This opportunity is open to organisations on the standard eligibility list.

It is not open to organisations based overseas.

To apply, you must be:

• the project lead (or the fellow, if applying for a fellowship)
• based at a UKRI-approved organisation and have their support
• resident in the UK when you apply, or will be resident in the UK for the duration of the project

You must also check to make sure you meet all of UKRI’s individual eligibility criteria.

We are committed to equal opportunity for all funding applicants and encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.

Although businesses are not eligible to be included as project lead (PL) or project co-lead (PcL), there must be at least one industry project partner included within the application (see the ‘What we’re looking for’ section for further information, including private sector leverage requirements).

We are not currently limiting application numbers for this funding opportunity, but if we get more applications than we can assess, we may start to limit numbers.

Engineering biology mission hubs are flagship applied research and innovation programmes focused on harnessing engineering biology to address significant industrial and societal challenges. They must build engineering biology research capacity in areas of significant economic and societal importance, and enable the harnessing of this capacity by UK industry to accelerate the application of engineering biology technologies for the benefit of the UK.

This investment is part of the UKRI Engineering Biology Programme, which aims to drive UK economic growth, deliver improved social outcomes and national resilience benefits for UK citizens, and further strengthen the UK engineering biology ecosystem.  The Engineering Biology Programme plays a key role in addressing the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy and the UK’s National Vision for Engineering Biology.

Prospective applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the programme team to discuss whether a proposal is within the scope of this funding opportunity before submission.

Applications which are deemed out of scope may be rejected by UKRI before peer review.

Engineering biology must be the core technology underpinning mission hub programmes.

UKRI defines engineering biology as the purposeful engineering of biological systems to create new or enhanced functions that do not occur naturally, or that cannot be achieved efficiently through conventional approaches.

It combines synthetic biology with enabling capabilities such as automation, AI, data science, advanced biomanufacturing and engineering disciplines to design, build, test and scale biological solutions to societal, environmental and industrial challenges.

Mission hubs must unlock the full potential of engineering biology by focusing the efforts of academia, industry, government, and other partners on complex real-world challenges that can only be tackled through a coordinated approach.

Proposals are required to identify a mission and illustrate how the application of engineering biology offers transformative and viable solutions towards addressing the mission. The mission should be bold, inspiring, and of significant importance, to the extent that if it were achieved it would deliver major economic and societal benefit to the UK. This includes, for example, enhancements to national resilience, defence and security.

UKRI does not stipulate that mission hub research and innovation activities start from, nor aim toward, a specific technology readiness level (TRL). However, we do expect meaningful TRL advancement of the technologies in focus.

The mission hub must drive research ideas through to commercially viable solutions, demonstrating a step change in market readiness of the mission hub activity over its lifetime. To enable this, mission hubs are required to be co-developed and co-delivered with industry, as well as the wider private sector (for example, investors), government (for example, at local, regional, and national level), and other relevant partners and end-users as appropriate. This is to ensure sharp focus on industrially relevant challenges of societal importance, and a pull-through to market for research outputs.

We welcome missions within, and across:

• agriculture and food
• chemicals and materials
• health
• waste and environment
• other areas with demonstrable potential to deliver the sought-after outcomes of this investment.

Mission hubs will be expected to contribute significantly to UKRI’s ambition to drive private sector investment within the engineering biology priority programme at a ratio of at least 3:1 for every pound invested by UKRI.

At the point of application, you must have secured a written commitment from your private sector partner, or partners, for a cash contribution to the project that is at least equivalent to or exceeding 20% of the total funding provided by UKRI.

For example, for a £15 million proposal (100% FEC), you must secure a minimum private sector cash contribution equivalent to £2.4 million (that is 20% of UKRI’s £12,000,000 contribution to the project). Note that ‘cash’ in this context can include internal investments and salaries of business employees. See the ‘Definitive list of eligible cash contributions’ section for our definition of what can be counted towards the cash contribution.

The minimum level of cash contribution can be made up from a single partner or multiple partners. Additional private sector contribution, which may comprise of direct cash, in-kind contribution, or a combination, must be detailed and evidenced within your application.

The level of private sector contribution you secure must be reflective of the commercial maturity of the programme focus areas, and in line with the profitability of the target market sector or sectors. For example, private sector contribution is expected to be significantly higher than 20% for projects aligned to sectors with higher profit margins and established routes to markets. This may include, but is not limited to, the pharmaceutical sector or projects focused on closer-to-market activities with clear commercial traction.

