What is UKRI and what does the ukri.org website offer?

Updated

UKRI stands for UK Research and Innovation. It is the UK's national funding body for research and innovation, and ukri.org is its main website. According to the site, UKRI brings together seven research councils, Research England and Innovate UK, and invests more than £9 billion of public money each year into research and innovation. If you are looking for UK funding opportunities, research news, or information about the organisations that make up the UK research system, ukri.org is the starting point.

What UKRI is

UKRI describes its purpose as advancing knowledge, improving lives and driving growth. Its remit is broad: it supports work across the arts, humanities and social sciences, as well as biology, environmental sciences, physics and engineering.

The organisation is a single body that coordinates several previously separate funders. Its stated components are:

  • Seven research councils
  • Research England
  • Innovate UK

This structure matters if you are trying to work out which part of UKRI is relevant to you. A funding call or programme may sit with a specific council or with Innovate UK, even though it appears on the shared UKRI site.

What the ukri.org website offers

The homepage is organised around a few recurring purposes:

  • Funding opportunities – the site highlights future research and innovation funding opportunities, which is the main reason many academic and business visitors use it.
  • News – recent items include an £80m challenge for faster, better dementia diagnosis, research on extending the lives of animals by activating an "energy saver" mode, new senior leadership appointments, UK researchers selected for a NASA mission, and work on the science behind the fight against infection.
  • Strategy and institutional information – the site links to UKRI's five-year strategy and explains who the organisation is and which councils it includes.
  • Featured stories – examples include modelling the gut for healthier food and drinks, and progress towards curing blindness.
  • Email updates – UKRI offers a subscription for funding, news and events, plus a weekly newsletter.

Who the site is for

The content is aimed at people who need to follow or apply for UK public research funding, and at anyone who wants to understand how UK research and innovation is organised. That includes researchers, research support staff, businesses working with Innovate UK, and journalists or policymakers tracking UK research news.

Practical points before you use it

  • The site is in English (en-GB) and is the official UKRI presence, so it is the authoritative place for UKRI announcements rather than a secondary aggregator.
  • Funding opportunities are time-sensitive. The news items on the homepage carry dates, so check the date on any call or announcement before acting on it.
  • UKRI's own feedback prompt invites visitors to help improve its online products and services, so the site is actively maintained.
  • Subscribing to UKRI emails is the most direct way to keep up with funding, news and events without checking the site manually.

If your goal is to find UK research funding, start with the funding opportunities section and then confirm which council or Innovate UK programme is running the call. If your goal is simply to understand the UK research landscape, the "Who we are" and strategy pages give you the structure in one place.