The Better Methods, Better Research (BMBR) programme has its researcher-led round open. Unlike a commissioned call, you bring the methodological problem. Proposals are typically valued up to £625,000 at 100% full economic cost, and it is a single stage: one full application, no outline.
BMBR is a collaboration between the Medical Research Council and NIHR, and it funds research that improves the methods other people use. Not a study that answers a clinical question, in other words, but work that makes the next hundred studies better designed, better measured or better analysed.
What has to be true of your proposal
BMBR sets five conditions. The methodology development or improvement must:
- underpin an evidenced research need within MRC or NIHR remit
- be generalisable beyond a single case study
- show early engagement with a broad range of end users for the method
- improve best practice, with an evidenced pathway to implementation and sustainable impact
- demonstrate awareness of the current gaps in translating methodological research into use
That second and fifth point are where dementia applications tend to come unstuck. A method built around one cohort or one trial will not clear the bar, and the programme is explicit that it wants applicants who understand why good methods so often fail to get adopted.
There is plenty in dementia research that would qualify. Recruitment and retention is a methodological problem long before it is a resourcing one, trial design for underserved groups is an area with active method development, and consent and capacity assessment remains difficult to do consistently across studies.
How BMBR decides what it needs
The programme works with standing partners to identify current and emerging methodological needs. Those partners are the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, Health and Care Research Wales, the Chief Scientist Office in Scotland, and Health and Social Care Northern Ireland, with others consulted on emerging priorities. Worth reading that list as a signal about who your end users are expected to be.
Outputs and open research
Outputs should be available and usable to the fullest extent, and open-source software and code are actively encouraged. Costs for this are eligible under the NIHR Open Access publications funding guidance, which is worth a look alongside the NIHR open access policy if you have not costed this before. There are also self-interested reasons for working openly that have nothing to do with funder mandates.
The opportunity is eligible for a methodological sub-study, a study within a trial, review or project, which can improve the methods of future research as well as the host study, and can support the decarbonisation of research.
What you write
The research plan is capped at 20 A4 pages and nothing beyond that will be considered. Within it, BMBR wants the statistical test or software package stated clearly, the methods and timing for assessing, recording and analysing outcomes described, and a case that the new or improved method will be generally applicable without significant modification. It also wants your measurements of success, the risks to the research, and how you will mitigate them.
Mandatory uploads are a Gantt chart or project management plan, and a maximum of three A4 pages of references. A completed SoECAT is needed for projects to be registered with the NIHR portfolio, unless no participants are recruited and there are no Excess Treatment or NHS Support Costs, confirmed in writing by an AcoRD Specialist. Anything you upload that was not asked for is removed before the application reaches the committee.
If you are proposing a randomised controlled trial, BMBR recommends including input from an accredited clinical trials unit or an organisation with equivalent experience.
A Word template of the application form is downloadable from the opportunity page. It cannot be submitted, but it shows the character limits per section, which is the useful part when you are planning.
Support
There is no live webinar for this round. Contact bmbr@nihr.ac.uk if you want the recording of the last webinar and Q and A. If you are in England, the Research Support Service will help you turn an idea into an application at no cost. For reasonable adjustments during the application process, contact the programme team.
Key dates
- 8 September 2026, 1.00pm, opened to full applications
- 1 December 2026, 1.00pm, applications close
- January or February 2027, notification if out of remit or non-competitive
- May or June 2027, expected funding decision
Reference ID 2026/478. Applications arriving after 1.00pm on 1 December will not be considered. Full details and the eligibility criteria are on the NIHR funding opportunity page.
BMBR has a second opportunity closing on the same day, for novel evaluative methodologies in social care research. That one is commissioned against a specific brief and requires two demonstrator case studies, so if your idea sits in social care it is worth checking which of the two it belongs in before you start writing.
Visit funding web page
(https://www.nihr.ac.uk/funding/researcher-led-bmbr-programme/2026478)
