The UK’s Medical Research Council has opened a new funding round worth £50 million for researchers tackling complex and interdisciplinary health challenges, with applications now being accepted for the Centre of Research Excellence round five outline stage.
New funding targets ambitious health challenges
The opportunity, published on 27 August 2026, is aimed at UK research organisations eligible for MRC funding. The council says the programme is designed to support work on difficult health problems that benefit from collaboration across disciplines.
According to the MRC listing, the total fund is £50 million and the maximum award available is £26.25 million. The opening date is 1 October 2026 at 9:00am UK time, and the closing date is 3 February 2027 at 4:00pm UK time. The call sits within the council’s wider push to accelerate diagnosis, advance treatment and prevent human illness. MRC funding page
Part of a wider MRC push to support UK research
The announcement follows a period of active funding and news from the council. Recent MRC updates include support for fatal genetic diseases, a bespoke lung cancer therapy vaccine, and a new institute focused on obesity research. The council’s news page also lists a call published on 1 September 2026 for trust and confidence in policing research, alongside the new Centre of Research Excellence opportunity. MRC news
For UK scientists, the latest funding round could provide an important route to scale up collaborative projects with the potential to influence patient care over the longer term. The MRC says the scheme is intended for work that brings together different fields to address health questions that are too complex for a single discipline alone.
Researchers interested in applying will need to prepare an outline application before the February 2027 deadline. The funding round is one of the most significant MRC opportunities currently listed and is likely to attract teams working across biomedical science, clinical research and translational medicine.
As the UK continues to invest in health research capacity, the new call adds to a busy late-summer funding landscape and underlines the MRC’s continuing role in backing large-scale medical research ambitions.
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