Councils that award doctoral landscape awards using a funding formula or algorithm are:
- Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
AHRC funding formula
The funding formula has been designed to ensure good regional coverage across the UK. It will identify higher education providers (HEPs) that have strong research environments and the capacity to provide high quality support to AHRC-funded students. It is a repeatable and sustainable mechanism that also offers reduced bureaucracy.
AHRC will run the formula every five years.
The funding formula has two parts:
- How many HEPs in each region are supported
- Which HEPs in each region are supported
The formula will provide an allocation to HEPs in all 12 UK International Territorial Level (ITL) regions. The number of HEPs supported in each ITL region will be determined by the number of arts and humanities research students in that ITL as a proportion of all the arts and humanities research students in the UK.
For example, if an ITL region contains 10% of the arts and humanities research students in the UK it would receive 10% of the HEP allocations. This means five HEPs (10% of 50) would be supported. The number of research students will be determined using the most recent Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data, using HESA cost centres to identify arts and humanities students, available at the time we run the formula.
To determine which HEP or HEPs in each ITL region are supported, all the HEPs in an ITL region will be ranked by their formula score, with the highest ranked HEPs being supported. For example, if the first part of the formula allocates five HEPs to an ITL region then the top five ranked HEPs in that region will be offered a landscape award.
Each HEP’s formula score is determined by two variables:
- research staff (within arts and humanities), which is a proxy for research capacity
- AHRC grant income, which is a proxy for research quality
The research staff variable will be drawn from the most recent HESA data for research staff full-time equivalent (‘research’ or ‘teaching and research’). AHRC will use HESA cost centres to identify the research staff in the arts and humanities.
The AHRC grant income variable will be drawn from AHRC funding awarded competitively from AHRC’s core resource baseline. It uses grants that have started in the previous four years. The process will exclude the following:
- non-competitively won grants
- capital funding
- training grants
- grants awarded on behalf of UKRI
- non-core funding
The two variables for each HEP are given equal weighting, through a normalisation of ratings, so that they are on a common scale, and added together to create the HEP’s formula score. Only HEPs with a score from both variables will receive a final formula score.
EPSRC funding algorithm
How we allocate funding
Doctoral landscape award funding is allocated every few years by means of an algorithm. For example, the doctoral landscape awards starting in 2025 are for students starting in the 2025 to 2026, 2026 to 2027 and 2027 to 2028 academic years. This allocation was based on EPSRC research grant data collated in early 2024.
Funding basis and exclusions
The algorithm is based on the profile of EPSRC’s research funding, awarded competitively from EPSRC’s core resource baseline and other UKRI funding delivered by EPSRC (such as the UKRI Strategic Themes, Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, Strategic Priorities Fund and Technology Missions Fund). Exclusions that arise from this principle are:
- non-competitively won grants
- major capital and national facilities funding
- training grants including Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs)
How the algorithm works
The algorithm uses the total authorised value of all grants that started during a set four year window. For the 2025 to 2027 doctoral landscape awards, this was based on grants with a start date between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2023. The total portfolio value for an institution is determined based on the lead applicant’s affiliation.
Considering the total eligible research funding that has been awarded, we calculate the proportion that is held by each institution. This proportion, applied to the doctoral landscape award budget available, gives a university doctoral landscape award allocation for that institution. Institutions without degree awarding powers are removed.
A minimum allocation is applied, to ensure at least three EPSRC students can be supported through each intake, at predicted studentship costs. Any preliminary allocation below this is redistributed amongst the remaining institutions.
STFC funding formula
STFC recently refreshed its landscape awards funding allocation formula.
Key changes to the algorithm process
No non-UKRI administered funding will be considered as part of the volume measure. This means STFC will no longer ask for information about researchers being funded by the European Research Council, the Royal Society (University Research Fellowships) or other.
STFC will no longer ask departments, or research organisations, to verify the data that they have. This data should have been accurate at the point of application. However, a grant list will be shared with research organisations, enabling a cross check of the grants being used.
STFC is no longer able to allocate directly to departments. Allocations will now be at the research organisation level. Previously, departmental allocations and subject-based allocations were notional and departments retained the flexibility to allocate studentships to projects within any of the four areas as they wished. STFC will continue to make subject and area-based recommendations to research organisations.
Eligibility is based on all active STFC awards, not consolidated grants only.
The overall allocation of studentships to each area will be proportional to the total budget assigned to each area by STFC. After which the formula will be run within each, with a further split in particle physics between Particle Physics Experiment (PPE) and Particle Physics Theory (PPT) to ensure that PPT isn’t unfairly impacted by the expense of PPE.
Last updated: 24 March 2026