The International Science Partnerships Fund Research Collaboration UK-KSA grants provide seed funding for collaborations between the UK and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to:

• Initiate new research and innovation collaborations between academic groups, departments, and institutions in KSA and the UK
• Develop existing collaborations at group, departmental, and institutional level
• Encourage these collaborations to work with non-academic organisations and individuals to support the exchange of research and innovation expertise and the translation of research knowledge into tangible benefits
• Establish local hubs for joint UK-Saudi Arabia activity in a particular area, enabling engagement from the wider research and innovation community

Priority Themes

• The bilateral priority themes identified for this call for proposals are:
  • Resilient Planet - leading the green industrial revolution to protect the planet:
    • Water efficiency, treatment, and engineering
    • Environmental monitoring, modelling, and protection
  • Healthy People – researching and innovating for secure and healthy populations:
    • Antimicrobial resistance and tackling future epidemics
    • Early diagnosis and precision medicine
    • Genomics and genetic diseases

Funding Information

• The ISPF grant will not exceed £80,000 for projects lasting up to two years.
• For not-for-profit organisations and Research Institutions, these are the eligible costs at 80% FEC:
• Staff costs (including directly incurred and directly allocated posts).
• Other research costs (including consumables). Please note that no single items over £10,000 may be included.
• Travel and subsistence for exchange/mobility activities (including cost of workshops, meetings etc).
• Estates and indirect costs.
• It is expected that all funded project activity will begin on or after 1 February 2026 and be completed by 31 January 2028.

Eligible Costs

• Research Collaboration Programme grants can cover:
  • Directly Allocated costs: This includes the resources used by a project that are shared by other activities. They are charged to projects on the basis of estimates rather than actual costs and do not represent actual costs on a project-by-project basis.
  • Directly Incurred costs: These are explicitly identifiable as arising from the conduct of a project, are charged as the cash value actually spent and are supported by an audit record.
  • Indirect costs are ones which cover the costs of the Research Organisation's management and administrative services.
  • Staff costs: Directly Allocated staff are those who will be working directly on the project, but whose involvement on the grant can only be based on an estimate of the time the work will take (e.g., investigators). Directly Incurred staff are those whose time on the project is actual, auditable, and verifiable (e.g., researchers and technicians’ salaries, consultancy fees, superannuation, and national insurance payments).
  • Travel and Subsistence costs:
    • Travel (economy class) and subsistence costs to the UK and KSA are eligible. To reduce the impact of the project on the climate and environment, all travel should be essential to creating the outcomes of the project and should be justified in the application form.
    • Visa fees, vaccinations, and medical insurance for travel essential to the collaboration to the UK and KSA are eligible. Costs of meetings, training events and seminars integral to the collaboration can also be included.
  • Other directly incurred costs:
    • Other research costs directly relating to the project. Includes specified consumables, equipment costing less than £10,000, recruitment and advertising costs to be incurred by the UK Research Organisation.
  • Other directly allocated costs:
    • Support staff salaries, a share of the costs of departmental support staff, and the costs of access to major research facilities.
  • Estates (non-staff direct costs) UK only:
    • Facility related costs of conducting the research including utilities, rates, rents, maintenance, insurance, infrastructure costs, facilities management, cleaning, security, and depreciation of equipment.
  • Indirect costs UK only:
    • A contribution towards the cost of all other overheads for central service departments such as Finance, Human Resources, Legal and Registry.
    • The following items are also covered by estates and indirect costs:
    • Communication costs, including mobile phone rental, purchase, and roaming charges.
    • Purchase or rental of standard office equipment (except specialist equipment essential to the research).
    • IT hardware – laptops, personal computers, tablets, smart phones, Mac workstations, computer parts and peripherals.
    • Office software: Desks, chairs, filing cabinets, photocopiers, printers, fax machines.

Ineligible Costs

• Equipment costs
• Studentships
• Costs related to writing up, promoting, or disseminating previous research
• Patent costs
• Entertainment costs such as:
  • Gifts.
  • Alcohol.
  • Restaurant bills or hospitality costs for personnel not directly participating in the project.
  • Excessive restaurant costs.
  • Excessive taxi fares.
• Exceptional Costs

Eligibility Criteria

• Proposals must fulfil the following criteria to be eligible for funding under this Programme:
  • Each proposal must have one Project Leader from the UK and one Project Leader from KSA.
  • Both Project Leaders must be Leading Researchers or Established Researchers.
  • UK Project Leaders must be employees with a contract covering the entire term of the grant at one of the following (this means that Emeritus and Honorary Professors may not apply as lead):
    • A not-for-profit higher education institution with the capacity to undertake high-quality research.
    • Eligible higher education providers (HEPs) take part in the Research Excellence Framework and receive recurrent annual funding from one of the UK’s higher education funding bodies.
    • A not-for-profit research organisation with the capacity to undertake highquality research.
    • A Catapult Centre4 (in the case of the UK Project Leader).
  • The KSA Project Leaders need to be from academia or research institutions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
  • Both Project Leaders’ institutions (the ‘Lead Institutions’) must have the capacity to administer the grant.
  • Individual departments within a single institution can make multiple applications per call provided that the proposed activities are clearly different.
  • Project Leaders may only submit one Research Collaboration application per call.
  • Project Leaders who currently hold a British Council ISPF Research Collaborations grant are not eligible to apply under this call.
  • Organisations affiliated to higher education institutions in the UK or any other country and based in the partner country, (e.g. an overseas or branch campus) may not apply as the Lead Institution in the partner country.
  • Not-for-profit higher education institutions and publicly funded research organisations are eligible to apply as Lead Institutions.
  • For-profit organisations and not-for-profit organisations are not eligible to apply as Lead Institutions for Research Collaboration grants.

For more information, visit British Council.