Context

Since 2019, UK research councils have provided approximately £2 million in funding awards for gambling research, with grants being awarded from disciplines across most of UKRI’s remit areas.

A lack of research interest combined with the relatively low status of gambling as a research field, particularly when put alongside other health and public health areas, has resulted in a small number of researchers accounting for many domestic studies on gambling.

The introduction of the Gambling Levy in April 2025 provides an opportunity to grow the research base significantly.

UKRI is developing a research agenda as part of its Research Programme on Gambling that will draw from multiple disciplines.

For more information on the background of this funding opportunity, go to the Additional information section.

Scope

Following the introduction of the new statutory levy on gambling operators, UKRI is establishing a bespoke Research Programme on Gambling, funded under the research strand of the levy.

As a part of this, UKRI is commissioning a series of RER to help identify evidence gaps within the research and innovation ecosystem relating to gambling harms. The RER will help to inform research prioritisation and policy development.

Within the field of gambling harms, it is recognised that there are several key areas in which the evidence base needs to be strengthened and the diversity of disciplines involved in gambling research can also be expanded to include interdisciplinary and multi.

RER will help to identify these areas to inform research prioritisation and policy development.

Aim

RER are a streamlined approach to reviewing existing research evidence in this context of gambling harms.

RER will support a step change in the high quality, independent research available on gambling harms and will help identify evidence gaps within the research and innovation ecosystem relating to gambling harms.

Once published, the RER will form an integral part of the early stages of UKRI’s Research Programme on Gambling, including the Gambling Harms Research Coordination Centre.

Gambling harms research and innovation partnerships (GHRIPs) will be expected to incorporate the outputs from relevant RER into their phase two workplans.

Duration

The duration of this award is six months.

Projects must start by 1 November 2025.

Funding available

The full economic cost (FEC) of your project can be up to £50,000.

UKRI will fund 100% of the FEC.

What we will fund

Our indicative research themes deliberately broaden and reframe the field. They respond to the public consultation and are not constrained by prior funding structures or frameworks. UKRI is establishing the foundations for a trusted, independent, and inclusive research ecosystem, one capable of delivering credible, policy-relevant insight for the long term.

Thematic areas

The following areas are intended as guidance on possible thematic areas for RER. This is not intended to be a comprehensive or exhaustive list. We welcome any applications from areas where there is a clear case presented for a strengthened evidence base or disciplines, or both.

Unlicensed gambling and crime

This area includes:

• impact of gambling with unlicensed operators
• size and shape of the unlicensed market (online and land-based)
• motivations or pathways to use unlicensed market
• crypto gambling
• consumer awareness of unlicensed market
• gateway products and link to early gambling behaviours

Marketing and advertising

This area includes:

• social media advertising (extent, impact, children and young people, influencers, streaming, artificial intelligence (AI))
• personalised ads and targeting
• different types of ads and impact on gambling behaviour, including sponsorship
• evaluation of marketing restrictions
• links between marketing and harm
• safer gambling messaging
• marketing and self-exclusion
• design of visual storytelling, particularly with vulnerable groups

Vulnerabilities, harm, severe and adverse consequences of gambling

This area includes:

• factors leading to riskier or more harmful gambling (spatial, temporal, mental health, neurodiversity, gender, ethnic communities, age, family, societal, environmental)
• gaps in underpinning neurobiological basis of gambling disorders
• gaps in evidence to support identification of effective clinical interventions or opportunities to pursue to feed into treatment strand, for example transdiagnostic approaches, neuromodulation, digital
• long-term gambling harms
• pathways to, and predictors of, risky or harmful gambling
• evaluate the effectiveness and design of harm prevention measures (interactions, safer gambling messaging, education)
• develop markers of harm or measurement tools to capture harms objectively

Gateway products or activities, early gambling behaviour, product characteristics

This area includes:

• prize draws
• how design can identify and support mechanisms that create addictive behaviours
• product characteristics or design and risk or harm, patterns of consumption
• interplay between vulnerabilities and product characteristics
• normalisation of gambling
• product or product characteristics risk profiles
• longitudinal research into early gambling behaviours or pathways to harm

Customer interaction or gambling management tools

This area includes:

• variances in customer interactions and their effectiveness
• effectiveness and usage of protection measures such as GAMSTOP, SENSE and GamProtect
• effectiveness of self-exclusion (online, land based, link to unlicensed market)
• attitudes and behaviours of self-excluded people who gamble
• policy design

Social impact of gambling

This area includes:

• effect of gambling on others
• positive impact of gambling
• normalisation, gamification and digital wellbeing

International benchmarking

This area includes:

