Focal awards : multilingual futures for UK growth and connectivity

NERC - the Natural Environment Research Council; Swindon; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A UK Research Council is inviting applications for a doctoral training program aimed at supporting linguistic and cultural expertise development. The proposal should highlight strategies for doctoral training within a consortium of UK higher education institutions. Applicants must demonstrate experience in managing postgraduate provisions and must collaborate with additional partners to ensure a diverse, inclusive approach. The program aims to enhance representation in the doctoral community, beginning a new cohort in October 2028.

Qualifications

• Must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for AHRC funding.
• Demonstrated ability to host a consortium-model doctoral training grant.
• Experience in postgraduate provision is essential.

Responsibilities

• Develop a proposal outlining the doctoral training and professional development approach.
• Increase representation of underrepresented groups in the program.
• Secure commitment from other higher education institutions and non-academic partners.

Job description

Opportunity status : Open

Funders : Funding type :

Other

Publication date : 21 November 2025

Opening date :

21 November 2025 9 : 00am UK time

Closing date :

21 April 2026 4 : 00pm UK time

Submit an outline application for an AHRC doctoral focal award which seeks to unlock linguistic and cultural expertise.

AHRC will support up to 20 studentships per award over four cohorts and funding will be provided at the usual UKRI rates.

Each proposal must outline your approach to :

• doctoral training and professional development
• increasing representation of students from underrepresented groups

The first cohort of students will start in October 2028.

To be the lead applicant, you must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for AHRC funding with capacity in languages research.

This opportunity is open to organisations with standard eligibility.

Who is eligible to apply

Applications are invited from eligible UK higher education institutions (HEIs) that can demonstrate the ability to host a consortium-model doctoral training grant in languages research.

Your proposal must involve a minimum of one other higher education institution, and a minimum of one partner beyond academia.

It is expected that this Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding opportunity will be in high demand. HEIs may submit up to two outline applications as lead and be included as partners on other applications. The sift process will, however, take into account HEI spread.

Current AHRC training grant award holders, past AHRC training grant award holders, as well as HEIs which have never had AHRC training grant funding are all eligible.

We particularly welcome applications from small specialist institutions. This could be as leads, as co‑lead HEIs or as consortia members.

To apply to lead a proposed training grant consortium‑based award, you must :

• be based at a UK HEI which is eligible for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding
• be dedicated to training the next generation of arts and humanities researchers and have the vision to lead a consortium of organisations to deliver doctoral training within the languages research area
• possess the leadership, project management and stakeholder management skills to deliver the proposed training and development strategy and engage partner organisations throughout
• provide evidence of relevant experience (appropriate to career stage)
• have the appropriate management skills and the administrative capacity to deliver the proposed doctoral provision
• demonstrate how you have contributed to developing a positive research culture and wider community to date
• be able to secure the commitment of at least one additional HEI and one non‑HEI partner. Together, you will co‑develop a strategy to ensure the consortium’s aims for student skills and career development align with sector needs, form the consortium, prepare the application, and jointly deliver the training if the grant is awarded

A demonstrable track record of involvement in postgraduate provision from the lead HEI or the co‑lead is essential.

Project co‑leads must be from organisations. This includes eligible organisations beyond academia, such as independent research organisations.

Who is not eligible to apply

The following are not eligible to apply :

• single higher education institutions (proposals must involve a minimum of two higher education institutions, and a minimum of one partner beyond academia)
• independent research organisations (IROs). IROs can be included as co‑leads and partners
• researchers and higher education institutions with no capacity in arts and humanities doctoral training within languages research
• researchers and higher education institutions based outside the UK
• higher education institutions seeking AHRC funding for master’s level training

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.

Aim

This Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) opportunity seeks to unlock linguistic and cultural expertise to build the high‑level skills, innovation capacity, and global connections that underpin the UK’s growth and prosperity. It aligns with national priorities for post‑16 education and skills development, as outlined in the , which emphasises how studentships support sector partnerships, creative innovation and workforce pipelines. It has been designed to meet the following objectives :

• deliver world‑class doctoral training and development including cohort experience
• provide opportunities for students, preparing them to follow a diversity of career paths within and beyond academia
• support research capacity in specific strategic areas, addressing national and global challenges and delivering UKRI’s mission to drive UK growth and improve lives, through arts and humanities doctoral research and by encouraging interdisciplinary approaches
• advance current understanding, generate new knowledge, and develop the breadth of expertise for the future of the research and innovation workforce
• address underrepresentation in the AHRC‑funded doctoral community
• enable opportunities for students across specific languages and language‑grounded research areas, thereby supporting the pipeline of skilled language researchers within and beyond academia
• enhance collaboration and knowledge exchange within academia and between academia and other sectors for the benefit of the students, members of the focal award consortia, and wider society

This opportunity responds to evidence of declining capacity in language‑grounded disciplines and the wider skills gap in advanced communication, translation, and cultural intelligence. It seeks to enable UK growth and renew the UK’s leadership in multilingual, globally connected research and to ensure a sustainable talent pipeline in areas critical to economic growth, social cohesion, and international engagement, recognising linguistic diversity as a cultural, political and social asset.

