Funding opportunities

Sources of funding

The Library provides access to Research Professional which can be used to set up email alerts to news and funding opportunities in specified subject disciplines as well as by sponsor. Research Professional offers monthly online training sessions.

For research students funding The Alternative Guide to Postgraduate Funding Online contains over 600 alternative funding bodies which make postgraduate grants and is updated monthly. It also includes two interactive tools to take you through the application process; personal statement assistant and personal grants manager. For current students, you can access the guide by clicking 'Login automatically from Campus right now!'. There is also the facility to set up a personal account using your OU email address so that you can save information. For prospective students, you will need a PIN number, which you can request by contacting the Research Support Team.

If you have succesfully secured funding through the Alternative Guide to Postgraduate Funding, please get in touch to share your success story.

The following websites provide useful background information about the funding of research:

• UK Research and Innovation/Research Councils UK (UKRI/RCUK) is a strategic partnership of the 7 UK Research Councils. Research Councils are organised by discipline and provide funding for specific research projects.
• Research England (formerly HEFCE) organises funding which is used to maintain and develop research infrastructures. This is distributed following research assessments such as REF 2014.

Funding Applications

The Research and Academic Strategy - pre and post award support page on the OU intranet offers links to funding opportunities and guidelines on the process of making funding applications.

For more information, visit the research support site