UK Government – Future Leaders Fellowship Grant Programme – Round 11 2026 (With up to £3,000,000 in Funding)

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will invest up to £110 million through Future Leaders Fellowships Round 11. A proportion of this budget will support applicants hosted in business and non-academic organisations, administered by Innovate UK on behalf of UKRI. This is subject to a sufficient number of high quality applications being received.

The aim of this competition is to:

• provide sustained funding and resources for talented individuals with the potential to become future leaders in research and innovation
• enable individuals to establish an independent research or innovation career
• support the development of leadership capability
• enable the delivery of high quality, impactful and ambitious work aligned with UK strategic priorities

A Future Leaders Fellow, working with their host organisation, will receive at least four years of funding to pursue an ambitious programme of innovation. The fellow will also have access to tailored opportunities and resources to develop their career as a future leader in their field.

Your proposal must clearly set out how the fellowship will accelerate your development as an independent leader and how your programme of work will deliver meaningful benefits for the UK.

In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition has a funding limit, so we may not be able to fund all the proposed projects. It may be the case that your project scores highly but we are still unable to fund it.

Our experience from similar competitions suggests that you could have 13% chance of success.

We consider a range of factors when determining whether to provide funding to applicants. This includes an assessment of prior conduct, such as any outstanding payments owed to Innovate UK or UKRI. Such factors may influence the funding decision, potentially resulting in a refusal of funding or an award subject to additional scrutiny.

We also reserve the right to adjust funding allocations for any of our competitions. This may be in response to changes in policy, portfolio funding considerations or broader government funding decisions.

This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated in this Innovate UK competition brief. We cannot guarantee other government or third party sites will always show the correct competition information.

We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us.

You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.

We recommend you contact us at least 15 working days before this competition’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the competition deadline.

You can contact Innovate UK by email or call 0300 321 4357. Our phone lines are open from 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).