Opportunity status:
Open
Funders:
Co-funders:
National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA)
Funding type:
Grant
Total fund:
£1,000,000
Award range:
£50,000 - £312,500
Publication date:
1 April 2026
Opening date:
1 April 2026 9:00am UK time
Closing date:
14 July 2026 4:00pm UK time
Apply for funding for a UK-US project to develop new representations of key processes regulating ocean carbon storage for use in global models.
Project lead and UK researchers must be based at a UK research organisation eligible to apply for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will be providing support. US researchers must be affiliated with a US institution at the time of application submission.
The full economic cost (FEC) of the UK component can be up to £312,500. We will fund 80% of the FEC.
You must provide a notification of intent (NoI) to be eligible to make a full application.
Who can apply
This opportunity is open to organisations with standard eligibility. .
For US applicants, please reach out to
Who is eligible to apply
Applications from individuals at any career stage, subject to eligibility criteria are welcome.
Who is not eligible to apply
Applications are ineligible if:
* you are involved in more than two applications submitted to this funding opportunity. Only one of these can be as project lead
* project partners do not fund their own involvement. We will only fund minor incidental expenses, such as some travel costs, if needed for project partners
* they have not submitted a notification of intent
International researchers
Project leads based outside the UK are not permitted. Project co-leads must be based in the UK or the US. US project co-leads must be affiliated with a US institution at the time of application submission. For eligibility, see section 9.3 of the. US applicants should contact Laura Lorenzoni at NASA for further details:
You should include all other international collaborators, or UK partners not based at approved organisations, as project partners. This includes organisations from the business or financial sectors.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.
We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:
* career breaks
* support for people with caring responsibilities
* flexible working
* alternative working patterns
for UKRI applicants and grant holders during the application and assessment process.
What we're looking for
Demand management
Demand management is not being applied to this funding opportunity.
Scope
This funding opportunity aims to deliver novel modelling approaches to assess the biological influence on ocean carbon storage for the Biological Influence on Future Ocean Storage of Carbon (BIO-Carbon) research programme and NASA’s Export Processes in the Ocean from Remote Sensing (EXPORTS) programme.
The ocean stores huge amounts of carbon dioxide that could otherwise be in the atmosphere. Marine organisms play a critical role, but emerging evidence indicates that global coupled ocean atmosphere models are not fully accounting for their impact. BIO-Carbon and EXPORTS will deliver the new understanding of biological processes necessary to push beyond the state-of-the-art, to provide robust predictions of future ocean carbon storage.
Projects are expected to address one or more of the following questions:
* how does marine life affect the potential for seawater to keep taking up CO2, and how will this change?
* how will the rate at which marine life converts dissolved CO2 into organic carbon change?
* how do upper ocean ecosystem characteristics determine the vertical transfer of organic matter from the well-lit surface ocean?
* what controls the efficiency of vertical transfer of organic matter below the well-lit surface ocean?
* how will future induced shifts in respiration by the marine ecosystem affect the future ocean storage of carbon?
* how can the knowledge gained be used to reduce uncertainties in contemporary & future estimates of the export and fates of net primary production?
BIO-Carbon and EXPORTS aim to deliver a fundamental understanding of the key biological processes that are relevant globally. By encapsulating this new knowledge in a robust modelling framework, these programmes will allow examination of the resulting feedback on future predictions for how global ocean carbon storage may change. Additionally, they will provide new parameterisations of key processes for inclusion in the next generation of global models and emergent constraints to identify clearly erroneous forecasts.
Applications will be expected to build on information produced by previous BIO-Carbon funding opportunities programme, the EXPORTS programme, and data emerging from other projects internationally.
Applications should demonstrate a novel modelling approach to tackling the question of how marine life helps store carbon in the ocean. Examples include new ways of representing key processes, new methods to quantitatively assess and inter-compare model performance and new approaches to modelling the ocean biological carbon system. All BIO-Carbon generated datasets can be found on the. All EXPORTS data are freely available on the .
