The organisation was set up with strategic development funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which was matched by phased subscriptions from members.

GuildHE Research is particularly focussed on providing support and training to researchers at smaller organisations who might otherwise have less access to training and networks.

[8][9] In 2014, Jisc provided the organisation with funding to develop a research data management system to support smaller and specialist institutions.

[10] This was followed, in 2016, by involvement in the pilot of a research data shared service.

[11][12] Research outputs of member institutions are made open access via an online repository.