The level of private sector investment attracted into the mission hub will be a critical assessment factor for UKRI, particularly when comparing applications that are within the same general market areas and assessing the proximity to market of the proposed project focus.

Proposals must also describe clear, actionable plans to leverage further private sector investment over the course of the programme and beyond.

UKRI’s definition of private sector leverage is:

• additional private sector investment within the UK, stimulated by UKRI investment, and which must not be sourced from UK government, UK local government or other UK government department or government funds
• inclusive of charity and philanthropic investment (not originally sourced from public funding) and international sources of investment

The categories of private sector leverage which are relevant to this initiative, and may contribute to the 3:1 ratio, are as follows:

• private co-investment at the grant level: funding committed by a business or other non-public funder at the start of the award, including verified in-kind contributions (so long as at least 20% is made up of direct cash). For example, project partner (private sector) contributions
• follow-on investment from a business involved in the project or secured by the research team and as a result of the original UKRI investment, during or after the project. For example, industry contribution to collaborative R&D projects undertaken over the course of the project
• wider private investment attracted at the recipient organisational or spin-out level, including increased investment as a result of external private sector investment. This could be through mergers and acquisition activity, private capital investment and debt finance. This is likely to be after UKRI investment ends (for example, where external sources of private funding are investing in a company rather than specifically an idea that UKRI has funded). For example, private capital investment secured by a spin-out company established through mission hub activities, or revenue generated through a commercial license

UKRI intends to track private sector leverage throughout the lifetime of the project and beyond. We may seek evidence that private sector leverage has been realised where required.

This should be all or part of the pro rata, gross salary cost associated with researchers employed by academic partners (including co-leads, and researcher co-leads). The expectation is that researchers will devote a significant and appropriate amount of their time on the mission hub required for the project.

This should be all or part of the gross salary cost associated with research and innovation associates employed by academic partners to work exclusively on the mission hub. Research and innovation associates can also be employed directly by the private sector partners in the mission hub and claim the appropriately costed gross salary as a cash contribution depending on time committed to working on the mission hub.

The pro rata gross salary cost of professional enabling staff is an eligible cash contribution. The expectation is that they will devote a significant and appropriate amount of their time on the mission hub required for the project.

The pro rata gross salary costs of specialists are an eligible cash contribution. A specialist is an individual who brings specialist skills and intellectual input to the project. For example, data scientist, graphic designer, high-level or specialist technician or librarian.

They must be employed by the private sector partners or academic partners, and the expectation is that they will devote a significant and appropriate amount of their time on the mission hub required for the project.

This should be new software licences needed for the project and their maintenance cost for the duration of the grant. Software licences or intellectual property owned by the private sector partner or partners which are already accessible by the partners will apply at marginal cost, not at market rate.

This should be genuine new equipment purchases and should be dedicated to the objectives of the mission hub, and their utilisation should be critical to deliver the activity. The access does not have to be restricted to the project members, but we expect that the equipment will be available to project members as required for the project. All equipment should be appropriately justified.

This should be equipment produced by the private sector partner, but only at the cost of manufacture, not market rate.

This should be specific consumable materials which are required for certain equipment.

This should be access to specific equipment and facilities critical to achieve the outcomes of the project, including access to labs and use of lab equipment. If the facility is based at one of the academic or private sector partners, the contribution will be at the internal rate, not market rate.

Facilities refurbishment can be an eligible private sector partner cash contribution if the upgrade will increase the capability of the facilities. This contribution must be justified in addition to any estate costs already factored in.

This is a private sector cash donation which will be provided to the academic partners, for the academic partners to manage in line with the project objectives.

To fully realise the ambition of this opportunity to drive economic growth, deliver societal impact and enhance national resilience, proposals must demonstrate meaningful integration of economic and social science research and expertise.

You should evidence meaningful integration through the inclusion of at least one project co-lead from a relevant economic and social science discipline, supported by clearly defined and appropriately resourced work packages.

