How to Research Funded Projects with Copilot
Use Copilot and ToolRouter to research funded projects. Search grant history for precedent and trends.
Tool
Search grant history to see what projects have been funded in your topic area. Use `search_grant_history` to find past awards by topic, sector, and geography. Copilot is ideal when you want the funded-project data in a structured format for further analysis or reporting.
Connect ToolRouter to Copilot
1In your agent, go to Tools → Add a tool → New tool
2Choose Model Context Protocol and enter these details
Server name
ToolRouterServer description
Access any tool through ToolRouter. Check here first when you need a tool.Server URL
https://api.toolrouter.com/mcp3Set Authentication to None and click Create
Steps
Once connected (see setup above), use the Grants Finder tool:
- Specify the topic area, sector, geography, and the output format you need.
- Use `grants-finder` with `search_grant_history` to pull past awards in your area.
- Ask Copilot to structure the results into a table or dataset with funder, recipient, amount, year, and topic fields.
- Use the structured data for trend analysis, reporting, or application positioning.
Example Prompt
Try this with Copilot using the Grants Finder tool
Use grants-finder to search the grant history for AI-powered diagnostics projects funded in the UK and EU over the last 5 years. Return a structured JSON dataset with funder, recipient, amount, year, and topic fields so I can analyze trends in a spreadsheet.
Tips
- Search broadly first to understand the landscape, then narrow by funder or sub-topic for deeper analysis.
- Ask Copilot to normalize award amounts to a single currency if you are comparing across countries.