Research Funders Policy Group

The Research Funders Policy Group was founded in 2019 and is predominantly made up of science and health research funders in the UK. 

The current members are:

• Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC)
• British Heart Foundation (BHF)
• Cancer Research UK (CRUK)
• National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)
• Royal Academy of Engineering
• Royal Society
• UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
• Wellcome

The purpose of the Research Funders Policy Group is to:

• support greater alignment of funding policies and implementation
• reduce bureaucracy and duplication of effort
• enable funder coordination and collaboration between funders
• share best practice, expertise and lessons learned
• pool resources
• collectively respond to emerging issues (where appropriate) and/or share each organisation’s approach

The Research Funders Policy Group is an informal group that does not have decision making powers on behalf of all its funder members. Any group recommendations will be handled within each funder’s organisations on an individual basis. Some topics are discussed within a subset of the group which feeds back to the main Group.

The Research Funders Policy Group will invite UK science or health research funding organisations to join on a case-by-case basis and where there is alignment with our aims. All invitations will be reviewed and agreed by the Group.

Every year the Research Funders Policy Group organises a Funders Symposium. This Symposium brings together representatives across UK research funders to build connections beyond the Group and foster a greater understanding across the sector on various thematic areas related to funding policy.