Pushing the Frontiers of Environmental Research
Supports United Kingdom environmental researchers through exploratory innovation grants that expand frontier ecological evidence.
Pushing the Frontiers of Environmental Research is the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) flagship applicant-led, continuously open funding stream, which launched in its current always-open form on 31 March 2026. It replaces the previous Standard Grants route as NERC's primary vehicle for curiosity-driven environmental science and is now part of NERC's Discovery Science family of schemeβ¦
Curiosity-driven environmental research β pure, applied, technology-led, or policy-driven β within NERC remit including climate, earth systems, ocean science, ecology, and natural hazards.
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