2026 to 2027 strategic Longer and Larger (sLoLa): full stage
Forecast: not open for applications yet. Expected to open November 5, 2026. The funder has announced this call; dates and details can change before it opens.
- Funder
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
- Award amount
- Not specified
- Estimated deadline
- February 9, 2027
- Eligible countries
- United Kingdom
Real odds
About 1 in 4 funded · 26% · Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), all funding decisions, 2024-25
Source: UKRI investment and outputs data, table 2.1
What this number means
This is the funder’s published average for the whole program in a past year, not a prediction for any one application. Targeted calls, resubmissions and how well a proposal fits all change the picture.
UKRI divides applications awarded by applications assessed in the financial year, across all of the council’s schemes (research grants, fellowships and directed calls).
2024-25: 438 funded out of 1,692.
The year before (2023-24): 32%.
Summary
Upcoming UKRI funding opportunity · Grant. Opens 2026-11-05; closes 2027-02-09. Opportunity page: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/2026-to-2027-strategic-longer-and-larger-slola-outlines/
Apply for funding to undertake a large team-based curiosity-driven bioscience discovery research project.
Your project should demonstrate:
- the potential for major breakthroughs in our fundamental understanding of living systems
- a fully integrated team science approach
- the need for longer and larger scale funding
- enhancing the capability and capacity of UK biosciences
The full economic cost of your project must be over £2 million. BBSRC will fund 80% of the full economic cost.
Projects can be up to five years in duration.
Full stage submissions are invitation only following assessment of an sLoLa outline application.
What we're looking for Scope
Bioscience discovery research
Projects must be focused on delivering conceptual advances and fundamental understanding of biological systems.
Projects are expected to generate new fundamental biological knowledge of broad and long-term significance, changing how we think about bioscience within and likely transcending their immediate fields. They should have the potential to make transformational, not incremental, contributions to our understanding of the principles which govern biological processes and systems, thereby contributing to our understanding of important ‘rules of life’.
Projects must be primarily within BBSRC remit and can investigate ideas within or across any scale of biological organisation from molecules to organisms and populations. We particularly encourage applications which take multimodal and multiscale approaches, integrating data-driven and experimental approaches from different bioscience disciplines.
Projects will typically use cutting-edge technologies, methods and approaches to explore the frontiers of the topic under investigation. We encourage applications that incorporate development of…
Summary as listed by the funder. Always read the full announcement for eligibility, limits and how to apply.
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