ESRC Doctoral Focal Awards

Doctoral Focal Award Plus: Data-Driven Research

Supports United Kingdom doctoral data science teams with fellowships for evidence methods and innovation.

The Doctoral Focal Award Plus: Data-Driven Research is a solo-ESRC programme pre-announced in May 2026, forming part of ESRC's Doctoral Focal Award programme line. The total fund is £5,750,000. When fully open, the award is expected to fund institutions to develop social scientists across career stages in data-driven research innovation, delivering doctoral training as well as targeted capacity-building activities beyond the PhD. Each winning institution is expected to fund up to eight studentships per year for three years. At least two studentships per annual cohort must be supported by non-academic partners from business, public, or voluntary and community sectors. Training programmes must explicitly span qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches — no single-paradigm proposals.

The call was pre-announced on 22 May 2026 with the full opportunity anticipated to open in June 2026 and close in October 2026. An interview assessment panel is planned for January 2027, with funding decisions in February 2027 and studentships starting October 2027. Eligible applicants are UK research organisations with ESRC funding eligibility, applying as single institutions or multi-institution consortia. Partnerships with business, public, and voluntary and community sector organisations are explicitly welcome and required to meet the non-academic partner studentship minimum. Private and for-profit entities are not eligible to serve as project lead.

As a pre-announcement, the full eligibility criteria, application form, and assessment guidance had not been published at the time of the source fetch (22 May 2026); all timeline fields are anticipated rather than confirmed. Institutions planning to apply should monitor the UKRI Funding Service for the full call publication and allow sufficient lead time for consortium agreement, partner letters of support, and internal approval processes before the anticipated October 2026 closing date.