The specific nature of the social science activities will vary depending on the scope and objectives of the mission hub. However, UKRI has identified several priority areas where economic and social science expertise could make a particularly valuable contribution:

• ensuring key decision points in the mission hub’s work are informed by existing scholarship on a broad range of topics within the economic and social sciences. For example, deciding which market segments to target, or ensuring key design choices when developing a technological solution are developed with the downstream economic and societal landscape in mind
• surfacing areas where new social science knowledge is needed, and new research to meet these needs delivered
• strengthening translation, commercialisation and adoption pathways for engineering biology innovations
• providing robust evidence of engineering biology’s contribution to UK productivity and economic growth, including sector-specific analysis and assessment of innovation pathways
• improving understanding of the engineering biology ecosystem, including how this structure influences innovation and adoption, and how it responds to government interventions
• enhancing public and end-user understanding, confidence and trust, ensuring that societal perspectives inform the development, deployment and adoption of engineering biology technologies
• embedding responsible research and innovation principles and practices across all aspects of mission hub activity

This list is not exhaustive. Proposals should clearly articulate how their social science activities will maximise the societal, economic and wider public value generated through engineering biology technologies.

Funded mission hubs will also be expected to engage with programme-wide economic and social science coordination activities supported through the wider UKRI Engineering Biology Programme.

The UKRI Engineering Biology Programme will include a dedicated network investment to support economic and social science research needs across the wider programme portfolio. This network will help programme investments, including mission hubs, share approaches to tacking societal and economic barriers and allow them to access a broader research community to tackle these challenges. In addition to the requirement for social science co-leadership and appropriately resourced activities within individual mission hubs, applicants should allocate sufficient time and resources to engage with the network’s work. This is expected to include portfolio-level coordination, knowledge exchange and cross-programme learning activities following award.

Through this funding opportunity, we expect multiple partners from across the research and innovation ecosystem to work towards a common focus with complementary and joined up activities to drive engineering biology toward impact in key sectors.

Applications involving researchers solely from a single institution are allowed only where they can demonstrate how the required capability to deliver the proposed programme is found within the single institution.

We expect each mission hub to be centred at a physical location of significant existing engineering biology capacity and capability, with additional sites of research, innovation, and commercialisation excellence engaged as required to provide complementary capabilities required to address the identified mission.

Industrial partnership is expected, and partners should play an active role in the development and delivery of the mission hub activities.

All industrial partners should either:

• be registered in the UK
• have a UK research and development or manufacturing site

Where a suitable company or companies cannot be found in the UK, an overseas company may be used. Such collaborations are judged on a case-by-case basis, and clear justification must be provided. You should email EngBio@bbsrc.ukri.org prior to submission if you wish an overseas company to be an industrial partner under this scheme.

Mission hub teams must ensure, as far as possible, that all resulting commercial assets from the mission hub are anchored in the UK, aligned with UK national interests and delivering socioeconomic benefits to the UK.

We also expect you to consider partnerships with the wider private sector such as investors and venture builders, to deliver a consortium with a strong capability and track record in both academic quality and in venture creation or support and commercialisation.

We encourage meaningful partnership with policymakers at the local, regional, and national levels. These may include, for example: government departments pertinent to your mission, mayoral combined authorities or equivalent, and so on.

Consideration of the generation, diffusion and adoption of standards and metrology is encouraged where appropriate, including any suitable partnership to maximise their development and uptake.

We also encourage applicants to show due consideration to engaging and partnering with relevant national research and innovation infrastructure capabilities in the delivery of mission hub activities (for example, national biofoundries).

UKRI will require formal collaboration agreements to be put in place if an award is made.

Mission hubs are flagship UK engineering biology investments.

They must provide a focal point for the UK engineering biology ecosystem, playing a leadership and coordination role and acting as points of nucleation around which the broader research and innovation community can coalesce. They must be outward-facing and community-driven, with an aim to strengthen the overall ecosystem and build a sense of collective focus on shared goals for UK engineering biology.

You must describe how you plan to engage widely across the UK engineering biology ecosystem, and how you will provide opportunities for the community to help shape project direction. You should request an appropriate level of resource as part of your funding request to support these aims.

We also expect recipients of mission hub funding to act as champions and ambassadors for UK engineering biology internationally, and you should describe how you plan to do this.

We take a strategic approach to investment, considering the overall balance of our engineering biology portfolio in the context of the UK and international engineering biology landscape. You must therefore present a strong strategic case for investment in your mission hub, describing how the proposed work leverages UK strengths and opportunities in engineering biology to secure lasting global leadership and strategic advantage.

You should describe how your programme addresses relevant national and regional strategies, in particular, but not limited to, the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy.

Your programme must demonstrate clear complementarity and potential for synergy with existing activities, capabilities, or clusters of excellence at the local and regional level. As part of this, you should describe how your mission hub programme proposes to leverage local and regional strengths to support the realisation of the expected outcomes for this investment, including those that extend beyond research and innovation.

