UKRI Enabling AI adoption across science and engineering

Open UKRI funding opportunity · Grant. Closes 2026-12-01. Total fund £5 million. Opportunity page: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/ukri-enabling-ai-adoption-across-science-and-engineering/

Apply for funding for ambitious and exploratory projects bringing together AI and domain expertise. Projects will have the potential to unlock new opportunities for applying artificial intelligence (AI) to important research challenges in priority science and engineering disciplines.

You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)funding.

The full economic cost (FEC) of your project can be up to £250,000. UKRI will fund 80% of the FEC.

Projects must be no more than one year in duration with a fixed start date of 26 April 2027.

What we're looking for Aim

This funding opportunity is delivered as part of the UKRI IS8 AI Programme.

Funding for this opportunity is subject to Full Business Case approval.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly becoming a powerful research tool with the potential to transform how science and engineering are conducted. AI technologies can help researchers analyse complex datasets, generate new hypotheses, design experiments, accelerate modelling and simulation, and uncover insights that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve through conventional approaches.

The UK has world-leading strengths across both AI and science disciplines. However, many research communities are still at an early stage in understanding how AI capabilities could be applied within their disciplines, where the greatest opportunities for transformation lie, and what new AI tools, methods, data resources or collaborations may be needed to address domain-specific challenges.

There is therefore a need to support exploratory activities that bring together AI expertise and domain knowledge to identify opportunities, understand barriers to adoption and build evidence for future AI-enabled research.

This funding…