UK International Ocean Drilling Programme Site Survey (UKRI/NERC)

UK International Ocean Drilling Programme Site Survey (UKRI/NERC)

Historical reference: the 2026 call is closed

The official UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) opportunity page lists this Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funding opportunity as Closed. Its published closing date was 14 July 2026 at 4:00pm UK time, and the page says that applications could not be made after that time. This entry preserves the closed call for researchers who need to understand the funding route, compare past site-survey support, or prepare for a possible future announcement. It is not an open application listing.

No replacement site-survey application window is announced on the reviewed official UKRI opportunity page or the UKRI International Ocean Drilling Programme (IODP3) programme page. The IODP3 programme remains an active area of UKRI investment, but that does not create a new deadline for this specific call. Do not treat the Funding Service instructions below as permission to submit after the published closing time, and do not invent a new round date. Researchers looking for a future call should monitor UKRI and NERC directly and confirm that any new page has its own status, dates, guidance, and application link.

At a glance

The opportunity was designed to support ship-borne and virtual site survey investigations that strengthen applications for scientific ocean drilling expeditions. It was preparatory research funding, not a general-purpose marine science grant and not a grant to operate a complete drilling expedition. A successful project would have supplied the site evidence and technical preparation needed to make a proposed drilling target more credible, feasible, and useful to the IODP3 science process.

What the call supported

The central purpose was detailed geophysical characterisation of proposed drilling sites. The official guidance says this usually includes a minimum of crossing seismic reflection lines together with additional observations suited to the geology of the proposed site. Applicants were expected to connect the survey to a submitted proposal or pre-proposal for a drilling expedition through the IODP3 Gateway system. That connection is important: a survey had to serve an identifiable ocean-drilling application rather than stand alone as an unrelated data-collection project.

Two forms of work were eligible. A ship-borne site survey could request ship time to collect new geophysical data and related marine observations. A virtual site survey could request support to process existing geophysical data from industry, government, or academic sources to the level needed for IODP3 site characterisation and safety considerations. The distinction affected the FEC ceiling, so a proposal needed to make its chosen route clear in the work plan and budget.

The call also encouraged applications supporting lower-cost Mission Specific Platform (MSP) expeditions involving shallow drilling or coring. NERC explained that the affordability of drilling proposals matters when IODP3 schedules regular expeditions. The fund aimed to support at least two grants, with at least one connected to a lower-cost MSP drilling or coring proposal. Additional awards could depend on partnership co-funding or in-kind contributions such as ship time. This made partnership design relevant, but it did not remove the UK eligibility and cost rules for the lead application.

The scientific context came from the 2050 Science Framework and its broad priorities for scientific ocean drilling. The official page describes research into habitability and life, the oceanic life cycle of tectonic plates, Earth’s climate system, Earth-system feedbacks, tipping points in Earth history, global cycles of energy and matter, and natural hazards in the marine environment. A strong proposal would have shown how the proposed site and survey method served one or more of these priorities while producing evidence that an expedition proposal could use.

NERC also encouraged the inclusion of early career researchers. That was presented as a way to support training in research proposal design and management, not as a separate eligibility route. Multidisciplinary collaboration and cooperation with other UK organisations were encouraged where they improved the scientific and operational case.

Eligibility and partnership rules

The project lead had to be based at a UK research organisation eligible for NERC funding and had to meet NERC’s individual eligibility requirements. The call was open to research groups and individuals, including applicants at any career stage subject to those rules. Before a future call, an applicant would need to check both the organisation’s status and the role-specific guidance; a strong scientific idea cannot compensate for an ineligible host or lead.

An individual could be involved in no more than two applications to this opportunity, and only one of those applications could list that person as project lead. This participation limit mattered when building a consortium across several candidate drilling sites. Teams needed to resolve overlapping roles before submission rather than rely on post-submission changes.