For this funding opportunity you are strongly encouraged to be collaborative and include UK and US researchers. One joint application should be submitted to the UKRI Funding Service detailing both the UK and US contributions to the project in the case of a UK-US collaboration. Information on US collaborators should be included in the ‘Approach’ section of your application. US costs should be outlined in the ‘Resources and cost justification’ section.
NERC and NASA will aim to fund a balanced portfolio of projects which address the aims of both programmes.
Duration
The duration of this award is a maximum of 24 months.
Funding available
The FEC of the UK component can be up to £312,500.
The maximum cost of the US component across this opportunity and the linked ‘Biological influence on ocean carbon: multiple model assessments’ opportunity will be up to $1 million, pending funding availability. US applicants should contact Laura Lorenzoni at NASA for further details:
NERC will fund 80% of the FEC.
Applications including US researchers should include, in the ‘Approach’ section of their applications, a contingency plan for how their plans would be changed if NASA is unable to provide funding for US involvement in this opportunity.
It is strongly encouraged for contingency plans to still include contributions in-kind from US researchers. If it is not appropriate to include US researchers because the proposed work is not in scope for EXPORTS then this must be clearly stated and justified.
What UKRI will fund
UKRI will fund facilities costs.
What UKRI will not fund
UKRI will not fund:
* PhD studentship costs
* requests for equipment of £25,000. You should request smaller items of equipment (under £25,000 individually) under ‘Consumables (other directly incurred costs)’ in your application
US applicants should contact Laura Lorenzoni to discuss eligible costs:
Services and facilities
You can apply to use a facility or resource in your funding application.
If you will need to use a UKRI facility, follow your proposed facility’s normal access request procedures. You should discuss your application with the facility or service in advance of submitting to the funding opportunity to:
* discuss the proposed work in detail
* receive confirmation that they can provide the services required within the timeframe of the funding
You should ensure you have prior agreement from the facility before submitting to the funding opportunity and indicate this within your application.
The facility will provide a technical assessment that includes the calculated cost of providing the service. NERC services and facilities must be costed within the limits of the funding.
You should not submit the technical assessment with the application, but you must confirm you have received it.
For more information, see the .
Read the full list of .
High Performance Computing (HPC), and the large research facilities at Harwell have their own policies for access and costing.
For more information regarding the use of high performance computing services, see .
Supporting skills and talent
We encourage you to follow the principles of the and the .
Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I)
UKRI is committed in ensuring that effective international collaboration in research and innovation takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks. Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I) is a UKRI work programme designed to help protect all those working in our thriving and collaborative international sector by enabling partnerships to be as open as possible, and as secure as necessary. Our set out UKRI’s expectations of organisations funded by UKRI in relation to due diligence for international collaboration.
As such, applicants for UKRI funding may be asked to demonstrate how their proposed projects will comply with our approach and expectation towards TR&I, identifying potential risks and the relevant controls you will put in place to help proportionately reduce these risks.
, including where applicants can find additional support.
How to apply
Stage one: notification of intent (NoI)
There is a mandatory notification of intent stage for this UKRI funding opportunity.
To submit an NoI, fill in by 8 May 2026 at 4:00pm UK time. If a full application is submitted without a prior NoI by the stated deadline, it will be rejected.
The NoI form requests details of the proposed research projects team and a summary of the research project application. This information will not be assessed but will be used to inform plans for the assessment panel. Nothing provided as part of the NoI step is considered finalised. Therefore additional partners and project co-leads may be added at a later stage, and the application may change significantly as further details are prepared.
You will receive an automated email acknowledgement once you have submitted your NoI.
Feedback will not be given for the NoI, unless we have concerns regarding the fit to the funding opportunity scope.
Stage two: full application
We are running this funding opportunity on the new UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service, so please ensure that your organisation is registered. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.
The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application.
Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI.
To apply
Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this Funding finder page.
1. Confirm you are the project lead.
2. Sign in or create a Funding Service account. To create an account, select your organisation, verify your email address, and set a password. If your organisation is not listed, email
Please allow at least 10 working days for your organisation to be added to the Funding Service. We strongly suggest that if you are asking UKRI to add your organisation to the Funding Service to enable you to apply to this opportunity, you also create an organisation Administration Account. This will be needed to allow the acceptance and management of any grant that might be offered to you.
3. Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to complete them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. If we need you to upload a document, follow the upload instructions in the Funding Service. All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the How to apply section on this Funding finder page.
4. Allow enough time to check your application in ‘read-only’ view before sending to your research office.
5. Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.
6. Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.
Please be aware that research office and finance teams undertake checks on hosting arrangements and financial eligibility. The ultimate responsibility for ensuring compliance with all opportunity requirements lies with the applicant.
Where indicated, you can also demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant.
When including images, you must:
* provide a descriptive caption or legend for each image immediately underneath it in the text box (this must be outside the image and counts towards your word limit)
* insert each new image on a new line
* use files smaller than 5MB and in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format
Images should only be used to convey important visual information that cannot easily be put into words. The following are not permitted, and your application will be rejected if you include:
* sentences or paragraphs of text
* tables
* excessive quantities of images
A few words are permitted where the image would lack clarity without the contextual words, such as a diagram, where text labels are required for an axis or graph column.
For more guidance on the Funding Service, see:
* * *
References
References should be included within the word count of the appropriate question section. You should use your discretion when including references and prioritise those most pertinent to the application.
Hyperlinks can be used in reference information. When including references, you should consider how your references will be viewed and used by the assessors, ensuring that:
* references are easily identifiable by the assessors
* references are formatted as appropriate to your research
* persistent identifiers are used where possible
General use of hyperlinks
Applications should be self-contained. You should only use hyperlinks to link directly to reference information. You must not include links to web resources to extend your application. Assessors are not required to access links to conduct assessment or recommend a funding decision.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI)
Use of generative AI tools to prepare funding applications is permitted, however, caution should be applied.
For more information see our policy on the .
Deadline
NERC must receive your application by 14 July 2026 at 4:00pm UK time.
You will not be able to apply after this time.
Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.
Following the submission of your application to this funding opportunity, your application cannot be changed, and submitted applications will not be amended. If your application does not follow the guidance, it may be rejected.
Personal data
Processing personal data
NERC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your Funding Service account and the registration of your funding applications.
We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our .
Sensitive information
If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email
Include in the subject line: the funding opportunity title; sensitive information.
Typical examples of confidential information include:
* individual is unavailable until a certain date (for example due to parental leave)
* declaration of interest
* additional information about eligibility to apply that would not be appropriately shared in the ‘Applicant and team capability’ section
* conflict of interest for UKRI to consider in reviewer or panel participant selection
For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read .
Institutional matched funding
There is no requirement for matched funding from the institutions hosting the project lead, project co-leads or other staff employed on the application, beyond the standard 20% FEC. Expert reviewers and panels assessing UKRI funding applications must not consider levels of institutional matched funding as a factor on which to base recommendations. Direct and in-kind contributions from third party project partners are encouraged.
This policy does not remove the need for support from host organisations who must provide the necessary research environment and infrastructure for award-specific activities funded by UKRI. For example, research facilities, training and development of staff.
Publication of outcomes
If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the.
Summary
Word limit: 550
In plain English, provide a summary we can use to identify the most suitable experts to assess your application.
We usually make this summary publicly available on external-facing websites, therefore do not include any confidential or sensitive information. Make it suitable for a variety of readers, for example:
* opinion-formers
* policymakers
* the public
* the wider research community
Guidance for writing a summary
Clearly describe your proposed work in terms of:
* context
* the challenge the project addresses
* aims and objectives
* potential applications and benefits
Core team
List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following:
* project lead (PL)
* project co-lead (UK) (PcL)
* project co-lead (international) (PcL (I))
* specialist
* grant manager
* professional enabling staff
* research and innovation associate
* technician
* visiting researcher
* researcher co-lead (RcL)
Only list one individual as project lead.
UKRI has introduced a new addition to the ‘Specialist’ role type. Public contributors such as people with lived experience can now be added to an application.