NetworkPlus in property flood resilience (invite only)

NetworkPlus in property flood resilience (invite only) is sponsored by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). NetworkPlus in property flood resilience (invite only). Funding opportunity from Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Apply via the UKRI portal.

NetworkPlus in property flood resilience (invite only) – UKRI Funding opportunity: NetworkPlus in property flood resilience (invite only) Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 13 July 2026 9:00am UK time 18 August 2026 4:00pm UK time Apply for funding to develop an interdisciplinary NetworkPlus to address research and innovation challenges necessary for increased UK-wide property flood resilience adoption and uptake, relevant to the recommendations identified in the FloodReady review, published in October 2025.

The funding opportunity will be invite-only. The invited applicants will have attended and have been selected to apply at the consortium building workshop on Monday, 23 March 2026 in Swindon. The full economic cost (FEC) of your project can be up to £2.

5 million. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) will fund 80% of the FEC. The duration of the award is up to three years.

The funding opportunity will be invite-only as we expect to welcome a single application comprising different work streams, each of which could be led by different research organisation. The invited applicants will have attended and have been selected to apply at the consortium building workshop on Monday, 23 March 2026 in Swindon, to help set the framework and focus of the Network.

While participation in the workshop is required for the bid-writing team, not taking part does not preclude involvement in the Network at an appropriate stage. This funding opportunity is open to organisations with standard eligibility Check if your organisation is eligible . EPSRC standard eligibility rules apply.

For full details, visit EPSRC’s eligibility page . International researchers As EPSRC is a lead funder for this funding opportunity, international researchers can only apply as ‘project co-lead (international)’ as part of an application making use of the UKRI-RCN Money Follows Cooperation agreement . You should include all other international collaborators (or UK partners not based at approved organisations) as project partners.

We will not accept uninvited resubmissions of projects that have been submitted to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) or any other funder. Find out more about EPSRC’s resubmissions policy . Equality, diversity and inclusion We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants.

We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers. We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes: support for people with caring responsibilities alternative working patterns UKRI can offer disability and accessibility support for UKRI applicants and grant holders during the application and assessment process.

Demand management is being applied to this funding opportunity.

Further details are provided in the ‘additional information’ section The funding opportunity aims to fund one NetworkPlus to bring researchers from engineering, environmental science and social science together with related disciplines and non-academic stakeholders, particularly industry and community groups to address research challenges around property flood resilience (PFR) adoption and uptake in the UK.

This research network can bring together the broad range of experts that can build research and innovation capability, prioritise research and develop a roadmap for research and innovation. As the evidence base is built up, the possibility exists for a testbed to be developed to track the effectiveness of PFR measures over time and generate best practice guidelines.

Flooding is one of the government’s top five priorities for managing the impacts of climate change, and represents a significant and growing risk to people, properties and businesses across England. According to the latest Environment Agency national flood risk assessment , around 6. 3 million properties in England are now at risk, of which some 4.

6 million are at risk of surface water flooding. This is predicted to grow to around 8 million or one in four homes by the middle of the century. The impacts of flooding are severe and long-lasting, both emotionally and physically.

PFR measures can significantly reduce the impacts of flooding and help people and businesses recover quickly, particularly in places that experience surface water flooding where the depth of flood water tends to shallower.

It recognises that alongside large-scale flood defences, individual buildings must be flood resilient through: resistance – keeping as much water out of the property as possible using measures like flood doors and barriers, self-closing air bricks and non-return valves recoverability – making internal adaptations, such as having tiled floors, raised electrics and a flood resilient kitchen, so if water does enter the property, it causes as little damage as possible reduction – reducing water run off by retaining and improving drainage at the property level through, for instance, encouraging permeable surfaces and rain gardens In 2016, a review and action plan set out steps to improve PFR and now, nearly 10 years on, the FloodReady review builds on that work and must be accelerated.

The FloodReady review , published in October 2025, brought together a wide range of stakeholders to set a framework to work together towards practical, affordable and realistic solutions to achieve a more flood-resilient future. Crucial to this is research and innovation are needed to underpin the mainstreaming of property flood resilience.

The UK has a strong and well-established flood research sector, with advanced capabilities in flood defence engineering and modelling. However, PFR remains an under resourced part of this wider flood research. Currently, only a handful of PFR-focused research projects are undertaken each year and there is a lack of consistent data and standards for property level resilience.

