Funding for Research and Knowledge Exchange

Funding for Research and Knowledge Exchange

The divisional Research, Impact and Engagement (RIE) Team collates the latest funding opportunities of interest to social sciences researchers on our SharePoint site. Here you can search and filter opportunities according to funder, call type, deadline, and frequency, and access briefing notes, guidance, and advice targeted at researchers at different career stages.

The RIE Team also circulates funding highlights via a regular Funding Digest, which is distributed to our departments and the wider social sciences community at Oxford. This focuses primarily on research, impact and engagement funding suitable for researchers in the social sciences but also includes regular calls, annual competitions, prizes and one-off funding schemes. All the information in the Funding Digest is accessible anytime on our SharePoint site.

Explore the latest funding opportunities and guidance on our SharePoint

For bespoke funding opportunities, we also suggest logging on to Research Professional using your University email address, where you can set up your own, regularly updated, funding email alerts. Information on using Research Professional can be found here. We also advise you subscribe to the mailing lists of key funders: Research England, UKRI, ESRC, Leverhulme Trust, and the British Academy.

Funding support

Support for researchers in the Social Sciences Division is provided locally in each department; from the Research, Impact and Engagement (RIE) team in the Division; and centrally in the Research Services Grants team:

Departmental support

All departments in the Social Sciences Division have staff providing support and guidance for researchers making a funding application. Researchers are advised to contact their department in the first instance to discuss their proposed application, develop the associated budget, and obtain departmental approval prior to submission.

Find your departmental research support staff

Divisional support

Members of the Division’s Research, Impact and Engagement (RIE) team specialise in providing guidance and support on various aspects of research funding. The RIE team also provides bespoke training, advice, and funding information seminars for departments, research centres and researchers at particular career stages. Please contact:

For planning of impact and non-academic engagement within your research design, contact:

University support

University central support teams provide specialist advice and guidance about research funding, application submission, contract negotiation and post-award management to departments and Principal Investigators through:

Before you apply

Please speak to your departmental research support team in the first instance. Each department may have an internal selection process for particular funding opportunities with a bespoke deadline. If you are considering applying through Oxford, please contact the appropriate department. Before you apply, consider...

  • The funder: Every funder has its own aims for investing in research. Discuss your research design with your departmental research support staff to make sure it aligns with the funder’s aims, in order to increase your chance of success.
  • Eligibility: Many funding schemes have applicant eligibility criteria, so make sure you comply before you apply.
  • Resources: Many funding schemes will have a defined envelope of funds available, and some will have rules about what this can be spent on. It is worth checking the resource implications for your research design.
  • Research design: Make sure your research is designed to answer the questions/objectives of the research, and with sufficient resource to management for successful delivery.
  • Career stage: Research funding can be used to develop and demonstrate your career trajectory, build a portfolio with credible levels of management for successful delivery.
  • Reviewing the application: Every successful research application has been reviewed. This is useful both within your discipline to recognise any gaps in knowledge, but also outside of your discipline to ensure that you have made a coherent argument that a multi-disciplinary panel would appreciate.