Six brilliant researchers have been awarded funding in the 2026 round of the APEX awards. The grants, which promote collaboration across science, engineering, social sciences and humanities, are jointly awarded by the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society, with the generous support of the Leverhulme Trust.
The awards will provide up to £200,000 for established independent researchers to collaborate with partners from different disciplines across the sciences, engineering, social sciences and humanities. The researchers supported by the award will use the funding to solve multifaceted problems and face scientific challenges where more than one discipline is needed to reach the solution.
The 2027 round opened on 23 June 2026 and will close on 8 September 2026. The funds awarded can be used to cover teaching replacement costs for the lead applicant and the co-applicant(s) as well as research costs such as consumables, equipment, and travel Applicants also have the option to request funds (up to £10,000) to support public engagement activities relating to their APEX proposal.
Since launching in 2017, the APEX awards have funded 70 interdisciplinary research projects across the UK.
This year’s funded projects are:
Dr Marina Bock
Hydrogel-based corrosion mitigation systems for steel reinforcement in concrete infrastructure
Aston University
Dr Marco Domingos
Bioprinting beyond gravity: developing extremophile-inspired biomaterials for human tissue fabrication in space
The University of Manchester
Professor Rachel Gibson
Political rhetoric and influence on social media (PRISM)
The University of Manchester
Professor Karen Jones
Tracking wild things in time: understanding the international wildlife trade through conservation humanities techniques (CHUMS)
University of Kent
Dr Laure de Preux
From policy to planetary health: co-benefits of firm-level greenhouse gas policy for biodiversity
Imperial College London
Dr Jefersson dos Santos
Next-generation forest inventory (NextGen-FI): open-et recognition for monitoring illegal logging
The University of Sheffield
