Grants
Click below for the latest details on grant opportunities. To view open opportunities, you must register for an account on our grants platform.
Eligibility
We expect to advertise one grant competition per year. Applications are encouraged from many different types of potential Delivery Partners, both local and international, including, but not limited to:
- non-government organisations,
- civil society organisations,
- multilateral organisations,
- social development organisations,
- academic institutions, private sector partners.
Funding can also be awarded to parastatal organisations if the proposed activities are not receiving funding from other governments.
UN bodies are eligible under the same terms and conditions as other applicants.
Applications must be led by, or involve as a consortium member, a global south research organisation. For further questions, see the FAQs section. The GCBC team will host webinars for each grant call to further clarify eligibility and application requirements.
Proposals will be accepted for research in ODA-eligible countries in Latin America (including Central America) and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and South-east Asia and the Pacific. For a list of eligible countries, please click here.
Funding Rounds
Funding Round 1
The first grant call invited applications to conduct research on the role of biodiversity in agriculture and natural resources management (NRM) for climate resilience and sustainable livelihoods, specifically:
- Sustainable agriculture (including crops, livestock, post-harvest technology, agronomy, horticulture, aquaculture and agroforestry) for food, fibre, fuel and pharma supply chains; and
- Natural resource management approaches resilient to climate change (including protecting and/or enhancing ecosystem services, water resource management, natural resource extraction and protecting and/or restoring habitats).
Grants of between £100k – £750k were available for research of between 12-36 months. Applications closed in July 2023 and the estimated award date for successful applicants is November 2023.
Funding Round 2
The second Research Grant Competition (RGC2) was launched on February 5, 2024. This round invites research applications focusing on ‘Unlocking Nature – Driving innovation in how biodiversity can support climate resilience and sustainable livelihoods through practice and governance.’
A series of webinars were held, leading up to RGC2’s official launch, and throughout the application period (starting the week of January 22nd, 2024). These webinars delved into the competition theme, outlined eligibility criteria, and provided details on RGC2 – including the application and evaluation process.
The deadline for Concept Notes is March 17th at 17:00 GMT. More information is available when you register. Register here
Access the Research Strategy here
Download the RGC2 Theme Paper here
Funding Round 3
Dates and themes will be announced in due course.
RGC2 Webinar resources
The second Research Grant Competition (RGC2) was officially launched on February 5, 2024. This round invites research applications focusing on ‘Unlocking Nature – Driving innovation in how biodiversity can support climate resilience and sustainable livelihoods through practice and governance.’
Leading up to RGC2’s official launch and throughout the application period, potential applicants are invited to join our informative webinars (starting the week of January 22nd, 2024). Find related webinar resources below.
Webinar 1 (January 22nd & 29th): Introducing the RGC2 theme
Download the webinar recording here
Download the RGC2 Theme Paper here
Webinar 2 (February 5th): Walkthrough the RGC2 concept note, application process, & e-platform
Download the webinar recording here
Access the Research Strategy here
Webinar 3 (February 21): Partnerships
FAQs
Private companies must not generate profit from the project. Companies must be part of a consortia and are not able to be a lead applicant.
No- you are free to participate in multiple applications. However, please keep in mind the quality of applications, and ensure that all applications are in line with the requirements of the GCBC. Morever, please note that each registered account should only submit one proposal. To submit several proposals, different people from the same organisation must register accounts, and submit on their respective applications. One person/account cannot submit 2 applications.
Yes.
There is no set number of grants to be awarded.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, if the lead applicant is based in the global north, we would expect a reasonable proportion of the overall budget to be spent with organisations based in the global south.
We expect lead organisations to be responsible for ensuring due diligence is conducted on organisations in the consortium.
No.
Both are fine. However, all applications need to have an organisation in an ODA eligible country – either listed as the project lead or as a consortium partner.
Parastatal or governement funded activites can be consortium partners as long they are not receiving funding from other governements, but they cannot be Lead Applicants.
The applies to the Lead Applicant’s turnover. The 25% target is to re-assure the GCBC that you will be able to safely manage the budget of the grant.
Letters of support and other supporting documents are not required or possible at the Concept Note stage.
Great British Pounds (GBP).
For guidelines on eligible costs, please refer to the FCDO PRoF guidelines and the NPAC list. For the grant competition, the overhead cap for this grant is set at 15%.
All submissions must be made through the online forms, and applicants should therefore conform to the character limits.
Grantee Communication Guidelines & Resources
The Grantee Communication Guidelines provide an overview of how to communicate about GCBC, the entities involved, key messaging, and visibility with regards to branding elements such as logos, fonts, and colours to be used. These guidelines will be a useful resource for grantees as they work towards the development of GCBC related deliverables.
View the Grantee Communication Guidelines document here
View the GCBC Messaging House here
Download the Photo and Video Consent Form here
Download GCBC logo options here
