International Funding Opportunities

The Research Councils run a number of schemes to support activities that foster international collaboration through initiating or further developing long term relationships between researchers in the UK and another country. These include establishing partnership links between research institutions, building on existing links between research groups and extending networks, and encouraging researchers from overseas to undertake research in the UK as well as UK researchers to spend time abroad.

The Research Councils offer a number of opportunities depending on the type of collaboration being undertaken:

• Stage 1 - First Links: funds to cover the travel and subsistence for short term visits usually from the UK to another country.

• Stage 2 - A Broader Relationship: where there is already a more established relationship, researchers may wish to apply for funds to extend this relationship in the country of choice.

• Stage 3 - Pilot Studies: where relationships are more mature it may be the case that researchers need financial support to carry out pilot research.

• Stage 4 - Sustainable Interactions: dedicated schemes to support transnational collaboration or where the funding for international collaboration is embedded in the activities of programmes, often within the UK contribution to specific multilateral organisations.

A number of schemes in these sections are also relevant to Early Career Researchers.

A list of current calls can be found on Research Council websites using the links on the right.