Project partners were welcome, including international collaborators, businesses, financial-sector organisations, and UK organisations that were not based at approved research organisations. However, project partners were expected to fund their own involvement. The call allowed only minor incidental expenses, such as some travel costs, where needed for project partners. The lead organisation therefore had to keep the request within the NERC funding rules and describe partner contributions separately, including cash or in-kind support where applicable.

Budget, duration, and exclusions

The total fund was £800,000, with an award range of £10,000 to £500,000. A project’s full economic cost could be up to £500,000 for a ship-borne investigation or up to £187,500 for a virtual site survey. NERC funded 80% of FEC. Ship and marine equipment costs had to be included in the application and counted towards the relevant funding limit. The maximum project duration was 24 months.

The official guidance listed facilities costs and cruise costs among the costs NERC would fund. It explicitly excluded PhD studentship costs. It also excluded equipment requests of £25,000 or more. Smaller equipment items under £25,000 each were to be requested under “Consumables (other directly incurred costs)” in the application. These rules meant that a survey budget needed to focus on the evidence-producing work, access, facilities, processing, and other justified costs required for the named site-survey method.

Where a facility or service was needed, applicants were expected to discuss the proposed work in detail with that provider at least two months before the closing date. The facility supplied a technical assessment with the calculated service cost; the assessment itself was not submitted with the application, but the applicant had to confirm that it had been received. NERC facilities and services had to remain within the funding limits.

For NERC marine facilities, applicants had to complete the online ship-time and marine equipment (SME) or autonomous deployment (ADF) application process and include the SME or ADF number in the Facilities section. The SME or ADF had to be submitted to and approved by NERC Marine Planning by the time the funding application was submitted. Failure to complete that process could mean that the marine-facility request was not included in the NERC Marine Facilities Programme. This is a material planning requirement for any future call with similar guidance.

The application also needed to address data management and sharing under UKRI open research and NERC data policies. Applicants had to request enough resource to prepare data for archiving. Trusted Research and Innovation, responsible research, environmental effects, local communities, and equality, diversity, and inclusion were part of the wider research context. These topics should be tied to the proposed field or data-processing activity rather than added as detached boilerplate.

How the closed call was submitted

This call used the UKRI Funding Service, not the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system. The project lead was responsible for completing the application, while team members and project partners were expected to contribute. Only the lead research organisation could submit to UKRI.

The published workflow was:

1. Select “Start application” on the UKRI Funding Finder page and confirm that you are the project lead.
2. Sign in or create a Funding Service account, select the organisation, verify the email address, and set a password.
3. Answer the application questions in the Funding Service text boxes. Applicants could save their work, return to it, work offline, and copy responses back into the service; any requested upload had to follow the service instructions.
4. Check the application in read-only view before sending it to the research office.
5. Send the completed application to the research office for checking and allow time for any edits it returned.
6. The research office submitted the completed and checked application to UKRI.

The official page stated that applications had to be received by 14 July 2026 at 4:00pm UK time and could not be submitted after that time. It also stated that an application could not be changed after submission and would not be returned for amendment. Those instructions are retained here as historical process information only. They do not reopen the call.

What to do now

There is no action available through this archived opportunity. Do not rely on an old draft, an old Funding Service session, or the presence of a live-looking UKRI URL as evidence that a submission can still be made. Instead, use the official UKRI opportunity page to check whether its status, deadline, and guidance have changed, and use the UKRI IODP3 programme page to understand the wider programme. If a future site-survey call is announced, re-check every requirement: eligible host, IODP3 Gateway proposal or pre-proposal, ship-borne versus virtual route, FEC ceiling, facility assessment, marine planning, data management, partner costs, and the new closing date.

For questions specific to this programme, the official opportunity page lists iodp@nerc.ukri.org. The UKRI IODP3 programme page identifies NERC as the partner responsible for the programme’s grant funding and finance contact. A future enquiry should identify the exact new opportunity rather than assume that this closed site-survey call has been extended.

Official links

• UKRI opportunity page
• UKRI International Ocean Drilling Programme (IODP3)