Brain & Nervous System

Research into the brain and nerves, including conditions such as dementia, Parkinson's, and epilepsy

#10 of 29 research categories by total funding · About £49 per person in the UK

Funded awards

6,681

Published funding

£3.3B

Average published award

£656K

Active funded awards

1,162

NIHR-supported projects

4,379

Amounts are published for 4,983 of 6,681 funded awards. Data as of 16 July 2026.

MRC funds the most Brain & Nervous System research — 1,671 grants (25% of the topic). The busiest year was 2016, with 471 grants.

Top Funders by Funded Award Count

View data table

Funder	Funded awards
MRC	1,671
Wellcome	988
BBSRC	865
EPSRC	722
EC	439
UKRI	319
NIHR	267
InnovateUK	231
ParkinsonsUK	184
AMS	157

Funded Awards by Year

View data table

Year	Funded awards
2006	198
2007	209
2008	205
2009	252
2010	216
2011	232
2012	228
2013	274
2014	264
2015	375
2016	471
2017	464
2018	433
2019	460
2020	372
2021	369
2022	448
2023	436
2024	390
2025	293

Grants


NON-INVASIVE SINGLE NEURON ELECTRICAL MONITORING (NISNEM Technology)	Imperial College London	EPSRC	£5.6M	2021	Active
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Neurotechnology for Life and Health	Imperial College London	EPSRC	£4.2M	2014	Completed
Multiscale and multimodal brain network changes causing Parkinson’s dementia	University College London	Wellcome	£4.1M	2023	Active
Functional implications of focal white matter lesions on neuronal circuits	University of Cambridge	MRC	£2.6M	2024	Active
EPSRC Network+: Neurotechnology for enabling community-based diagnosis and care	University of Birmingham	EPSRC	£1.2M	2022	Completed
From pathways to targets: Untangling the molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration using ultra-sensitive optical imaging	University of Sheffield	UKRI	£1.1M	2022	Completed
UCL Neurodegenerative Disease Human Tissue Resource	University College London	MRC	£1.0M	2024	Active
Making the Invisible Visible: a Multi-Scale Imaging Approach to Detect and Characterise Cortical Pathology	Cardiff University	MRC	£1.0M	2023	Completed
Real-Time Neural Chemical Sensing in the Peripheral Nervous System	Imperial College London	EPSRC	£932K	2013	Completed
Multimarker Parkinson's Diagnotic test kit for monitoring disease progression based on electroanalytical detection of protein changes in blood.	—	EPSRC	£856K	2015	Completed
The role of NMDA receptor dysfunction in epileptic disorders	University College London	MRC	£807K	2015	Completed
Variability in human axon survival	University of Cambridge	MRC	£688K	2016	Completed
Targeting the autophagy-NAD axis in rare early-onset neurodegenerative diseases	University of Birmingham	MRC	£671K	2024	Active
Concurrent non-invasive millisecond imaging of brain and spinal cord in health and disease	University College London	Wellcome	£660K	2022	Completed
Improving the presurgical evaluation of patients with refractory focal epilepsy using advanced neuroimaging techniques	University College London	MRC	£658K	2015	Completed
A Nanotherapeutic Device for Brain Repair	University of Cambridge	NIHR	£645K	2011	Completed
JPND Biological Resource Analysis to Identify New MEchanisms and phenotypes in Neurodegenerative Diseases (BRAIN-MEND)	King's College London	MRC	£550K	2018	Completed
Endotying neurodegeneration through the eye using multimodal retinal imaging	University of Edinburgh	MRC	Not disclosed	2023	Active
EPSRC Network+: Neurotechnology for enabling community-based diagnosis and care	University of Plymouth	EPSRC	Not disclosed	2025	Active
Investigating the prevention and rescue of demyelination in the central nervous system	University of Edinburgh	Wellcome	Not disclosed	2023	Active

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Brain & Nervous System

Top Funders by Funded Award Count

Funded Awards by Year

Grants

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