BBSRC 2023 Transformative Research Technologies (23TRT)

Funding to pursue early stage development of cutting edge research technologies with transformative potential in UK biosciences.

The BBSRC 2023 Transformative Research Technologies (23TRT) funding opportunity aims to support the development of cutting edge enabling research technologies, which have the potential for transformative impact and are essential to sustaining the vibrancy of bioscience discovery research in the UK. These technological developments should offer the potential of a step change in the state-of-the-art for the given field.

Awards will support small and short ‘early-stage/transformative potential’ pilot studies directed towards the development of a new technology for the biosciences where little to no preliminary data exists.

The outcome of the project does not necessarily need to be a fully-fledged tool but could be the demonstration of proof-of-concept or the production of a prototype for further development.

Applications are expected to focus on one or more of the following:

• Transformative technology development that has the potential to result in innovative and disruptive new technological capabilities applicable to the biosciences. This includes technologies with potential broad utility across primarily biological research communities, as well as technologies that may only have utility within one research community.
• Capitalising on new advances in non-biological research that aim to establish proof-of-concept with a clear trajectory towards a new bioscience research technology in the short term.
• Radical innovation that has the potential to deliver a step change in current technological capabilities in aspects such as accuracy, precision, resolution, throughput, and breadth of application to facilitate new research discoveries.
• New software tools and algorithms to address key data analysis challenges in bioscience research. These must demonstrate genuine originality.

The duration of an award is between six and 18 months.