ESRC Impact Acceleration Account – Open Calls

The ESRC IAA has launched its refreshed funding schemes, with three open calls now live (call documents attached). These are:

1. Innovation Forum Fund

2. Funding (up to £1.5k) for events that bring together our colleagues and external partners to foster collaboration and drive real-world impact.

2. This funding supports events that create a space for our researchers and external organisations to collaborate on solutions to key challenges aligned with our strategic priorities: Ageing and Vitality; Data and Digital; Childhood and Youth; Sustainable Futures; Cities; Rural Enterprise and Innovation; and Electrification.

2. There is an additional £2.5K available for appropriate follow-on/pilot projects that build on Innovation Forum activity. The next submission deadline for the Innovation Forum Fund is 10 November 2025.

2. Responsive Fund

3. Targeted, time-responsive funding for small grants (up to £1K) to support activities – i.e. ongoing work not necessarily fully defined as a (new) project – that sustain and maximise the impact of social science research. This is a rolling call with no fixed deadline. 

3. Maximising Impact Fund

4. Funding for larger grants (up to £15K) to support projects that: scale activities that have already demonstrated initial impacts to reach larger and/or different audiences and/or new sectors, and; build and strengthen partnerships.

4. NB: This fund is not for the continuation of research. All underpinning research, including preliminary co-produced research, must be complete at the point of application. Maximising Impact Fund projects cannot run concurrently with live ESRC IAA-funded projects, excluding the Responsive Fund, and projects must begin by 1 July 2026.

4. EoIs for this Fund will be accepted between 1 October – 14 November 2025. The submission deadline for final applications is 23 February 2026.

More information on open calls, application processes, and general guidance can be found via the ESRC IAA Sharepoint.