Despite this, there is clear potential to grow the sector. UK universities and Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs) have the expertise and infrastructure to support innovation and expansion of PFR.

A thriving PFR research community will require collaboration across: academia – where individual research projects and interests can be strengthened through an integrated platform industry – particularly small businesses developing innovative PFR solutions, which would benefit from RTO facilities and wider support government – whose climate adaptation and funding programmes can help build sector capacity and provide applied resilience outcomes community – role of flood volunteers, local action groups and the importance of local knowledge in decision making This NetworkPlus funding opportunity is a direct response to this recommendation.

This NetworkPlus will be expected to: coalesce academics around core research questions and offer a vehicle to involve industry, stakeholder and community groups to ensure relevance, acceptance and an adoption pathway for PFR sector develop a detailed roadmap/programme of collaborative research, develop funding options and bring in alternative partners to implement an initial suite of prioritised and approved research projects and pilot developments, linked to Flood Re Flood Performance Certificate work explore the feasibility of a test bed, such as a flood resilient house, to provide an experimental research platform for testing and evaluation of the effectiveness of PFR measures and approaches More broadly, the NetworkPlus could also achieve these goals by: building new communities or creating new links between different existing communities bringing focus to the underlying research challenges, opportunities and priorities facilitating and improving knowledge exchange between academia, industry, community and government supporting initial testing of new ideas and kick-start new collaborations growing the area across local and national scales, for the benefit of the whole UK lowering barriers for engagement of non-academic stakeholders, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) facilitating impact and advance policy growing capacity for and dissemination of good practice in the area of the research focus, such as Responsible Research and Innovation, Trusted Research, and ethics.

The NetworkPlus investment can undertake a variety of activities including: horizon scanning and generation of new ideas This list is not exhaustive, and the successful network(s) is not obliged to do all the above. You are encouraged to tailor your activities to the needs of the area and to be innovative in their approach.

The proposed NetworkPlus must fit primarily within our remit, but we also welcome and encourage the involvement of researchers and expertise from other relevant disciplines across the remit of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), specifically from social and environmental sciences.

Workstreams should be co-created with appropriately interdisciplinary collaborators and non-academic stakeholders who can provide further understanding of the contextual factors that influence solutions to challenges as described in the FloodReady review. It is essential that user engagement is considered in the wider network membership.

It is expected that every application will have active engagement with relevant project partners to meet the ambition for the NetworkPlus to increase engagement with non-academic stakeholders. To achieve this ambition, we recommend that the application is co-created with project partners, such as the stakeholders involved in the FloodReady review.

It will be a requirement that there is a minimum of 10% leveraging from project partners (cash or in-kind) against the total fund amount (100% of full economic cost (FEC)). In addition to providing cash contribution, a project partner could also contribute to the NetworkPlus through a number of ways, for example acting as the primary host for secondees from academia, providing real data, management time and facilities.

Such contributions will be considered as part of the assessment process. As such, relevant and useful contributions could enhance the possibility of success of the bid through peer review. We expect that the successful NetworkPlus will continue to engage a range of non-academic partners throughout the lifetime of the grant, with an active approach to encouraging continued leverage of contributions against the flexible funds.

Network activities should be UK-wide and should involve a broad range of disciplines and non-academic stakeholders from relevant sectors. Environmental sustainability On behalf of UKRI, we expect programmes to embed careful consideration of environmental sustainability at all stages of the research and innovation process and throughout the lifetime of the grant. The duration of this award is up to three years.

The FEC of your project can be up to £2. 5 million. EPSRC will fund 80% of the FEC (up to £2 million) The project lead and up to five project co-leads or other roles can request funds to cover their salary costs for the time spent on setting up and leading the NetworkPlus.

The salary costs of NetworkPlus participants should not be included in the application and we would not expect these individuals to be project co-leads. Flexible funds can be allocated to researchers at any organisation currently eligible for EPSRC funding.

You will need to think carefully about how any budget for external distribution will be commissioned through a robust peer review process and how you will ensure processes for the allocation of funds are fair and transparent within the framework of the UKRI Principles of Assessment and Decision making. In this case you will need to think carefully about how this budget will be managed.

Please note that any activities commissioned by the NetworkPlus using the flexible funds will be restricted to EPSRC current research organisation eligibility but will not be bound by standard EPSRC investigator eligibility criterion. It is the project lead’s responsibility to ensure ongoing governance and correct usage and accountability of the funds.

