BBSRC Follow-on Fund: 2026 round one

BBSRC Follow-on Fund: 2026 round one

This page is a historical reference for the BBSRC Follow-on Fund 2026 round one. The round is closed. The official UKRI Funding Finder page records an opening date of 27 January 2026 at 9:00am UK time and a closing date of 31 March 2026 at 4:00pm UK time. It does not currently publish a later Follow-on Fund round or a replacement deadline. Do not treat this page as an open application route.

An official BBSRC equality-impact assessment for the opportunity says that the Follow-on Fund has two application rounds per year, identified as FoF1 and FoF2. That document does not announce a date or application page for the next round. Applicants who want to pursue a future round should wait for BBSRC or UKRI to publish a new Funding Finder entry, then check its dates and guidance directly. The closed date above is retained in the metadata so this entry remains a useful record of what the 2026 round one offered.

Key details from the closed round

The award was intended for defined programmes of translation rather than an unrestricted continuation of research. BBSRC described the purpose as helping researchers move bioscience research toward economic and societal benefit. A proposal needed a sound understanding of the market need or opportunity for its product, service, or technology, a robust work programme, and a substantial link to BBSRC funding.

What the fund supported

The opportunity was aimed at teams that had already generated a research output, intellectual asset, prototype, method, or other result through BBSRC-supported work and needed a focused programme to move it toward practical application. The official scope covered both early-stage work that de-risked an innovative idea and later-stage work with significant technical milestones. The key was a defined set of objectives and a credible path to benefit, not simply the existence of an interesting scientific result.

The benefit case had to be meaningful within the United Kingdom. Outcomes could also create value in international markets, but the primary aim had to be significant benefit to the UK. The opportunity did not support Official Development Assistance activity whose main purpose was economic development or welfare outcomes in ODA-eligible countries and territories. Projects also had to remain within BBSRC remit; UKRI could share an application with another research council when remit boundaries required that consideration.

A strong historical fit would therefore have included several connected elements:

• a current or previous BBSRC investment that supplied the starting point;
• a specific user, customer, market, or societal need;
• a bounded technical or translational programme that could be completed within two years;
• milestones showing how the work would improve readiness for practical use; and
• a route to benefit that explained who would use the result and what would change.

The programme was not a generic seed grant for a new research question. The official guidance expressly excluded new research or extending an existing research grant. It also excluded projects focused solely on training, applied or contract research carried out on behalf of commercial organisations, work outside BBSRC remit or the Follow-on Fund scope, and direct costs associated with applying for intellectual-property protection such as patent filing. An application could discuss intellectual-property management as part of the route to impact, but a request solely to pay for filing protection was outside the stated funding scope.

Eligibility

The closed round was open to organisations with standard BBSRC eligibility. The project lead had to be based at a UK research organisation eligible for BBSRC funding. The most important project-specific test was the direct link to current or previous BBSRC-supported funding. The official page also says that other types of BBSRC research investment could contribute to that link. An applicant without a prior BBSRC connection was not eligible for this opportunity.

International researchers were not eligible to apply. This restriction concerns eligibility to apply as a researcher; it should not be stretched into a claim that every possible form of external expertise or project-partner involvement was forbidden. Any future round should be checked for its own team-role and partner rules rather than copied from assumptions about this closed call.

Industry and user project partners were strongly encouraged. Where a project partner wanted access to foreground intellectual property generated during the project, the official guidance required a cash contribution, an in-kind contribution, or a combination of both, in line with the project-partner rules. Applications without partners were expected to explain how industry and users had shaped the work so far and how they would be engaged in later development. Investors could be considered as project partners, but BBSRC asked applicants to contact the Follow-on Fund team to discuss that arrangement.

Funding and project design

The 2026 round offered a total fund of £3,000,000. The full economic cost of an individual project could be up to £800,000, and BBSRC would fund 80% of that FEC. The official page described the award duration as a maximum of two years. Those limits matter when interpreting the programme: it was large enough for a serious translation plan, but its timetable required a finite work programme with decisions and deliverables rather than an open-ended discovery agenda.

Useful preparation for a future announcement would include a short account of the earlier BBSRC-funded work, evidence for the market or user need, a partner plan, a milestone schedule, and a cost justification tied to outcomes. The plan should make clear what the Follow-on Fund would add that the earlier award could not provide. It should also explain what happens after the funded work ends: a licensing or adoption path, a later investment or grant route, a service or product development step, a policy or practice user, or another specific continuation mechanism.

Projects involving international collaboration could also need Trusted Research and Innovation consideration. The official page says applicants may be asked to identify relevant risks and controls, including dual-use applications, relevant areas of the UK National Security and Investment Act, export-control questions, and items or substances on the strategic export-control list. A future applicant should use the current UKRI guidance and its institution’s research office for that assessment because the requirements can depend on the project.

Application route used for this round

The 2026 round ran through the new UKRI Funding Service. Applicants could not use the Joint Electronic Submissions system. Only the lead research organisation could submit the application to UKRI, while the project lead was responsible for completing it with contributions from the rest of the team and project partners.

The official sequence was:

1. Confirm that the applicant is the project lead.
2. Sign in to, or create, a UKRI Funding Service account and select the organisation.
3. If the organisation was not listed, contact the Funding Service support address; UKRI advised allowing at least 10 working days for the organisation to be added.
4. Answer the application questions in the Funding Service text boxes and upload documents where requested.
5. Check the completed application in read-only view before sending it to the research office.
6. Send it to the research office for checking.
7. The research office submits the checked application to UKRI.

Those steps describe the closed round and are not a promise that a later call will use identical questions or dates. If BBSRC publishes a new FoF opportunity, applicants should follow that page’s version of the Funding Service instructions and allow time for institutional approval before the stated deadline.

Assessment considerations

The FoF Committee assessed applications, with BBSRC making the final funding decision. The published assessment areas included background; opportunity and market analysis; route to market; intellectual-property management and communication; wider benefits; organisational support; project-partner support; applicant and team capability; ethics and Responsible Research and Innovation; data management and sharing; resources and cost justification; facilities; and Trusted Research and Innovation.

The scientific and technical section asked whether the proposal showed high quality, feasible objectives, clear deliverables, risks and mitigation, novelty, a technology-readiness gain, a credible development plan, and input from end users or customers. The societal section considered non-monetary benefits, knowledge exchange, user needs, regulatory alignment where relevant, and societal sensitivities. The economic section considered the business plan, need, market size, competitors, value, location, route to market, partner support, UK and global economic benefit, and intellectual-property management.

The added-value criteria also looked at whether requested resources were a sensible investment, how strongly partners supported the work during and after funding, and what would happen after Follow-on Fund support ended. For a future round, this means a strong proposal would need more than technical promise. It would need a disciplined translation plan, credible users or partners, a defensible budget, and evidence that the team understood the next decision after the grant.

Archive status and next steps

The 2026 round one deadline has passed and the official page marks the opportunity Closed. No later BBSRC Follow-on Fund application round is currently announced on the official UKRI opportunity page checked for this reference. The programme’s official equality-impact assessment indicates that FoF is structured around two rounds per year, but it does not supply a future FoF2 deadline. Do not invent one, and do not use the closed 31 March 2026 date as though applications were still being accepted.

For a future opportunity, start with the new official UKRI Funding Finder page, confirm the status and deadline, reread the eligibility wording, and ask the research office to verify organisational eligibility and submission timing. Questions about the specific Follow-on Fund can be directed to [email protected]; questions about the Funding Service can be directed to [email protected]. Those contacts are retained here as part of the historical application record, not as evidence that the 2026 round remains open.