC expects a capable group rather than a list of names: explain who leads the partnership, who supplies each important skill, how decisions will be made, and how the team will support researchers at different career stages. If a relevant applicant does not have a contract covering the proposed project, the host research organisation must confirm that it will extend the contract beyond the project end date if the application succeeds. The organisation must also provide the necessary support for the project and applicants, including mentorship and career development for early-career researchers.

There are important restrictions on organisational roles. An international research organisation cannot normally lead this opportunity. The exception is for project leads employed by MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine or by MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit. International researchers can apply as project co-leads when they make a major intellectual contribution to the design or conduct of the project and the application explains their added value. Other international collaborators, and UK partners not based at approved organisations, should be included as project partners.

Businesses and charity or third-sector organisations are not eligible to lead or co-lead unless the charity or third-sector organisation is an approved UKRI Independent Research Organisation. They can still participate as project partners where their contribution is integral and properly described. International project co-lead costs are funded at 100% of eligible costs. For international applicants from high-income countries, India, and China, those costs must not exceed 30% of total resources requested; there is no cap on costs for international applicants from countries on the OECD DAC list.

MRC is applying demand management across its applicant-led responsive opportunities. A person can be project lead on only one application at a time across the MRC research, partnership, and new investigator routes. Submitting another application while the first is being assessed will cause the new application to be rejected. MRC also does not accept an uninvited resubmission of an application submitted after 1 April 2026 to MRC, UKRI, or another funder. Contact MRC if it is unclear whether a new proposal counts as a resubmission.

Funding available and allowable costs

There is no fixed maximum award. MRC says the requested funds should be determined by the ambitions and plans of the partnership, be appropriate to the proposed activity, and be justified as necessary for delivery. It will fund 80% of the full economic cost and 100% of permitted exceptions. This is not a promise that every requested cost will be awarded: the budget still needs to match the partnership’s workplan and the rules for eligible costs.

Potentially fundable costs include contributions to the project lead’s salary and to a small number of co-leads who provide academic leadership, technical staff, consumables, equipment or infrastructure that is key to the partnership, travel, data preservation and sharing, dissemination, estates, indirect costs, and public partnerships. Public contributors may be paid in line with the relevant UKRI guidance. A project partner may contribute cash or in-kind support such as staff time, equipment, facilities, data, software, materials, or recruitment support.

MRC will not fund co-lead salary contributions unless they are critical to academic leadership. It will not fund costs primarily for research, PhD studentships, infrastructure only, publication costs, or funding intended as a bridge between grants. Equipment and infrastructure must serve the partnership’s aims and platform activities rather than being a standalone capital request.

Each project partner needs a statement of support. A person in the application core team cannot also be a project partner, and an organisation employing a core-team member cannot be entered as a project partner organisation. If a partner is from industry, the application must also address the Industry Collaboration Framework where required.

How to apply

Applications are made through the new UKRI Funding Service. The lead organisation must be registered, and an NHS lead organisation should be checked in the system early because additional setup steps may be needed. Je-S is not the application route for this opportunity.

Use the “Start application” link on the official Funding Finder page and select the partnership grant type. MRC lists three grant types in the Funding Service: research, new investigator, and partnership. Applications submitted to the wrong type will be rejected. The project lead then confirms their role, signs in or creates a Funding Service account, selects the organisation, verifies the email address, and sets a password.

The application is completed in text boxes, with uploads added where the Funding Service requests them. Applicants can save answers and return later, or draft offline and copy the text into the system. Before sending the application to the research office, use the read-only view to check the full submission. The research office checks the application, hosting arrangements, and financial eligibility, then returns it for corrections if needed. Only the lead research organisation can submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.

The current application includes a public-facing summary, a vision, an approach, data management and sharing, applicant and team capability, project-partner information, resources and costs, and supporting information where applicable. The approach must include a project plan with milestones and timelines, such as an embedded Gantt chart or similar. It should also explain partnership management, how researchers will work together, how capability will grow, how the wider research community will benefit, and how the partnership or any later research will be sustained after MRC funding.

The application page gives a 550-word limit for the summary and a 550-word limit for the vision. The approach has a 3,300-word limit. A data management and sharing plan may be up to 1,500 words for complex data resources, or shorter for less complex research. Applicant and team capability has a 2,000-word limit, using the R4RI format and an optional additions section. These limits are part of the live Funding Service form, so check the official page and the form before finalising the text.

Planning a rolling application

Rolling submission changes the planning question. There is no need to compress the work into a short window, but there is also no benefit in treating the opportunity as permanently available without a decision point. Set an internal submission date, then work backwards from the time needed for partner statements, costing, governance review, data planning, and research-office checks.

Start by writing the partnership outcome in plain language. Name the capability that will be built, the groups that need it, and the health or disease problem to which it contributes. Next, map the activities that create that capability: platform development, shared protocols, training, access arrangements, public partnership, or a defined pilot. Make the deliverables observable and give each one an owner.

Build the team and governance plan at the same time as the budget. Explain how the partners will make decisions, resolve disagreements, manage data access, recognise contributions, and include early-career researchers. If the partnership involves international or public contributors, describe how it will be equitably led and co-designed where relevant. MRC also expects support for people and teams to be embedded in the proposal, including a positive research environment and researcher development.

The official page says projects should start between nine and 18 months after the application is submitted. Use that interval when checking staff availability, procurement, approvals, partner commitments, and the sustainability plan. The award can last up to five years, but request only the duration needed for the capability to become credible and useful. Explain what will continue after the award and why a renewal or follow-on request should not be assumed.

A practical test before submission

Ask whether the proposal would still make sense if the research outputs were removed. If the answer is no, the application may be a research grant in disguise. Ask what a researcher outside the core partnership can access, learn, reuse, or join. If there is no answer, the activity may be too inward-looking. Ask whether the requested amount is tied to named activities and milestones. If the budget is simply a large pool for future possibilities, it is not yet justified.

The strongest case will connect four things: a clear MRC-relevant health need, a partnership that is necessary to address it, a defined collaborative capability, and a credible route to wider benefit or future research. It will also show that the team can deliver the work and support the people who make the collaboration function.

Bottom line

This opportunity is open and accepts applications continuously. Do not use the old 7 April 2026 same-day deadline as a submission date; that was part of the pre-announcement record and is no longer the live rule. Use rolling as the current deadline, prepare the partnership and budget carefully, contact the relevant MRC programme manager about scope, and submit through the UKRI Funding Service when the application is ready.

The official opportunity page is: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/mrc-partnership-grant-applicant-led/