We would expect some examples of the types of projects to be included at the application stage, but the research challenges are expected to evolve throughout the NetworkPlus lifetime and should be co-created and collaborative in nature. Flexible funds may only be used for activities that may be funded through a standard research grant.

For example, funds cannot be requested for studentships or the kind of student costs that would be funded through a training grant. These funds must be reported on the final expenditure statement (FES) as awarded on the offer letter, and a breakdown of the expenditure must be submitted along with the FES. Flexible funds are funded at 80% FEC by EPSRC.

Travel and subsistence can be requested to enable NetworkPlus participants to meet to exchange ideas and expertise. This may include visits by or to experts overseas. A sufficient level of administrative support should be requested to help in the coordination and management of the NetworkPlus to ensure smooth running of the NetworkPlus activities.

Organisation of activities Funding can be requested for research and innovation associate staff, consumables, travel and subsistence, and any other costs eligible under ‘directly incurred’ headings. Funding can also be requested for costs involved in running activities such as networking events, expert working groups, debates, virtual discussion forums, lectures, seminars, or problem solving workshops.

You are encouraged to think creatively about the range of activities that could support the delivery of the NetworkPlus aims. The NetworkPlus is not expected to carry out longer term research itself. Flexible funds may be used to commission small-scale research activities and small scale equipment across the network.

Equipment over £25,000 is not available through this funding opportunity. We will not be funding laboratory or research equipment for this funding opportunity. We will only support equipment to facilitate communication, networking and events.

We welcome innovative and creative thought. 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 (TR&I) 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 their 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 TR&I , including where you can find additional support.

The NetworkPlus funding will be subject to the following additional conditions to our standard terms. Community networking expectations This grant is awarded on the understanding that, in addition to the core research programme, the project will undertake a wider networking role with the research and user community outside its membership.

This may involve coordination of activities such as meetings, workshops or seminars on behalf of us. A dedicated website must be set up within six months of the start of the grant and regularly maintained to provide a resource for engagement with the wider community.

This grant is expected to further develop the network including its academic and user (for example, policy, business, non-governmental organisation) membership throughout the period of funding in order to maximise its impact on a wide range of disciplines. As part of the grant, networks must identify ambitious ‘real-world’ challenges, which require a multidisciplinary approach and will form an agenda for future research in the area.

You must develop and execute a strategy for engaging with potential users of the research funded in the project. This strategy should be reviewed and updated regularly as part of the formal management and reporting process agreed for this grant. Equality, diversity and inclusion In addition to RGC 3.

4, you are expected to prepare a full equality, diversity and inclusion plan for the duration of this grant to demonstrate best practice in equality, diversity and inclusion throughout the lifetime of this funding award. This must be recorded through the grant reporting process. Project officer appointment We will nominate a member of EPSRC staff (the project officer) who will be your primary point of contact.

The project officer will ensure that the project is being run in accordance with the terms and conditions and in line with financial due diligence. The project officer(s) should have access to all documentation of governance and reporting bodies, in so far as it relates to the administration and application of the grant.

As funding administrators, all UKRI staff have agreed to maintain the confidentiality required by all parties involved in EPSRC-funded research. Advisory board appointment This grant must establish and run an independent advisory board, or equivalent body, to oversee the running of the project and provide advice on the strategic direction and activities of the project.

The terms of reference and membership of this group (at least 50% independent membership and an independent chair) should be agreed with EPSRC. The EPSRC project officer will also be expected to attend and participate in advisory board and other appropriate meetings for the duration of the grant.

It is expected the first advisory board meeting will be held within four months of the start date of the project and there will be two meetings a year with contact outside of the meeting when appropriate. Notwithstanding standard grant condition RGC 4. 4, the sum awarded under the heading of ‘flexible funds’ can include both directly incurred and directly allocated expenditure.

These funds must be reported on the FES as awarded on the offer letter and a breakdown of the expenditure must be submitted along with the FES. If a breakdown of this expenditure is not received, the FESs will be returned. Standard grant conditions apply to all other funds awarded on this grant.

You should establish an appropriate management structure with clear lines of responsibility and authority to oversee the day-to-day running of the project. This should be in place within six months of the start date of the grant. The terms of reference and management structure, including the project lead, co-leads and senior investigators must be approved by us in advance as must any changes to this structure.

The project officer will EPSRC’s main contact with the project and must receive all meeting minutes of the management committees. We reserve the right to attend any meetings. Adequate resourcing to support an appropriate management structure, as specified in the funding opportunity documentation, should be costed within the grant.

