The Research Councils have had an overseas presence since the opening of the UK Research Office in Brussels (UKRO) in 1984. UKRO is sponsored by all the research councils. It provides information and advice, primarily to UK subscriber organisations, on European Union funded opportunities for research and higher education.

In October 2006, the Global Science and Innovation Forum invited the Research Councils to consider opening further international offices to facilitate collaborative research in certain countries.

RCUK opened US Office in 2007 to identify and facilitate new research collaborations across the breadth of the research base. Research links with the USA are well established and the UK remains the most important collaborator for US researchers.

The UK collaborates in research more with China than any other European country. 2007 also saw the opening of RCUK China Office with the overall mission to help the very different research support systems of the UK and China align in such a way that joint UK-China research activities of all kinds can readily be developed and selected for funding.

The newest RCUK overseas office is its RCUK India Office, which was opened in October 2008, to bring about a step change in research partnerships between the two countries.

The function of the RCUK offices in the US, China and India is mainly to provide an overseas face for the Research Councils; they do not provide the services directly to researchers in the same way that UKRO does.