Global Challenges Research Fund

The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) is a £1.5 billion fund announced by the UK Government in late 2015 to support cutting-edge research that addresses the challenges faced by developing countries.

The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) is a £1.5 billion fund announced by the UK Government in late 2015 to support cutting-edge research that addresses the challenges faced by developing countries through:

  • promoting challenge-led disciplinary and interdisciplinary research, including the participation of researchers who may not previously have considered the applicability of their work to development issues
  • strengthening capacity for research, innovation and knowledge exchange in the UK and developing countries through partnership with excellent UK research and researchers
  • providing an agile response to emergencies where there is an urgent research need

Find out more about the scheme and access the latest funding opportunities on UKRI's GCRF webpage.


Current projects

Arts for Advocacy: Creative Engagement with Forced Displacement in Morocco
This project is focused on the development of innovative, interdisciplinary, and participatory arts-based methods to facilitate creative engagement with forced displacement in Morocco - find out more >>

Enhancing crop diversity and ecosystem services to promote biological control of fall armyworm in smallholder cropping systems
This project will investigate if maize millet and sorphum crops grown by smallholder farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa can be protected from the invasive fall armyworm (FAW) - find out more >>

Improving food safety by reducing pesticide residues: developing a pheromone alternative to insecticides for control of thrips on legumes in Kenya (SAFARI)
This project aims to provide an alternative to insecticides for managing the bean flower thrips in cowpea and other similar crops in Kenya - find out more >>

Stories of public health through Local Art-based Community Engagement (SOLACE)
SOLACE is interdisciplinary research characterised by sustained and genuine engagement with local communities, dissolving knowledge hierarchies and co-producing innovative global public health initiative and clinical interventions - find out more >>

Targeting virus transmission in a vital crop for African food security
The aim of this project is to devise effective & practical field designs that minimize crop losses due to viral diseases in bean crops in East and Central Africa - find out more >>