*UK Funding Opportunity* UK IODP Site Survey Funding

Apply for funding for ship borne and virtual site survey investigations (SSI) to support the development of applications for a scientific ocean drilling expedition. You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for NERC funding.

The aim of this UK IODP Site Survey funding opportunity is to maximise development of excellent and innovative UK-led science applications for drilling expeditions by enabling detailed geophysical characterisation of proposed drilling sites, which usually includes a minimum of crossing seismic reflection lines and a range of geology-specific additional observations. You must therefore have submitted a proposal, or pre-proposal, for a drilling expedition to the IODP³ science office via the IODP³ Gateway system.

Opening date: 5 September 2025 9:00am UK time

Closing date: 14 July 2026 4:00pm UK time

The full economic cost (FEC) of your project can be up to £500,000 for ship borne investigations and £187,500 for virtual investigations. NERC will fund 80% of the FEC.

Your project can last up to 24 months.

Your application can involve ship borne geophysical site surveys requiring ship time to collect new data or a virtual site survey where support is requested for processing of existing geophysical data (industry, government or academic) to the detail required by IODP³ site characterisation and safety considerations.

Applications that support lower-cost Mission Specific Platform (MSP) expeditions with shallow drilling depth or coring investigations are strongly encouraged as the affordability of drilling proposals to IODP³ is an important consideration in the scheduling of regular expeditions.

UK IODP strongly encourages inclusion of early career researchers in site survey application teams to further enable high level training of the next generation of marine geoscientists in research proposal design and management.

This funding opportunity aims to fund a minimum of two grants, at least one of which will be in support of a lower-cost MSP drilling or coring proposal. More grants may be supported if applicants are able to secure partnership co-funding or in-kind contributions (for example, ship time) from other agencies, such as the German Research Foundation (DFG), and potentially industry.  You are therefore encouraged to seek international or industrial partnership to support the delivery of your application and maximise synergies and alignment with relevant international projects and programmes.