ESRC applicant-led: explore awards
ESRC applicant-led: explore awards support individuals and small teams pursuing bold, curiosity-driven social science to advance knowledge, challenge assumptions and reshape understanding.
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Funder: UK Research and Innovation
Due Dates: Rolling (Applications) | November 5, 2026, 9:00am UK time (Opened)
Funding Amounts: £300,000–£2 million full economic cost; ESRC funds 80%; up to five years
Summary: Supports individuals and small teams pursuing ambitious, curiosity-driven social science that advances knowledge and reshapes understanding.
Key Information: Leadership teams are limited to one project lead and up to three project co-leads.
Description
Explore awards are run by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation. They support creative, innovative and bold social science that pushes disciplinary, methodological or conceptual boundaries. Projects should challenge assumptions, open new areas of enquiry or uses of evidence, combine concepts unexpectedly, or test novel approaches and methods.
Supported activities include basic and applied research, exploratory investigations, methodological innovation, large-scale surveys, data infrastructure, novel data resources and reuse of existing data. Research may be theoretical or experimental without a specific use in mind. The programme recognises that pioneering work involves uncertainty and potentially long timelines to impact: applicants must show that potential gains justify the risks and explain how uncertainty will be managed without suppressing innovation.
