Programme Grants for Applied Research - October 2025

This PGfAR funding opportunity is a ring-fenced call for programmes of applied health research designed to respond to NIHR PGfAR brief - ‘Research inspired by under-represented disciplines and specialisms to drive transformational changes for patients and the public’. 

Through this funding call PGfAR is seeking to grow a portfolio of applied health and care research programmes with leadership/co-leadership from underrepresented disciplines, specialisms and/or methodologists: 

• Registered health and care professionals (HCPs), who are not doctors or dentists (i.e., proposals cannot solely be led by doctors or dentists but in alignment with the above, a co-lead arrangement is permitted given the scale and complexity of research programmes).
• Allied health professionals.
• Research methodologists specifically the following disciplines: medical statistics, health economics, clinical trial design, operational research, modelling, bioinformatics, qualitative research, mixed methods and epidemiology.

To support career development,  co-leadership is encouraged.

The timing of this funding aligns with highly relevant initiatives that research applicants should reflect on and respond to as they shape their research proposals including the UK’s Government’s Health and Growth Missions, and the DHSCs Area of Research Interest (ARI) 3 shaping and supporting the health and social care workforce of the future.  Applicants are encouraged to align their research to these policy ambitions.

Considerable flexibility is offered to researchers to focus on any health and care topics within remit and scope of the PGfAR programme; i.e., a coherent applied research programme of interrelated, multidisciplinary projects which individually and together produce outputs and outcomes that are likely to realise a transformative step change in the way the health and care services can meet the needs of the UK public.

Applications can be proposed by all NHS bodies and other providers of NHS services in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, in collaboration with an appropriate academic partner or partners; OR consortia that include more than one NHS body or other provider of NHS, public health or social services. 

Apply for one of these funding opportunities through the online application form:

2025/350 PGfAR researcher-led - underrepresented disciplines and specialisms

2025/351 PGfAR commissioned - NIHR NICE rolling funding opportunity

2025/352 PGfAR commissioned - NIHR JLA rolling funding opportunity

Further information on these opportunities is available on the NIHR website.