Your programme must provide significant additionality to the UK engineering biology landscape. Proposals that overlap significantly with existing engineering biology investments of similar scale, particularly in terms of mission area or market focus, are likely to be at a competitive disadvantage and are discouraged.

This does not preclude UKRI investment in multiple mission hub programmes led by the same organisation. You will need to make a clear case for the distinctiveness and additionality of your programme if this is proposed. Organisations proposing to host multiple mission hub programmes must demonstrate that they can dedicate the necessary wider resources to support delivery of the project.

Owing to the size and complexity of mission hubs, applicants are required to develop a management and governance strategy to ensure the effective delivery of the planned outcomes. The proposed strategy must be robust and appropriate to the scale of the investment.

You should carefully consider the requirements for successful management, operation, delivery and monitoring of mission hub activities. These are expected to cover a range of angles including academic research, translation, commercialisation, skills development, ecosystem building and so on. We strongly advise you to include an appropriately skilled operations lead (or equivalent) within the core team at a minimum. You should also request an appropriate level of resource to support operational activities.

Mission hubs must establish an independent advisory board (IAB) comprised of experts with no formal connection to the project (meaning project partners are not eligible). The IAB is anticipated to be drawn from a relevant and appropriate cross-section of the engineering biology ecosystem, including from the private sector and the international community.

The role of the IAB is to provide independent guidance and challenge to the mission hub leadership team over the course of the project. They will also be expected to contribute to reporting activities.

You are not required to have the IAB membership fully in place at the point of application. However, you must, at minimum, outline both an indicative membership (for example, the types of organisations you intend to recruit to the IAB) and your approach to managing and engaging the IAB over the course of your programme.

Mission hubs will be subject to monitoring and evaluation activities above standard UKRI requirements. Mission hubs are major investments, and through these monitoring and evaluation activities UKRI intends to hold supported projects to account for the delivery of the expected outputs and outcomes. Further details will be provided to successful applicants.

Your project must drive the following key outcomes.

• development of engineering biology-based products, processes and services
• creation of appropriate, high-value commercial assets (for example: commercially viable spin-outs with a high likelihood of survival beyond five years, licensing deals, social ventures, investable propositions, or equivalent)
• leveraged private sector investment (for example: private sector investment secured by a spin-out established through mission hub activities, or revenue generated through a commercial license)
• effective translation and adoption of engineering biology-based technologies and applications, including through industry and the public sector
• policy outcomes that support the commercialisation and adoption of engineering biology-based technologies and applications, including directly informing and influencing new laws, regulations, standards, or official policy
• increased skills and talent capacity, including technical, interdisciplinary, entrepreneurial, and leadership skills across all levels and role types
• a cohort of researchers and research technical professionals that can work effectively across academic, industrial and public sector environments
• stronger integration of economic and social science expertise within engineering biology research and innovation
• increased coordination, connectivity and visibility of the UK engineering biology ecosystem, at a local, regional and national level, and enhanced leveraging of local, regional and national engineering biology assets

We recognise that the nature of commercial outcomes realised from engineering biology research activities, and associated time horizons, will vary depending on areas of focus and target market sectors.

Your project should produce:

• advances in technology readiness levels (TRLs) of the technologies in focus
• intellectual assets and intellectual property (IP)
• engineering biology-based prototypes
• leveraged private sector investment (for example: through industry contribution to collaborative R&D projects undertaken over the course of the project)
• new or maintained cross-sector partnerships across academia, industry, public sector, regulators, infrastructure providers, policy makers, and other stakeholders
• high-impact publications, research data, software and so on
• new knowledge and technical know-how relevant to engineering biology, and the identification of new transformative engineering biology applications

We have provided the following non-exhaustive list to exemplify the types of activities that may be delivered as part of mission hub programmes.

Non-exhaustive examples of activities include:

• research and development grounded in the scope and requirements of this funding opportunity, including economic and social science research that contributes to the hub’s mission
• ecosystem building, such as targeted mechanisms to foster and grow cross-sector connections with specific, key stakeholders, including with end users, businesses, investors, policy makers and regulators
• collaborative research and development (R&D) funding to support academic-business collaborative projects
• market exploration and validation activities, such as training and support for researcher teams to explore the commercial potential of their project
• impact acceleration: projects to unlock the impact and value from research through engagement, knowledge exchange, and exploratory translation or early commercialisation activities. For example, these may include research and development projects aimed at increasing technical or commercial readiness, with a clear route towards market
• talent mobility:  to support placements and exchanges for hub researchers to non-academic settings, such as industry, policy, technology transfer, and venture capital
• entrepreneurship: training, funding and networking to support and build the expertise and confidence that hub researchers across all levels will need to translate and commercialise their research into market-ready solutions
• infrastructure access: to support access to specialised infrastructure or facilities to progress R&D commercially
• targeted training activities to build technical and leadership skills across all levels and role types
• venture building and accelerator activities to support the creation and growth of high-quality spin-outs, which may include demo days
• sandpits to form new cross-disciplinary, cross-sectoral or both teams and uncover innovative solutions

