Not all councils or opportunities are transitioning to the new Funding Service immediately. Please see the specific UKRI information on when and how each council is planning to make changes.

The Simpler and Better Funding (SBF) programme is working with all Research Councils under UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to deliver the transition of this new Funding Service, being developed iteratively with new functionality and features introduced and refined over the course of the year.

How this will affect you

All research funding applicants, grant holders, research support staff, reviewers and panel members must transition from the current Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system to the new Funding Service, where indicated in the guidance notes for the opportunity you are planning to submit to. Not all opportunities are affected yet, and it might be that you will continue to use Je-S for some time.

The first Research Councils to make changes are Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), with the move to the new system only applying to specific funding opportunities. Most opportunities will not be accepting applications after 30 March 2023 for a short period of time. Further information is available, including which opportunities are impacted and when:

• More from the AHRC
• More from the EPSRC

Please do not rush to submit your application before 30 March if you are not ready. UKRI has indicated that higher than expected demand will only result in success rates being impacted.

To ensure there is limited disruption, and to maintain an effective level of support, the Pre-Award team will not be able to support research funding applications to the affected opportunities that are created in the current Je-S system after 17 March.

Therefore, do not start any research funding applications in Je-S from this date and please wait until your opportunity is launched in the new Funding Service. Any applications to the affected opportunities that you start in Je-S after 17 March will not be submitted, and incomplete applications will not be transferred to the new Funding Service system.

If you have not used the Funding Service before, the first step is to create an account by following the ‘Apply now’ button located on the page where that opportunity is listed.

Further information from UKRI:

• Council transition to the new Funding Service
• Using the new UKRI Funding Service for applicants

Contact: support@funding-service.ukri.org Telephone: 01793 547490