AHRC large grants: outline stage
Notify Faculty of intention to apply by: 24 June 2026
Deadline: 16 September 2026
The AHRC is inviting applications for Large Grants funding to deliver novel, ambitious and transformative arts and humanities research projects at scale. AHRC Large Grants will use team convening approaches to deliver world-leading excellent research that significantly advances knowledge and builds capability in their chosen area.
Scope & Eligibility
The nominated project lead and lead institution must be eligible for UKRI funding. Project co-leads based at UK research organisations should meet the individual eligibility requirements for UKRI funding. Researchers based at international organisations are eligible to be included in applications using the project co-lead (international) role.
Large Grant awards must be team convened to facilitate the breadth and depth of expertise necessary to enact ground-breaking change at scale through research, with leadership and overall management of the project distributed across project co-leads, including the designated project lead. Grants teams should:
- identify appropriate expertise
- establish a collective leadership structure
- design inclusive governance
- identify ways to embed development for all
- engage in reflexive practice
Applications where responsibilities are clearly not distributed between team members will not be considered.
Large Grant applications cannot include project studentships (funding PhD study).
Projects can be single discipline, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, or transdisciplinary but the majority of the project’s disciplinary focus must fall within AHRC’s subject remit.
Value and Duration
The full economic cost (FEC) of a project can be up to £3 million. AHRC will fund 80% of the FEC. Projects must be between three and five years in duration. Successful projects will start on 1 November 2027.
How to Apply
Faculty members interested in applying to this scheme as project leads must notify the research administration team via research@law.ox.ac.uk by Wednesday 24th June 2026.
Applications for the Outline stage must be submitted via the UKRI's funding platform, The Funding Service (TFS) by Wednesday 16 September 2026 at 4:00pm UK time. It is standard best practice that UKRI applications are submitted to the University of Oxford's central Research Services team 5 working days prior to the funder deadline, i.e. by 4pm Wednesday 9 September 2026.
This is a two stage application, with a decision on Outline applications expected in December 2026, after which up to 15 selected applications will be invited to submit a full stage application in January 2027. The AHRC expects to fund up to five AHRC Large Grant awards.