Due to essential maintenance, the RCUK website and Gateway to Research (GtR) may be unavailable on 30th June 2017 from 15:00-15:30 GMT.

The third annual update of the Research Councils diversity data has been published today. Our ambition is for the Research Councils to be recognised as a leader in equality and diversity in the research community, working with partners throughout the sector.

Research Councils and Innovate UK welcome first Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund areas to open for applicants to apply for funding.

A number of academics, funded across the Research Councils, have been honoured in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. A huge congratulations to them and all those in the wider science and research community.

On 8 June 2017, the UK General Election will take place.  As with previous elections, non-departmental public bodies, including the research councils, are bound by pre-election rules.

The Government is investing £1bn in cutting-edge technologies to create jobs and raise living standards, Business Secretary Greg Clark announced today. The funding from the flagship Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) will be spent across six key areas over the next four years.

Research Councils UK are pleased to announce that a second GCRF Collective Fund call will be launched in late summer 2017. This call will establish a cohort of large-scale Global Challenges Interdisciplinary Research Hubs, which will be expected to deliver integrated and innovative international research programmes.

Research Councils UK welcomes the announcement by Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson which confirms that non-UK EU doctoral students applying for courses beginning in the academic year 2018/19 remain eligible for RCUK support.

Research Councils UK (RCUK) will be  launching a funding call to help better embed support for public engagement with research in higher education institutions  this spring. The Strategic Support to Expedite Embedding Public Engagement with Research (SEE-PER) call will be open for a limited time, assessed by panel over summer 2017.

Due to essential maintenance, the RCUK website and Gateway to Research (GtR) may be unavailable on Saturday 8 April 2017 from 09:00-13:00 (GMT). We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and hope to keep disruption of service to a minimum.

In the last few months the Gateway to Research website has seen some important developments to improve the search function and the information that is provided. Now we are seeking insight from the people that use the website to make more changes.

From 1 April 2017, the RCUK Policy and Guidelines on the Governance of Good Research Conduct have been updated in response to recommendations and for consistency with the policy of the Wellcome Trust.

Research Councils UK has launched reports detailing the impacts of a collective investment of £3.4Bn in 2015/16. This investment drives economic growth by helping to deliver the UK’s Industrial Strategy of increasing productivity, creating high-value industry, jobs and a skilled workforce.

More than 200 early career scientists presented their research in a poster competition to dozens of politicians, and a panel of experts, at the House of Commons this week. The STEM for BRITAIN competition, which is co-sponsored by Research Councils UK, saw entries from across the sciences.

Any Research Organisation submitting an feC Proposal to the Research Councils can now recover the costs of the new Apprentice levy. The Research Councils have agreed that the cost of the Levy can be recovered by adding the levy charge through direct staff costs.

The announcement of the first tranche of challenges to be supported by the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) and additional support for high skilled research talent has been welcomed by the UK’s Research and Innovation leaders.

We are aware that some researchers, predominantly outside of the UK, have received emails claiming to the be from ‘The Research Council, United Kingdom’ regarding successful research grants.  The email asks for information to be provided to allow the grant to be paid. This is a phishing email and is not from Research Councils UK or any of the individual UK Research Councils.

A host of leading UK scientists and academics will be presenting their research at the prestigious annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston, MA from 16–20 February 2017.