This includes employing a grant manager on the grant. We are running this funding opportunity on the new UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Funding Service, so please ensure that your organisation is registered. You cannot apply on the Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S) system.

The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the Funding Service, but we expect all team members and project partners to contribute to the application. Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI. Select ‘Start application’ near the beginning of this Funding finder page: Confirm you are the project lead.

Answer questions directly in the text boxes. You can save your answers and come back to complete them or work offline and return to copy and paste your answers. If we need you to upload a document, follow the upload instructions in the Funding Service.

All questions and assessment criteria are listed in the How to apply section on this Funding finder page. Allow enough time to check your application in ‘read-only’ view before sending to your research office. Send the completed application to your research office for checking.

They will return it to you if it needs editing. Your research office will submit the completed and checked application to UKRI. Please be aware that research office and finance teams undertake checks on hosting arrangements and financial eligibility.

The ultimate responsibility for ensuring compliance with all opportunity requirements lies with the applicant. Where indicated, you can also demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant.

When including images, you must: provide a descriptive caption or legend for each image immediately underneath it in the text box (this must be outside the image and counts towards your word limit) insert each new image on a new line use files smaller than 5MB and in JPEG, JPG, JPE, JFI, JIF, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP or WEBP format Images should only be used to convey important visual information that cannot easily be put into words.

The following are not permitted, and your application will be rejected if you include: sentences or paragraphs of text excessive quantities of images A few words are permitted where the image would lack clarity without the contextual words, such as a diagram, where text labels are required for an axis or graph column.

For more guidance on the Funding Service, see: how applicants use the Funding Service how research offices use the Funding Service how reviewers use the Funding Service References should be included within the word count of the appropriate question section. You should use your discretion when including references and prioritise those most pertinent to the application. Hyperlinks can be used in reference information.

When including references, you should consider how your references will be viewed and used by the assessors, ensuring that: references are easily identifiable by the assessors references are formatted as appropriate to your research persistent identifiers are used where possible General use of hyperlinks Applications should be self-contained. You should only use hyperlinks to link directly to reference information.

You must not include links to web resources to extend your application. Assessors are not required to access links to conduct assessment or recommend a funding decision. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) Use of generative AI tools to prepare funding applications is permitted, however, caution should be applied.

For more information see our policy on the use of generative AI in application and assessment . EPSRC must receive your application by 18 August 2026 at 4:00pm UK time. You will not be able to apply after this time.

Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines. Following the submission of your application to this funding opportunity, your application cannot be changed, and submitted applications will not be amended. If your application does not follow the guidance, it may be rejected.

If an application is withdrawn prior to peer review or office rejected due to substantive errors in the application, it cannot be resubmitted to the opportunity. EPSRC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage your Funding Service account and the registration of your funding applications. We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely.

For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice . If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email TFSchangeEPSRC@epsrc. ukri.

org Include in the subject line: [the funding opportunity title; sensitive information; your Funding Service application number].

Typical examples of confidential information include: individual is unavailable until a certain date (for example due to parental leave) additional information about eligibility to apply that would not be appropriately shared in the ‘Applicant and team capability’ section conflict of interest for UKRI to consider in reviewer or panel participant selection the application is an invited resubmission For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read UKRI’s privacy notice .

Institutional matched funding There is no requirement for matched funding from the institutions hosting the project lead, project co-leads or other staff employed on the application, beyond the standard 20% FEC. Expert reviewers and panels assessing UKRI funding applications must not consider levels of institutional matched funding as a factor on which to base recommendations.

Direct and in-kind contributions from third party project partners are encouraged. This policy does not remove the need for support from host organisations who must provide the necessary research environment and infrastructure for award-specific activities funded by UKRI. For example, research facilities, training and development of staff.

EPSRC, as part of UKRI, will publish the outcomes of this funding opportunity at EPSRC Funding Applications Outcomes If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the UKRI Gateway to Research . In plain English, provide a summary we can use to identify the most suitable experts to assess your application.

We usually make this summary publicly available on external-facing websites, therefore do not include any confidential or sensitive information.

Make it suitable for a variety of readers, for example: the wider research community Guidance for writing a summary Clearly describe your proposed work in terms of: the challenge the project addresses potential applications and benefits List the key members of your team and assign them roles from the following: project co-lead (UK) (PcL) Only list one individual as project lead and up to five project co-leads.

