Funding opportunity from NIHR: Research programme for children’s social care

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is inviting outline funding applications for research into children’s social care. Proposals are welcomed for ambitious research projects that explore what works for children and young people in social care, particularly focusing on protection and prevention, poverty, and the workforce.

The full scope of the funding opportunity can be found on the NIHR website. Research that focuses on understanding what works is particularly encouraged.

There is no budget limit for individual projects (excluding early career applications, where the budget is £250,000). Research teams should propose an appropriate budget; value for money will be a key criteria of assessment.

The deadline for outline applications is 13:00 on 17 September 2025. Selected applicants will then be invited to submit a full application. Projects cannot start before 1 October 2026.

Use ADR UK data in your proposal

Administrative data can be a valuable tool for evaluating the effectiveness of policies and interventions, as well as providing powerful insights into people’s experiences across society.

Several ADR UK datasets can be used to explore policy-relevant questions around children’s social care. Browse the ADR UK Data Catalogue to see how administrative data could support your proposal.

Applications should: 

• Detail proposed safeguarding provisions
• Focus on evaluative rather than descriptive research
• Wherever appropriate, include multidisciplinary teams and ways of working
• Be ambitious
• Look at need (not just number of people affected, but also level of need)
• Be social care-focused - while there may be crossover between health and education, applications must be social care-focused
• Ensure that applications and teams include people with lived experience
• Detail how the research will support specific outcomes – see the opportunity listing for full details.

Proposals could include:

• Evaluations of what works, which could be feasibility or pilot studies or randomised trials. NIHR would also consider funding quasi-experimental impact evaluations
• Preparatory work for trials or larger studies
• Studies on how to use regularly collected administrative data to inform decisions and provision
• Economic evaluation of services
• Improving how impact is measured
• Improvements to gathering the voices of children and parents/care-givers when running children’s services.

The NIHR encourages:

• Applicants to consider including capacity building in their application, particularly for practitioner researchers
• Ambitious, longitudinal research.

For full details of the opportunity, including eligibility and the applications process:

Visit the NIHR website