In addition to Higher Education Institutions funded by the Higher Education Funding Councils, the AHRC currently recognises the following organisations as Independent Research Organisations (IROs):
A list of all organisations recognised as Independent Research Organisations by the Research Councils can be found on the RCUK website.
Once granted, eligibility will continue unless the IRO has received no funding during the first five years of recognition. In this situation, the AHRC may review the IROs eligibility. A change in status of an IRO may require re-consideration of an IROs eligibility, please contact the AHRC in this case.
Further information on how to apply for IRO status can be found below.
If you have any queries please contact:
Paul McWhirter p.mcwhirter@ahrc.ac.uk
01793 416083 AHRC Portfolio Manager
Dr Gail Lambourne g.lambourne@ahrc.ac.uk
01793 416082 AHRC Strategy and Development Manager
Becoming an Independent Research Organisations
Eligibility
The Research Councils promote and support research, postgraduate training and associated activities in UK research Organisations. All UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are eligible to receive funds for research, postgraduate training and associated activities. The Higher Education Funding Councils determine whether an organisation meets the criteria as an HEI. Research Institutes (RIs), for which Research Councils have established a long term involvement as major funder as part of the national research base, are also eligible to receive research funding.
Other organisations may be recognised as Independent Research Organisations (IROs) and so may also be eligible to receive funding for research, if such research extends and enhances the national research base.
The Research Councils are developing a joint application process and joint criteria for recognising such organisations. The current criteria can be found here and on the RCUK website but in brief, an organisation must satisfy the following conditions:
- Organisation which are, or which are constituent parts of, a charity registered with the Charities Commission; or associations which are eligible for exemption from Corporation Tax under schedule 508 of the Income and Corporation Taxes 1988; or organisations which are wholly owned subsidiaries of an association approved under section 508 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act whose articles of association require that all profits are returned (gift-aided) to the section 508 association
- The organisation must be a legal entity which is not: owned; established; or primarily funded for research purposes by a part of the public sector (other than by a Research Council, HEI, NHS Trust, National museum/gallery/library/archive/botanical garden/observatory) or by a business
- The organisation must be able to demonstrate an independent capability to undertake research in the field or discipline in which it wishes to be funded, and lead the research for which funding is received
Organisations that demonstrate they meet the criteria will be eligible to apply to the AHRC's strategic schemes or specific calls for proposals. They may also be considered eligible to apply to the Council's responsive mode schemes if they can demonstrate they provide a high quality research capability which is not widely represented in the HEI or Research Council Institute sector and is of clear benefit to the health of the research base.
Although guidance is being developed across the Research Council's, it is likely to be similar to the guidance the AHRC previously provided on information requested for the AHRC to judge research capacity and capability. The organisation will need to provide strong evidence of meeting this criteria. We would therefore suggest you refer to the previous AHRC guidance (61kb) in order to address the third criteria of demonstrating research capability.
The application process
Requests from research organisations for recognition by Research Council's should be made on a standard form, available from the Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) Helpdesk. The Helpdesk can be contacted on 01793 444164 or JeSHelp@rcuk.ac.uk. Your completed application form should be returned to the Je-S helpdesk who will circulate it to the relevant Research Councils (you can apply for recognition from more than one Council).
Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) registration
All applications for funding to the AHRC just be submitted via the Joint Electronic Submission system and in order to do this, organisations must be registered on the Je-S system. On receipt of your application for IRO status, the Je-S Helpdesk will issue terms and conditions as the first step in the registration process. Organisation may proceed with Je-S registration in parallel with the eligibility process; however, final completion of the Je-S registration will be contingent on successful confirmation of eligibility.
Full Economic Costing Validation
You may be aware that Research Councils will fund 80% of the full economic costs (fEC) of research projects. Higher education institutes (HEIs) are required to adopt a methodology for calculating fEC called the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC), which has been accepted by Research Councils as robust and reliable.
Research Councils will apply the same funding arrangements to all organisations that are eligible for their support. Non-HEIs will not be expected to use the full TRAC methodology, but Research Councils will require a validation process to ensure that the costing methodologies of such organisations are robust. (For Research Council Institutes, validation will be by the host Research Council).
Once recognized as IROs, non-HEIs can apply to Research Councils for project funding on the same terms as higher education institutions. When doing this, they should calculate the full economic cost (fEC) of each project.
On receipt of your application for IRO status, the Je-S Helpdesk will issue a fEC validation questionnaire. Again, this may proceed in parallel with the eligibility process, but organisations will not be fully validated until eligibility has been confirmed.