Research theme

There is a strong economic, cultural and strategic case for building skills in research that recognises and capitalises on the value of languages, broadly determined as expertise in indigenous, national, regional and global languages, cultures and societies. This opportunity will enable language‑grounded research to address the challenges, for example barriers to participation, inclusion and global engagement, and as the solution, providing methods, insights and skills to meet those challenges.

Skills in languages is cited in multiple industry and education reports as essential for business growth, engagement in international markets, export potential, diplomacy, defence and security, equitable access to justice and healthcare, and productive international collaboration. The benefit‑to‑cost ratios are estimated to be at least 2 : 1 for promoting Arabic, French, Mandarin or Spanish education, meaning that .

This theme will contribute to government priorities for economic growth, productivity, breaking down barriers, global competitiveness and international engagement. Through supporting their doctoral research in key challenge areas, it will develop researchers’ advanced skills in communication, translation, interpretation and cultural understanding. These are critical capabilities for the UK’s future workforce in diplomacy, creative industries, artificial intelligence (AI) and data, and place‑based innovation.

The theme seeks to enable researchers with languages expertise to apply and expand their knowledge and skills to foster cultural literacy and self‑expression, promote social cohesion, and underpin diplomatic and global engagement, which are vital in enabling collaboration across sectors. This focal opportunity will address important social, cultural and economic challenges, which can only be addressed using expertise developed in a ‘language‑rich’ research environment. Additionally, the opportunity seeks to strengthen the language skills pipeline for researchers and their partner communities.

demonstrate the importance of extending our understanding of languages and language‑grounded research. This encompasses indigenous and minority languages, community, heritage, and home languages, endangered languages, less‑widely taught languages, ancient languages, international languages (including sign languages) and questions of multilingualism, education and language learning. Focusing on languages provides an invaluable channel for examining what are often under‑represented voices and perspectives in research.

There is significant scope for research in multilingual environments to be genuinely interdisciplinary, both in its methods and its focus. By engaging with diverse approaches from a wide range of disciplinary fields and communities, including outside the arts and humanities, language‑grounded research can offer powerful insights into some of the most pressing societal questions of our time and their communication and interpretation.

The theme has a broad scope to enable innovation and to capitalise and expand on the UK’s strengths. It is not expected that applicants will address the full breadth of the opportunity. Applications are welcomed which focus on specific challenge areas, building on the consortium’s strengths and the specific skills gap they aim to address.

Ambition

The theme’s ambitions, to be achieved using arts and humanities research, narrative, and innovation at doctoral level, are to :

• address known and anticipated research skills gaps and shortages in languages and language‑grounded research
• diversify and grow the research talent pool within and beyond academia
• encourage interdisciplinary working and co‑design of research which draws on diverse multilingual and inter‑cultural communities and practitioners

We particularly encourage applications which :

• develop models that bring language specialists into collaboration with technologists, including in critical technologies, digital humanities, industry, and the creative economy to address skills gaps, societal challenges and unlock new opportunities
• enhance innovation and contribute to wider impacts of language‑grounded research, such as cultural, economic, environmental, policy and social impacts
• build on the current developments in digital technologies and research methodologies to support real‑life applications that enrich language learning and expertise
• enable languages communities to be more sustainable and resilient

Applicants should demonstrate strong partnerships with educational, cultural, and policy institutions, including museums, galleries, schools, local authorities, or industry, showing how doctoral research will deliver wider sector benefit.

Applications could explore links with existing and previous AHRC investments such as :

Studentship goals

Possible areas that students might pursue through the theme include the following, noting that this is not an exhaustive list and additional ideas are welcome :

• interdisciplinary working, such as looking at how language and language‑related research questions can affect healthcare outcomes and mental health, contribute to overcoming barriers to accessing justice or challenge inequalities. You may also look at how language and language‑related research questions are a source of soft power and contribute to more effective policy making, diplomacy, defence and security, nationally and internationally
• exploration of the contexts and conditions for indigenous and minority languages, multilingualism, and language learning, engagement with questions of displacement, languages and refugee integration focusing on under‑represented voices in research
• ancient languages and their contribution to 21st century education, communication, skills training and innovation
• strategies to support community, home, heritage and endangered languages
• how languages affect cross‑cutting social issues and (conversely) how can they encourage and support social cohesion in the UK and internationally
• languages and digitally‑enabled technologies, human‑computer interactions, and the application of languages to broader advanced technologies

By ‘languages‑grounded’ research, we mean research that is fundamentally rooted in the study of languages and falls within AHRC’s remit. Studentships should engage with more than one linguistic, cultural, or communicative context, whether across languages, modalities, or communities, to support genuinely comparative and multilingual research. It is expected that students recruited to the focal award will have expertise in two or more languages (including their native language) to support genuinely bi‑lingual or multi‑lingual research.

