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Research and Journalism Grants in the UK

Currently 5 active research and journalism grants, fellowships and residencies open to applicants in the UK. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Almost every entry is funded; a few notable unpaid open calls and festival submissions are included as clearly flagged exceptions. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.

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Open calls

  1. The Photographers' Gallery: Future of Archives, Whose Archive is it Anyway? (Call for Speakers)

    The Photographers' Gallery · London, UK. Selected speakers must be available to speak in person at The Photographers' Gallery on 16 April 2027. · Deadline: 01 Nov 2026 · Award: GBP 200 speaker fee for each selected speaker. No application fee.

    Whose Archive is it Anyway? is the first in a three-part series of events at The Photographers' Gallery exploring the future of archives and archiving. This one-day event on Friday 16 April 2027 kickstarts the conversation with commissioned talks addressing what it means to make an archive today, who decides what an archive consists of, who creates an archive, who an archive is for, and who has access. The gallery welcomes submissions of real-life experiences rather than academic papers that challenge or answer these or other points related to the future of archives. SUGGESTED TOPICS: artist and photographers' legacies; institutional archives; memory (forgotten or lost histories made visible again); truth within archives (who is telling the stories and how); ownership (who has the authority to tell stories, who owns the images and their stories); relationships between those who create archives and those who use them; radical, non-traditional archives that redesign how stories are gathered and held to safeguard living memories; family archives; reclaimed photographic archives; counter archives that question dominant historical narratives; grassroots archives; technologies that reduce barriers to archives while safeguarding material; digital preservation and digitisation; and dialogic archives. ELIGIBILITY: open to all, especially those with experience of working with archives and the stories within them; applicants must be 18 or older and available to attend The Photographers' Gallery in London on 16 April 2027 to speak at the event. Selected speakers receive a fee of GBP 200 and will be notified by 18 January 2027. Questions to archive@tpg.org.uk. Deadline 1 November 2026, 11:59pm GMT.

  2. Pivotal Research Fellowship (2027 Q1)

    Pivotal Research · London (London Initiative for Safe AI / LISA). In person; meeting UK entry requirements is the fellow's responsibility, though Pivotal offers visa guidance and can sometimes help. · Deadline: 01 Nov 2026 · Award: £15,000 to £18,000 stipend (£18,000 for senior fellows, e.g. PhD, industry track record or strong publications) + travel to and from London + £1,800/month housing for non-London fellows + weekday lunch and dinner + compute.

    Fully funded, full-time, in-person research fellowship in London for anyone 18 or over committed to ensuring AI develops safely. Fellows work on a project with an established mentor, with weekly 1-on-1s, dedicated research-management support and co-working at LISA. Past projects span AI governance, technical AI safety and technical AI governance. Among this round's projects, Risto Uuk and a co-mentor are supervising a fellow on EU AI governance, looking for someone curious and motivated with experience or interest in policy or law. Other mentors include Patrick Levermore, Alexandra Abbas, Caspar Kaiser, Cecilia Elena Tilli, Connor Dunlop, Daniel Tan and Dave Banerjee; the full list is on the fellowship page.

  3. Daiwa Foundation Small Grants, March 2027 round (GBP 2,000-9,000 for UK-Japan projects)

    Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation · For individuals, societies, associations and other bodies in the UK or Japan running projects that connect the two countries. · Deadline: 31 Mar 2027 · Award: GBP 2,000 to 9,000 (typical awards GBP 3,000-4,000); flights up to GBP 1,200 each and subsistence up to GBP 100 per person per day. A contribution, not full funding. No application fee.

    The Daiwa Foundation Small Grants support projects that promote interaction between the UK and Japan in any field, including arts exchanges, exhibitions, conferences, grassroots and educational exchanges and research travel, with travel between the two countries as the main focus. New initiatives are encouraged, and gender equality and SDG themes are welcome; continuing or regular events (such as an annual festival edition) are unlikely to be funded without a strong reason or special occasion. NOT ELIGIBLE: commissions of artworks, capital costs, consumables, salaries or professional fees, tuition and commercial activity. WHAT YOU GET: GBP 2,000 to 9,000 (most awards GBP 3,000-4,000), with flights funded up to GBP 1,200 each and subsistence up to GBP 100 per person per day, plus GBP 50 extra per flight for environmental projects in Japan. APPLICATION: read the Application Notes, then apply via the Foundation's online portal (separate forms for UK- and Japan-based applicants); advice from grants@dajf.org.uk. Decisions by late May or early June 2027. DEADLINE: 31 March 2027 (the following round closes 30 September).

  4. ILIAD Intensive: Foundational AI Alignment Program (London and Berkeley)

    ILIAD · In person at LISA in London, UK, and in Berkeley, California, USA. Five days a week, 10am to 6pm. · Deadline: Rolling / undated · Award: No tuition. USD 5,000 travel and housing allowance per participant, plus office space at the venue and lunch and dinner five days a week. Cohorts of 15 to 30 participants. Participants arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodation out of the allowance.

    The ILIAD Intensive is a four-week, full-time, in-person program for mathematically strong researchers interested in foundational AI alignment, running in London (at LISA) and in Berkeley. It runs five days a week, 10am to 6pm, in cohorts of 15 to 30 participants. CURRICULUM, across five clusters: Alignment (decomposing the alignment problem, pretraining, post-training and deployment, reward learning); Learning (deep learning theory, singular learning theory, training dynamics); Abstractions, Representations and Interpretability (mechanistic interpretability, natural latents); Agency (reinforcement learning, decision theory, agent foundations); and Safety Guarantees (debate, steganography, the limits of interpretability). MONEY: no tuition is charged. Each participant receives a USD 5,000 travel and housing allowance, office space at the venue, and lunch and dinner five days a week. Participants book and pay for their own travel and accommodation out of the allowance. ELIGIBILITY: a strong mathematical background, typically graduate-level study or a completed degree in mathematics, physics or theoretical computer science, though mathematical maturity is weighted more heavily than specific credentials. Research experience, general competence and motivation are also assessed. Prior machine learning or alignment experience is not required. DEADLINE: no fixed closing date is published. A single application covers several upcoming programs and applicants indicate their preferred dates and locations; applications are being accepted for the October 2026 and November 2026 cohorts. HOW TO APPLY: through the application portal at iliad.ac/apply. Questions to contact@iliad.ac.

  5. Iliad Fellowship (applied mathematics for AI alignment, rolling)

    Iliad · London or San Francisco Bay Area. In person. · Deadline: Rolling / undated · Award: USD 6,000 per month travel and housing allowance for the three-month fellowship (four months fully funded including the Iliad Intensive). No application fee.

    Mentored, individual research in applied mathematics for AI alignment, including foundational questions that get less attention elsewhere, drawing on mathematics, theoretical physics and computer science. ELIGIBILITY: designed for PhD students, postdocs and researchers with equivalent experience in mathematics, theoretical physics, computer science or related fields; selection weighs academic credentials, technical ability, intentions and fit with the cohort's research coverage. APPLICATION: rolling, with fellowships starting at the beginning of most months.

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