BU Research Blog

There are literally thousands of funding opportunities open to researchers in the UK, and many of these are offered by international funding bodies. You can see a basic list of non-UK funding bodies offering large pots of funding here: Large non-UK funding pots 

The chart on the left shows how much income a selection of the regional universities received for research contracts from non-EU sources in 2008-09 (click on the chart to see it full screen). BU has not previously actively promoted these funding pots but they are there for the taking and as our national research funding pots are reducing coupled with ever-increasing competition for funds, we should be actively targetting alternative sources.

In addition to the large funding pots available, there are thousands of funding bodies offering relatively small amounts of funding. If you are a new researcher then these are an excellent way to start/develop your research career. Winning a handful of these smaller grants will put you in a much better position to start winning larger, more prestigious grants, such as those from the UK Research Councils. They will give you project management experience and give future funders the confidence that you are capable of conducting good research and delivering a project.

As the world’s largest funding database, Research Professional is an excellent place to start identifying non-EU funding opportunities. We have put together a guide on how to set up a personal search in Research Professional so you can start to identify and apply to these funding pots. You can download the guide here: RP international funding guide.

To discuss possible international funding opportunities or for support in submitting a proposal contact the CRE Operations team who will happily advise and guide you through the process.