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Grants & Funding Opportunities for UK Faculty (AI, agentic AI, XAI, responsible AI, AI in healthcare)

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AI, agentic AI, explainable AI, responsible AI, AI in healthcare
This README collects 💰 small and large grant schemes you (UK-based faculty) can realistically apply for, with direct links and notes on fit for your research areas (agentic AI, explainable AI, responsible AI for the Global South, AI applied to healthcare).

💰 Quick view

EPSRC Small Mathematical Grants
Grant with Nabin and Shrbona on AI and pedagogy in the Global South and UK
Schmidt HAVI
Grant with Amy O. at Cambridge and Hope M. and Vik.
EPSRC Multimodal AI grant Open Multimodal AI Benchmark OMAIB
Grant with M. and others
ARIA Safe AI
John Templeton grant and ARIA for Safe AI
With Roly and Mads
FAIR (Fundamentals of AI Research) grant
Institutional grants
EDI grant
Nature AI

How to use this list

Small grants = seed/exploratory funds, pilot projects, public engagement, small fellowships (typically up to £50k–£200k).
Large grants = programme-level or centre-scale grants, long-term fellowships, consortium grants (£200k up to multi-million).
Check eligibility on each funder page (institutional eligibility, nationality, career stage, costings policy).

💰 Quick picks — small / fast-to-apply (good for pilot data and student support)

Schmidt HAVI
EPSRC Small Mathematical Grants
Institutional grants
Leverhulme Trust — Research Project Grants / Small Grants
- https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/ (search “Research Project Grants” or “Small Research Grants”)
- Good for interdisciplinary work and projects without immediate commercial outcomes.
NIHR — Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB)
- https://www.nihr.ac.uk/funding-programmes/research-for-patient-benefit
- Regional small grants for NHS-relevant work (suitable for early-stage healthcare-AI projects).
Medical Research Foundation / other disease-specific charities (small fellowships)
- Example: AI fellowship calls in cardiovascular/respiratory diagnostics — check major medical charities.
- Good for targeted clinical-AI pilot studies.
University / Faculty internal funds & public engagement grants
- Many UK HEIs run small pump-priming funds or knowledge-exchange grants — ask your Research Services team.

Mid-to-large funding (major UK funders)

NIA EPSRC
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) — Future Leaders Fellowships and related schemes
- https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/future-leaders-fellowship
- Supports early-mid career independence and programme costs; fits ambitious AI research and interdisciplinary proposals.
Wellcome
EPSRC (part of UKRI) — research grants and programme grants
- https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/
- Good for foundational/algorithmic AI, agentic systems, and methodological explainability work.
Royal Society — Fellowships and Grants
- https://royalsociety.org/grants/
- Fellowships and project grants, good for career development and high-quality discovery research.
Wellcome Trust — Discovery Awards & Health-focused funding
- https://wellcome.org/research-funding/schemes/wellcome-discovery-awards
- Strong fit for AI applied to health, implementation, and multidisciplinary biomedical projects.
National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) — AI in Health and Care Award
- https://www.nihr.ac.uk/research-funding/funding-programmes/ai-award
- For projects that move AI tools towards NHS evaluation and adoption.
Medical Research Council (MRC)
- https://www.ukri.org/councils/mrc/
- MRC funds translational and clinical research where AI meets biological/medical problems.

International / collaborative (big-ticket) opportunities

European Research Council (ERC) — Starting / Consolidator / Advanced Grants
- https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant
- Ambitious frontier research; UK-based applicants can apply (check host-institution eligibility and Horizon/UK association status).
Horizon Europe — collaborative consortia & calls
- https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/horizon-europe/
- Large collaborative calls, particularly for responsible AI, global development, and healthcare implementation research.
Industry partnerships / Innovate UK
- https://apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk/competition/search
- Good for translational projects and SME collaborations (note: Innovate UK programme formats change; check current competitions).

Funders especially relevant to responsible AI for the Global South or equity-focused work

UKRI/Global Challenges Research Fund-linked calls (when active) and international development funders such as IDRC, Gates Foundation, and specific calls from Wellcome or Horizon focusing on low- and middle-income countries.
- Search specific calls and check eligibility for UK-hosted partnerships.
Philanthropic foundations & trusts (e.g., Gates Foundation, Robertson Foundation) — larger but highly competitive; often require partnerships and alignment with development goals.

SKILLS

SKILLS.md file for writing grants
💡 Use Claude to find grants

Practical tips & templates

Use your institution’s Research Office for costing, eligibility checks, and internal deadlines.
For healthcare AI, involve an NHS partner early and check NIHR/MRC governance requirements (data access, patient involvement, ethics).
Reuse and adapt clear impact & pathway-to-benefit sections (how the tool will be evaluated in the NHS, privacy/ethics plan, plans for low-resource settings if targeting the Global South).

Strategies

Do I have a 2 page idea
Read the guidance
What costs elgible
Why you?
Why here?
Peer review before submission
Research integrity

RRI

Referees identify before
Letter of support
Budget

Value for money

Justified? Give explanations and in line with

⚠️ No. 1 rookie mistake

🤔 Start with small grants

Start with QR/internal funding
Small pots of money
Apply for co-PI first
KTP with industry

Concepts

🧩🚀 Full Economic Costing (FEC):

Directly Allocated (DA)

Definition: Cost of staff time and resources that already exist but will be committed to the project.
Example: 10% of the PI’s (Principal Investigator) time.

Directly Incurred (DI)

Definition: Project-specific costs. These are costs that would only exist if the project goes ahead.
Examples: Travel and subsistence, new research posts.

Indirect Costs

Definition: Infrastructure costs for the university, management, and administrative services.
Includes: Personnel and finance departments, library, central computing, and some departmental services.

Estates

Definition: Costs related to buildings and premises.
Includes: Maintenance, utilities costs, cleaning, security, and safety.

⚠️ Use of Claude to find grants

Ask Claude to find new grants for me in the UK (give it as input my CV, and papers, and my interests in AI + physics + math + puzzles + abstraction and reasoning corpus, etc. + SKILLS.md file) give me authentic links with deadlines in the next 6 months.
🤔 Use NotebookLM and Claude to peer review research grants by training with existing proposals critically (successful with peer review reports + unsuccessful with peer review reports)
Prompt:

find new grants for me in the UK (give it as input my CV, and papers, and my interests in AI + physics + math + puzzles + abstraction and reasoning corpus, etc. + SKILLS.md file) give me authentic links with deadlines in the next 6 months.

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