Terms and conditions for MRC research grants - MRC

MRC-supported scientists must adhere to various terms and conditions of funding including the conduct and reporting of your research.

Terms and conditions

Core terms and conditions for research grants

The Research Councils have agreed a set of core terms and conditions for all grants funded by UK research councils, including the MRC.

MRC additional terms and conditions

The MRC has some additional terms and conditions which supplement those of UKRI. These conditions set out detailed operational, legislative and ethical requirements relating to medical research. The MRC reserves the right to amend its additional grant terms and conditions and its fellowship terms and conditions.

Research organisations and award holders have absolute responsibility for ensuring all required licenses, approvals, permissions and consent are in place before any research is undertaken and that these are followed.

Other important considerations

Good research practice

The MRC expects the research it supports to be conducted according to the highest achievable standards of research practice in order to ensure the integrity of the research and outputs.

The Good Research Practice (2012) guidance sets out the MRC’s expectations in the form of principles, guidelines and standards to foster good research practice in all MRC-funded research.

Acknowledgements

Grant supported work should formally be described as ‘MRC (Co-)funded’ or ‘This work was supported by the Medical Research Council (grant number xxxx)’, as appropriate.

Studies should not be described formally as ‘the MRC study of x…’, unless they have been initiated or are managed by an MRC Unit or employee.

Profiled payments

Payment for MRC grants is made to the research organisation. The cash-limited value of the award is profiled over the tenure of the grant and paid automatically by the MRC.  Profiled payments are made in arrears on a quarterly basis according to the fiscal year.

Grants starting in the first half of a quarter will receive a full first quarter’s payment.  Those that start in the second half of a quarter will receive the first payment in the following quarter. Payments may be made at any time between 45 days before and 15 days after the end of a quarter.

Each quarter the research organisation will receive a single payment for all current MRC grants held at that time, accompanied by a customer account statement listing the payment made against each grant.

Last updated: 27 September 2024

This is the website for UKRI: our seven research councils, Research England and Innovate UK. Let us know if you have feedback or would like to help improve our online products and services.