Duration

The consortia will train four cohorts of students undertaking a three‑and‑a‑half to four‑year doctorate on a full‑time basis, or equivalent part‑time. The first cohort will start in the 2028 to 2029 academic year, and the final cohort will start in the 2031 to 2032 academic year. The duration of this award is a minimum of seven years.

Funding available

You can apply for between 12 and 20 studentships over the lifetime of the award. AHRC’s funding profile means that slightly more studentships will be available for the first two cohorts, for example if you were applying for 14 studentships, the ratio would be 4 : 4 : 3 : 3.

At the outline stage, an indication of the number of studentships you could support is sufficient.

What we will fund

We are providing funding based on up to four years per student (stipend and fees). This includes :

• individual training and development activity for the student
• cohort‑based training and development activity
• additional stipend for Collaborative Doctoral Awards (CDAs) and London weighting where applicable

AHRC will provide funding for studentships at UKRI indicative fee levels and .

We strongly encourage CDAs as part of the offer. These are doctoral research projects which are collaboratively and equitably developed and delivered by a higher education institution (HEI) and non‑HEI partner. They should align with the non‑HEI partner’s area of activity, and have impacts beyond academia, including the not‑for‑profit third sector. CDAs are student career focused, with the student spending up to half their time in the non‑HEI organisation and benefitting from the support of two supervisors, one in a HEI and one in a non‑HEI.

We will provide an additional stipend of £600 per year for these students and funding is available to support two to three CDA awards per lead HEI (subject to demand). You can support more CDAs through co‑funding. Please indicate in your outline if you might wish to support CDA awards and, if so, how many per cohort.

Funding for cohort‑based training and development will also be provided. We will calculate this as a set cost of £1,200 per student per year, based on the number of studentship awards. We would not expect this funding to be used to support any existing infrastructure or to reimburse the costs of university or partner staff resources such as travel and subsistence. We also would not expect this funding to be used to support activities that would normally be supported by universities. Further, these costs cannot be used to support costs of administration, for example staff costs to run the cohort programme.

What we will not fund

We do not provide funding for administrative costs of setting up and delivering the training grant.

Supporting skills and talent

We expect applications to refer to and outline an innovative, unique, and specific training and development approach to address identified skills shortages within the research theme.

Your application must describe how the proposed consortium will :

• create a unique and innovative training and development offer which will attract students seeking a career in languages research
• deliver a cohort development package, appropriate to the research theme and the needs of the cohort, creating a group identity and opportunities for peer networking. If possible, open training to students beyond AHRC‑funded students to maximise benefits within the scope of the thematic area and in an inclusive way
• work with HEI and non‑HEI partners to provide appropriate research environments for students in terms of location, facilities, equipment, supervisory expertise, partnerships, student services and work culture

Supervisor support and development

Each application must indicate how the consortium will prepare, support, engage and value staff supervising doctoral students for the benefit of students, supervisors, and the wider research and innovation community.

We expect you to :

• work with supervisors to ensure students are enabled to engage with the opportunities offered by the focal award
• create a positive and inclusive culture of research supervision

Equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in your application

As part of the outline stage, you are asked to explain how you will provide a positive culture and environment, and how your approach to recruitment recognises issues of underrepresentation and widening participation. You should refer to ‘’ when developing your approach. If you are invited to the full stage, you will be required to submit an EDI action plan.

Doctoral studentships

Each application must set out how it will support students to focus on developing research capacity in the thematic area while preparing students to follow a diversity of career paths.

At the student recruitment stage, each training grant consortium must :

• enable doctoral research projects which are student‑driven, where students have agency to develop their doctoral proposal
• support candidates with a range of backgrounds and experience. For example, mature students who may have already had a career in any sector, including those from technical backgrounds. For the latter, we encourage you to follow the principles of the

Studentships may be practice‑based.

While not all doctoral projects need to be interdisciplinary, we encourage interdisciplinary projects, as long as a minimum of 50% of the doctoral proposal is based on arts and humanities disciplines, methodologies, and approaches.

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.

Outline stage

This is the first stage of applications for this opportunity and is intended to give consortia the opportunity to outline their ideas before completing a full application. If invited to submit a full application, it will be possible to change details which do not fundamentally alter the vision and approach, such as adding project partners and co‑leads.

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.

• Confirm you are the project lead.
• 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.
• 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.
• Allow enough time to check your application in ‘read‑only’ view before sending to your research office.
• Send the completed application to your research office for checking. They will return it to you if it needs editing.
• Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI.

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 may 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

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) must receive your application by 21 April 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

AHRC, 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; your Funding Service application number].

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
• the application is an invited resubmission

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. 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 you are invited to the full stage and 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 :

• research theme of the proposed training grant
• aims and objectives
• proposed doctoral training and development opportunities
• partnerships within and beyond academia

Core team

List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following :

• project lead (PL)
• project co‑lead (UK) (PcL)
• specialist
• grant manager
• professional enabling staff
• technician

Only list one individual as project lead. You can list multiple co‑leads.

The core team section should be used to list individuals from the lead HEI and co‑leads from partner institutions. The project partner section should be used to list non‑HEI partners.

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.