These short-term exploratory grants are aimed at researchers working in the BBSRC’s remit who are looking to pursue high-risk-high-gain discovery research that is at an early stage of development, specifically focusing on BBSRC’s frontier bioscience: understanding the rules of life theme. The call aims to support “original and visionary” projects that offer to deviate from current understanding and explore new lines of enquiry relating to fundamental bioscience questions. Projects must be early-stage, untested, and lacking preliminary data. Projects that cross disciplinary boundaries including non-bioscience fields are also encouraged.
The fEC value of the projects can be up to £350,000, and BBSRC will fund 80% of the fEC. BBSRC anticipate awarding 18-20 grants in this round. Project duration can be up to two years, or three in exceptional circumstances AND with prior BBSRC approval.
There are no standardised eligibility criteria for these grants, where the focus is instead on meeting funder’s frontier bioscience remit with a research challenge that offers a potential step change. With regards to the eligibility, you may refer to the BBSRC Eligibility page, and the “Scope” section of the call page.
For more information, please refer to the recording of the BBSRC webinar for this call.
University Internal selection:
Institutions are asked to prioritise applications internally as the BBSRC is anticipating a lot of interest in this call. Therefore, this call will be managed according to the University’s restricted calls procedure. Your Department’s Research Grants Team and/or Departmental Administrator (or equivalent) must be made aware of your internal application.
This funding call has a mandatory registration process to be completed on UKRI TFS portal as the first step to help BBSRC assess the remit/proposal eligibility, the level of demand, and the team composition. Mandatory registrations must be submitted on the funder portal by 4pm Wednesday, the 19th November 2025. The internal prioritisation process will occur after this registration, so that the BBSRC’s feedback on each registration form can be taken into consideration.
To take part in the internal prioritisation process, please complete our online form (NB: if asked to log-in, please use your crsID/Raven details; note that a Form cannot be saved and returned to) by Friday, 5th December 2025.
You will need the following documents and information to complete the Form:
Internal Prioritisation Criteria:
Please note that the assessment of internal applications will be a light touch review of the registration form information, the feedback received from the BBSRC, and the applicant’s narrative CV, to ensure each application is competitive and suitable for the opportunity.
Timeline:
BBSRC Registration deadline: 4pm GMT, Wednesday 19th November 2025
Anticipated period for BBSRC feedback to be sent to applicants: 20th November-3rd December 2025
Internal prioritisation deadline: Friday, 5th December 2025
Funder deadline for full stage applications: 4pm GMT, Thursday 25th February 2026
If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact researchstrategy@admin.cam.ac.uk.
Posted on 28/10/2025