Applicants are strongly encouraged to involve the appropriate partners in the shaping of proposed activities, including their Technology Transfer Offices or equivalent teams, economic and social science departments, investors, industry, regulators, venture builders, and so on.

We are not looking for proposals aiming to develop foundational engineering biology technologies with broad applicability across multiple future applications and sectors. These types of proposals may be better suited to the Engineering Biology Programme: Foundational Technology Hubs initiative.

We may ask you to demonstrate how your project complies with Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I) principles.

We also encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.

You must have a robust plan in place for the management of project outputs, including any intellectual assets and intellectual property and its protection.

This should include plans to manage any project partner expectations for access to, and exploitation of, foreground IP generated during the project. Arrangements should be proportionate to the level of project partner contribution to the project.

We reserve the right to request further information on IP management plans and IP rights of third parties should your application be recommended for funding.

If your application is successful, you must ensure at all times that the grant funding awarded to you is compliant with the Subsidy Control Act 2022.

The FEC of your project can be up to £15 million. UKRI will fund 80% of the FEC.

The duration of this award is a maximum of five years.

You can request funding for costs such as:

• a contribution to the salary of the project lead and co-leads
• support for other posts such as research, operational, and technical staff
• research consumables
• equipment
• travel costs
• stakeholder engagement activities directly linked to the identified mission
• accelerators and venture building activities

If you deploy grant funding or directly support incorporated companies, you must ensure full compliance with the Subsidy Control Act 2022.

Organisations must fund 20% of the FEC. They do not need to provide funding beyond this 20%. This applies to organisations hosting:

• the project lead
• project co-leads
• other staff named on the application

Expert reviewers and panels do not consider levels of institutional matched funding in their assessment of applications.

Host organisations must provide the research environment and infrastructure needed to support activities we fund. This may include research facilities and staff training and development.

As project lead, you must discuss your project with your organisation’s office (or equivalent) before you prepare your application.

You then complete the application form on the UKRI Funding Service.

Your organisation checks the application and confirms that the applicants can receive funding. The lead organisation submits the completed application to us.

To be confirmed

A ‘Start application’ button will appear at the top of this page once the opportunity is open. It will take you to the Funding Service.

Multiple submitted applications with the same project lead are not permitted.

You can use AI tools to help prepare your application. You must let us know you’ve done this on your application.

Sensitive or personal data of others must never be input into a generative AI tool without formal consent from the individual.

Read UKRI’s policy on using AI to prepare an application.

You can use hyperlinks to link to reference information, but you should not use them for any essential elements of your application.

All required elements of the application must be contained in the application itself.

If you’re applying through the Funding Service, you may be able to upload images for some sections.

Do not include text that is essential to your application in an image.

Each image must be 5MB or less.

If you or a core team member needs to give us information that should be considered in the assessment process but kept confidential, you can email us with the information at EngBio@bbsrc.ukri.org

Examples of confidential information include:

• a conflict of interest we should consider when selecting reviewers
• a declaration of interest
• a team member being on parental leave after a certain date

Put these in the subject line of your email:

• the funding opportunity title
• the words ‘sensitive information’
• your funding service application number

We expect to use Distributed Peer Review (DPR) as part of the assessment of applications to this funding opportunity. DPR is a mechanism whereby applicants to a funding opportunity also act as reviewers. We will expect each applicant team to nominate team members who are equipped to act as reviewers, meaning individuals with the capacity, knowledge and confidence to provide comprehensive, quality reviews. Further information on DPR will follow.

Your organisation’s research office is your first point of contact for help and advice on costings and writing your application.

For further questions related to this funding opportunity (or if your organisation does not have a research office) contact EngBio@bbsrc.ukri.org

Any questions regarding the system or the submission of applications through the Funding Service should be directed to the helpdesk.

Email: support@funding-service.ukri.org

The email subject line should include the:

• council that is funding the opportunity
• opportunity name
• application number

Phone: 01793 547 490

Our phone lines are open:

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• Friday 8.30am to 4.30pm