Science and Research Fund — Research Program

The Science and Research Fund is an annual research grant run by the Marine Stewardship Council through its Ocean Stewardship Fund. It supports work that helps MSC certified fisheries maintain certification and improve sustainability practice.

The 2025/26 round had two tracks: At-Sea Monitoring and Harvest Strategies / Harvest Control Rules. Awardees conduct the funded research or workshops through their own organisations and with participating fisheries; applications are closed, with the next round due to open in September 2026.

Benefits & funding

Both 2025/26 tracks offered up to £50,000.
At-Sea Monitoring projects were planned for up to 12 months from April 2026; requests above £50,000 could be considered only with strong justification.
Harvest Strategies / Harvest Control Rules projects could run for up to two years.
Eligible costs included consultants, staff time, consumables, development work, travel, meetings and essential fixed assets; the detailed guidance allowed up to 12% of the grant for indirect cost recovery.

Eligibility

The At-Sea Monitoring track accepted organisations with significant expertise in monitoring methods and sampling design or broad experience delivering monitoring solutions, plus training or stakeholder-engagement experience.
The Harvest Strategies / Harvest Control Rules track accepted academic institutions, governmental and non-governmental organisations, independent researchers and MSC certified fisheries.
Harvest-track proposals had to link to at least one MSC certified fishery, address certification conditions on harvest strategies or control rules, and produce a resource that MSC could share with other fisheries.
A lead organisation could submit one harvest-track application, had to hold the grant if selected, and could not have received Science and Research Fund funding within the preceding three years.
MSC published no nationality, residency, age or degree restriction for these organisational and researcher applicants.

Can you apply?

Open to all applicants

No nationality, residency, education, or experience limits are listed.

Circlebreaker is a free database of global fellowships, scholarships and programs — every one decoded like this.

We only check the criteria we have data for. Always confirm full eligibility on the official page before applying.

Application process

1
Check the refreshed call and guidance when applications reopen in September 2026 because MSC says the criteria may change.
2
Contact the local MSC representative to begin the application process.
3
Follow the route for the relevant track: the latest At-Sea Monitoring call began with a two-page English expression of interest sent to the fund team, while the harvest track used the online grants portal.
4
Prepare the route-specific project description, outputs and outcomes, budget, personnel information and supporting documents; harvest applicants also needed a CV and a signed letter of support from each linked certified fishery.
5
Submit by the published deadline and await the technical and governance review stages.

Program timeline

22 September 2025
The 2025/26 calls opened.
At-Sea Monitoring expression-of-interest deadline.
10 November 2025
Shortlisted At-Sea Monitoring applicants were notified.
December 2025
Harvest Strategies / Harvest Control Rules application deadline.
1 December 2025
At-Sea Monitoring full-proposal deadline for shortlisted applicants.
30 January 2026
Governing approval and applicant decisions.
March 2026
Funded projects were required to start.
April to June 2026
MSC says applications will reopen; an exact date has not been published.
September 2026