Advancing atmospheric and aerial autonomy
Advancing atmospheric and aerial autonomy supports UK research teams developing autonomous atmospheric sensing or environmental aerial systems to deliver high-quality observations and strengthen environmental monitoring.
Funder: UK Research and Innovation
Due Dates: October 21, 2026 (application closing date)
Funding Amounts: £300,000–£1 million full economic cost per project; 3–12 months; £4 million total fund
Summary: NERC funds proof-of-concept projects that demonstrate autonomous systems for atmospheric observation or wider environmental monitoring.
Key Information: Projects must start by February 1, 2027 and be ready to mobilise immediately.
Description
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), part of UK Research and Innovation, runs this opportunity to strengthen the UK’s environmental observing capability. It supports projects that develop, integrate, deploy and demonstrate autonomous sensing, instrumentation and measurement systems for atmospheric science, or autonomous aerial systems for wider environmental applications. Atmospheric projects need not use aerial platforms; projects in the aerial strand must have an uncrewed aerial system (UAS) at their centre.
NERC seeks deployable demonstrators that produce high-quality environmental observations, measurements, data products or services. Projects should build on sufficiently developed technologies and partnerships to deliver quickly, address calibration and validation where relevant, and show how the resulting capability could be used or adopted beyond the award.