The grant manager is someone who primarily performs the administrative side of running the NetworkPlus. Find out more about UKRI’s core team roles in funding applications . Create a document that includes your responses to all criteria.

The document should not be more than eight sides of A4, single spaced in paper in 11-point Arial (or equivalent sans serif font) with margins of at least 2cm. You may include images, graphs. You can have an additional page for a diagrammatic workplan.

For the file name, use the unique Funding Service number the system gives you when you create an application, followed by the words ‘Vision and Approach’. Save this document as a single PDF file, no bigger than 8MB. Unless specifically requested, please do not include any sensitive personal data within the attachment.

If the attachment does not meet these requirements, the application will be rejected. The Funding Service will provide document upload details when you apply. What are you hoping to achieve with and how will you deliver your proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response For the Vision (Word limit: 500), explain how your proposed work: is of excellent quality and importance within or beyond the field(s) or area(s) has the potential to advance current understanding, generates new knowledge, thinking or discovery within or beyond the field or area is timely given current trends, context and needs impacts world-leading research, society, the economy or the environment constitutes a network, as opposed to other award types addresses the potential challenges encountered by the network in this research area, including members who are from under-represented groups will embed EDI considerations into the programme, and outline how these will guide your aims, as well as other activities such as stakeholder engagement, events and networking Within the Vision section we also expect you to: describe the concept, context and coordination function your network will provide clearly state the challenges you will address using the network explain how you will embed environmental sustainability within your activities For the Approach (Word limit: 3000), explain how you have designed your approach so that it: is effective and appropriate to achieve your objectives is feasible, and comprehensively identifies any risks to delivery and how they will be managed if applicable, uses a clearly written and transparent methodology if applicable, summarises the previous work and describes how this will be built upon and progressed will maximise translation of outputs into outcomes and impacts describes how your, and if applicable your team’s, research environment (in terms of where the research is undertaken and relevance to the project) will contribute to the success of the work explain how you will undertake community and stakeholder engagement and wider participation will build EDI considerations into the formation, operation and governance of the network, including how these will be operationalised.

outlines future plans for sustaining the partnership beyond this application, or for funding research which may develop from the network Within the Approach section we also expect you to: demonstrate access to the appropriate services, facilities, infrastructure, or equipment to deliver the application evidence co-creation and user engagement provide a detailed and comprehensive project plan including milestones and timelines include a detailed and appropriate plan for how you will acquire and manage data explain how the network+ will be planned and managed and how it will enable stakeholders to work together, network and build capability in a strategic area References may be included within this section.

How will you manage the award to successfully deliver its objectives?

What the assessors are looking for in your response Explain how the proposed award will be managed, demonstrating that it: will be effectively governed, including details about advisory structures will be effectively and inclusively managed, demonstrated by a clear management plan has clear leadership team roles and responsibilities will manage and encourage partnerships with non-HEI organisations across government, industry and civil society has plans for monitoring your progress as well as self-evaluation throughout the lifetime of your award has equality, diversity and inclusion embedded in plans for convening and engaging with their community and the allocation of the awarded funds You may demonstrate elements of your responses in visual form if relevant.

Further details are provided in the Funding Service. Applicant and team capability to deliver Why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?

What the assessors are looking for in your response Evidence of how you, and if relevant your team, have: the relevant experience (appropriate to career stage) to deliver the proposed work the right balance of skills and expertise to cover the proposed work the appropriate leadership and management skills to deliver the work and your approach to develop others contributed to developing a positive research environment and wider community The word limit for this section is 1,650 words, 1,150 words to be used for Resume for Research and Innovation (R4RI) modules and, if necessary, a further 500 words for Additions.

Use the R4RI format to showcase the range of relevant skills you, and if relevant your team (project and project co-leads, researchers, technicians, specialists, partners and so on) have and how this will help to deliver the proposed work. You can include individuals’ specific achievements but only choose past contributions that best evidence their ability to deliver this work.

Complete this section using the R4RI module headings listed below. Use each heading once and include a response for the whole team, see the UKRI guidance on R4RI .

You should consider how to balance your answer, and emphasise where appropriate the key skills each team member brings: contributions to the generation of new ideas, tools, methodologies, or knowledge the development of others and maintenance of effective working relationships contributions to the wider research and innovation community contributions to broader research or innovation users and audiences and towards wider societal benefit Provide any