Scope
This is a pre-announcement for a funding opportunity to deliver novel modelling of the Biological influence on future ocean storage of carbon (BIO-Carbon) research programme – novel modelling approaches, and NASA’s Export processes in the ocean from remote sensing (EXPORTS) programme.
The ocean stores huge amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be in the atmosphere. Marine organisms play a critical role, but emerging evidence indicates that global coupled ocean atmosphere models are not fully accounting for their impact. BIO-Carbon and EXPORTS will deliver the new understanding of biological processes necessary to push beyond the state-of-the-art, to provide robust predictions of future ocean carbon storage.
Projects are expected to address one or more of the following questions:
- how does marine life affect the potential for seawater to keep taking up CO2, and how will this change?
- how will the rate at which marine life converts dissolved CO2 into organic carbon change?
- how do upper ocean ecosystem characteristics determine the vertical transfer of organic matter from the well-lit surface ocean?
- what controls the efficiency of vertical transfer of organic matter below the well-lit surface ocean?
- how will future induced shifts in respiration by the marine ecosystem affect the future ocean storage of carbon?
- how can the knowledge gained be used to reduce uncertainties in contemporary & future estimates of the export and fates of net primary production?
BIO-Carbon and EXPORTS aim to deliver a fundamental understanding of the key biological processes that are relevant globally. By encapsulating this new knowledge in a robust modelling framework, it will allow examination of the resulting feedback on future predictions for how global ocean carbon storage may change.
Additionally, it will provide new parameterisations of key processes for inclusion in the next generation of global models and emergent constraints to identify clearly erroneous forecasts.
Applications will be expected to build on information produced by previous BIO-Carbon funding opportunities programme, the EXPORTS programme, and data emerging from other projects internationally.
To support this a workshop will take place in Glasgow in March 2026. Applications should demonstrate a novel modelling approach to tackling the question of how marine life helps store carbon in the ocean. Examples include new ways of representing key processes, new methods to quantitatively assess and inter-compare model performance and new approaches to modelling the ocean biological carbon system.
For this funding opportunity you are strongly encouraged to be collaborative and include UK and US researchers. One integrated application should be submitted to the UKRI Funding Service detailing both the UK and US contributions to the project in the case of a UK-US collaboration.
Duration
The duration of this award is a maximum of 24 months.
Funding available
The full economic cost (FEC) of the UK component of your project can be up to £312,500.
The maximum cost of the US component across this opportunity and the linked ‘Multiple model assessments of biological influence on ocean carbon’ will be up to $1,000,000, pending funding availability.
The UK component will be funded at 80% of the FEC.
This funding opportunity sources its funds from the NERC budget.
What we will fund
We will fund:
What UKRI will not fund
UKRI will not fund:
- PhD studentship costs
- requests for equipment of £25,000 and over are not part of this funding opportunity. You should request smaller items of equipment (under £25,000 individually) under ‘Consumables (other directly incurred costs)’ in your application
Services and facilities
You can apply to use a facility or resource in your funding application.
You should discuss your application with the facility or service at least two months before the funding opportunity’s closing date to:
- discuss the proposed work in detail
- receive confirmation that they can provide the services required within the timeframe of the funding
The facility will provide a technical assessment that includes the calculated cost of providing the service. NERC services and facilities must be costed within the limits of the funding.
You should not submit the technical assessment with the application, but you must confirm you have received it.
For more information, see the NERC research grants and fellowships handbook.
Read the full list of NERC facilities that require a technical assessment.
High Performance Computing (HPC), Ship-Time or Marine Equipment (SME) and the large research facilities at Harwell have their own policies for access and costing.
Note the ARCHER2 service end date is 21 November 2026. HPC provision for ARCHER2 is not guaranteed after this date. Where you require HPC provision after November 2026, you are advised to explore alternative provisions such as other UKRI provisions listed or commercial HPC services.
Where you are seeking to use other UKRI provisions then you must adhere to the relevant access process. Where you are seeking to use commercial HPC services then the full cost of access to commercial HPC services must be included in your application.
UKRI provisions include:
Supporting skills and talent
We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.
Trusted Research and Innovation
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is committed in ensuring that effective international collaboration in research and innovation takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks. Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I) is a UKRI work programme designed to help protect all those working in our thriving and collaborative international sector by enabling partnerships to be as open as possible, and as secure as necessary. Our TR&I principles set out UKRI’s expectations of organisations funded by UKRI in relation to due diligence for international collaboration.
As such, applicants for UKRI funding may be asked to demonstrate how your proposed projects will comply with our approach and expectation towards TR&I, identifying potential risks and the relevant controls you will put in place to help proportionately reduce these risks.
See further guidance and information about Trusted Research and Innovation, including where applicants can find additional support.
Data management
You must adhere to UKRI open research policy and NERC data policy and complete the ‘Data management and sharing’ question.
For details of data centres, see the NERC Environmental Data Service.
Applicants receiving support from NASA will need to follow NASA’s Earth Science Data policy.
We will pay the data centre directly on behalf of the programme for archival and curation services, but you should ensure that you request sufficient resource to cover preparation of data for archiving by the research team. Additional services from the data centres, such as database development or a specialist in project data management during your project, will need to be discussed with the relevant data centre prior to submission, costs for additional services will need to be funded from your grant.
Responsible research
Through our funding processes, we seek to make a positive contribution to society and the environment. This is not just through research outputs and outcomes but through the way in which research is conducted and facilities managed.
All NERC grant holders are to adopt responsible research practices as set out in the NERC responsible business statement.
Responsible research is defined as reducing harm or enhancing benefit on the environment and society through effective management of research activities and facilities. Specifically, this covers:
- the natural environment
- the local community
- equality, diversity and inclusion
You should consider the responsible research context of your project, not the host institution as a whole. You should take action to enhance your responsible research approach where practical and reasonable.