• variation of gambling harms across different countries and regulatory frameworks
• public health implications of cross border online gambling
• cultural attitudes towards the perception and reporting of gambling harms
• national policies on gambling advertising and effect on international audiences
• internationalisation of online gambling platforms
• digital payment systems and cross-border gambling and harm prevention
• economic costs of gambling harms in low and middle-income countries compared to high-income countries
• methodological challenges in measuring gambling harms across different cultural and legal contexts

Data

This area includes:

• use of real-time behavioural data from online gambling platforms
• ethical implications of collecting and using player data
• effectiveness of data-driven nudges
• barriers and enablers for international data sharing for gambling harm research
• role of open data initiatives
• identification of data sources to understand disordered gambling and gambling harms
• availability of data which allows insight into vulnerable and minoritised groups

AI

This area includes:

• AI-driven interventions and their efficacy
• personalisation and player profiling
• algorithmic bias in AI systems
• regulatory and policy implications
• human-AI collaboration

Skills

This area includes methodological and analytical capabilities of researchers in the area including:

• data and measurement skills
• digital ethnography, app-based data collection and platform analysis
• policy evaluation
• cross-disciplinary collaboration

Costings

You can request funding for costs such as:

• a contribution to the salary of the project lead and co-leads
• salary costs for other posts such as research and technical staff
• travel costs
• data preservation, data sharing and dissemination costs
• evidence synthesis and secondary data analysis
• knowledge synthesis and dissemination
• estates and indirect costs
• professional enabling staff where they are providing project specific support that goes beyond activities included in estates and indirect costs

You can also request costs for work to be undertaken at international organisations by international project co-leads.

We will fund 100% of the eligible costs.

Complimentary funding

We are also commissioning GHRIPs which will include the following themes.

You should be mindful of how your RER will compliment these proposed themes and support the wider programme.

Intersectionality

How overlapping identities (for example, race, gender, disability) shape gambling experiences and harms.

This can also include experiences and drivers of gambling-related harms and help-seeking in marginalised communities. For example, those who may face higher risks of gambling harm but are under-represented in research and support services.

Structural drivers

The role of the systemic, commercial, environmental, and institutional factors that create conditions for harmful gambling behaviours including culture, demography, deprivation, housing, urban or rural development, and digital inequality in gambling behaviour, risk, and experience of gambling harms or both.

Direct or lived experience

Individual risk factors, for example, mental health conditions, neurodivergence, trauma, financial precarity, housing insecurity, and community-led research into gambling.

Digital gambling ecosystems

The impact of:

• personalisation and targeted advertising
• new and changing marketing practices
• access to multiple online gambling accounts
• loot boxes
• cryptocurrency-based esports
• algorithmic design on users, including vulnerable users such as children and adolescents

Preventive, protective and recovery factors

Most research focuses on harm, not resilience, recovery, or preventative practices by a range of factors, whether:

• at the local community level
• to healthcare and educational environments
• to gambling firms and online platforms

Co-occurring issues

Including mental health, substance use, and financial hardship, as well as potential integrated treatment models.

You should also consider the impact of financial harms.

Trusted research and innovation (TR&I)

UKRI is committed in ensuring that effective international collaboration in research and innovation takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks.

TR&I is a UKRI work programme. It is designed to help protect all those working in our thriving and collaborative international sector by enabling partnerships to be as open as possible, and as secure as necessary.

Our TR&I principles set out UKRI’s expectations of organisations funded by UKRI in relation to due diligence for international collaboration.

As such, applicants for UKRI funding may be asked to demonstrate how their proposed projects will comply with our approach and expectation towards TR&I. You should identify potential risks and the relevant controls you will put in place to help proportionately reduce these risks.

Further guidance and information about TR&I, including where you can find additional support.

UKRI Engagement Hub

We are running this funding opportunity via the UKRI Engagement Hub.

Submit an application via the UKRI Engagement Hub by 2 October 2025 at 4:00pm UK time

The project lead is responsible for completing the application process on the UKRI Engagement Hub, but we expect all team members and any project partners to contribute to the application.

Only the lead research organisation can submit an application to UKRI.

Once the application is complete, you have the option to provide an email address so you can receive a PDF copy of your response. This email address is not stored by the UKRI Engagement Hub. You will receive an automated email acknowledgement once you have submitted your application.

After selecting the ‘Submit response’ button your response is submitted, and you are shown your unique response ID on the screen.

If you would like to resubmit, you will be required to complete the application again.

References

References should be included within the word count of the appropriate question section. You should use your discretion when including references and prioritise those most pertinent to the application.

Hyperlinks can be used in reference information. When including references, you should consider how your references will be viewed and used by the assessors, ensuring that:

• references are easily identifiable by the assessors
• references are formatted as appropriate to your research
• persistent identifiers are used where possible

General use of hyperlinks

Applications should be self-contained. You should only use hyperlinks to link directly to reference information. You must not include links to web resources to extend your application. Assessors are not required to access links to conduct assessment or recommend a funding decision.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI)

Use of generative AI tools to prepare funding applications is permitted, however, caution should be applied.

