Reviewed: April 2025

Creating a research strategy is an important part of funding research.  It guides what the funder supports and ensures that you can assess the success of your objectives over time, ensuring a continuous process of reflection and delivery.  To create an effective strategy, organisations should consider the impact of any prior funding before designing new funding streams and/or deciding which research questions to prioritise. AMRC provides guidance on how to capture and evaluate impact here. 

There are a number of steps to creating a research strategy, covered in greater detail on the below pages. Click on the images to view the guidance.

Following the strategy's creation, it is important to also set up governance and on-going processes for monitoring and evaluation of the strategy's impact, including the funded projects and the wider activities undertaken.  For more details on monitoring and evaluation see our guidance on evaluating research impact.

Over time this process is then repeated to ensure that the strategy considers advances in science and any other influencing factors. This enables the strategy to remain relevant and confirms the scientific merit of the funding areas and research priorities selected. It will also help prevent overlap of function and funding within the wider research environment.