For more information see our policy on the use of generative AI in application and assessment.

Deadline

AHRC must receive your application by 2 October 2025 at 4:00pm UK time.

You will not be able to apply after this time.

Make sure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines.

Following the submission of your application to the funding opportunity, your application cannot be changed, and applications will not be returned for amendment. If your application does not follow the guidance, it may be rejected.

Personal data

Processing personal data

AHRC, as part of UKRI, will need to collect some personal information to manage the registration of your funding applications.

We will handle personal data in line with UK data protection legislation and manage it securely. For more information, including how to exercise your rights, read our privacy notice.

We will need to share the application (including any personal information that it contains) with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) so that they can participate in the assessment process.

For more information on how DCMS uses personal information, read DCMS’s personal information charter.

Sensitive information

If you or a core team member need to tell us something you wish to remain confidential, email operations@ahrc.ukri.org

Include in the subject line: (the funding opportunity title; sensitive information)

Typical examples of confidential information include:

• individual is unavailable until a certain date (for example due to parental leave)
• declaration of interest
• additional information about eligibility to apply that would not be appropriately shared in the ‘Applicant and team capability’ section
• conflict of interest for UKRI to consider in reviewer or panel participant selection
• the application is an invited resubmission

For information about how UKRI handles personal data, read UKRI’s privacy notice.

Publication of outcomes

AHRC, as part of UKRI, will publish the outcomes of this funding opportunity at What AHRC has funded.

If your application is successful, we will publish some personal information on the UKRI Gateway to Research.

Outputs from this award may be referenced or featured on a UKRI-hosted website developed as part of its Research Programme on Gambling. You should ensure that outputs are accessible and appropriately licensed to support this.

You should ensure that all outputs arising from your award comply with the UKRI open access policy.

Assessment process

We will assess your application using the following process.

Panel

We will invite experts to assess the quality of your application and rank it alongside other applications after which the panel will make a funding recommendation.

AHRC will make the final funding decision.

Timescale

We aim to complete the assessment process within one month of receiving your application.

Feedback

We will give feedback with the outcome of your application.

Principles of assessment

We support the San Francisco declaration on research assessment and recognise the relationship between research assessment and research integrity.

Find out about the UKRI principles of assessment and decision making.

Using generative artificial intelligence (AI) in expert review

Reviewers and panellists are not permitted to use generative AI tools to develop their assessment. Using these tools can potentially compromise the confidentiality of the ideas that applicants have entrusted to UKRI to safeguard.

For more detail see our policy on the use of generative AI.

Sharing data with co-funders

We will need to share the application (including any personal information that it contains) with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) so that they can participate in the assessment process.

For more information on how DCMS uses personal information, read DCMS’s personal information charter.

We reserve the right to modify the assessment process as needed.

Assessment areas

The assessment areas we will use are:

• proposed research area and evidence gaps the RER will address
• proposed methodology
• deliverables
• timeline
• expertise and capacity to carry out RER

Find details of assessment questions and criteria by following the link to the UKRI Engagement Hub application form.

For help and advice on costings and writing your application please contact your research office in the first instance, allowing sufficient time for your organisation’s submission process.

For questions related to this specific funding opportunity email enquiries@ahrc.ukri.org

Any queries regarding the system or the submission of applications through the survey email operations@ahrc.ukri.org

Background

For background, you can read the following:

• government White Paper following review of the Gambling Act 2005 (April 2023)
• public consultation on structure, distribution and governance of statutory levy on gambling operators (October 2023)
• Public Health England review on gambling related harms (January 2023)
• Gambling Commission evidence gaps and priorities 2023 to 2026
• government response to consultation on structure, distribution and governance of statutory levy on gambling operators (November 2024)

Research and innovation impact

Impact can be defined as the long-term intended or unintended effect research and innovation has on:

• society, economy and the environment
• individuals, organisations and the wider global population

Research disruption due to COVID-19

We recognise that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused major interruptions and disruptions across our communities.

We are committed to ensuring that individual applicants and their wider team, including partners and networks, are not penalised for any disruption to their career, such as:

• breaks and delays
• disruptive working patterns and conditions
• the loss of ongoing work
• role changes that may have been caused by the pandemic

Reviewers and panel members will be advised to consider the unequal impacts that COVID-19 related disruption might have had on the capability to deliver and career development of those individuals included in the application. They will be asked to consider the capability of the applicant and their wider team to deliver the research they are proposing.

Where disruptions have occurred, you can highlight this within your application if you wish, but there is no requirement to detail the specific circumstances that caused the disruption.