Entries Open for Wellcome Discovery Awards

Deadline: 25-Jul-23

Entries are now open for the Wellcome Discovery Awards to provide funding for established researchers and teams from any discipline who want to pursue bold and creative research ideas to deliver significant shifts in understanding that could improve human life, health and wellbeing.

What they Offer?

• A Wellcome Discovery Award provides funding for research expenses.
• The award usually lasts for 8 years, but may be less for some disciplines, such as humanities and social science.
• The award may be held on a part-time basis. They will extend the duration of the award to reflect this.
• You should ask for a level and duration of funding that’s appropriate for your proposed research. You will need to justify these costs in your grant application.
• The award includes:
  • Staff
  • Continuing professional development and training
  • Materials and consumables
  • Animals
  • Equipment
  • Access charges
  • Overheads
  • Travel and subsistence
  • Overseas allowances
  • Fieldwork expenses
  • Inflation allowance
  • Open access charges
  • Clinical research costs
  • Public engagement and patient involvement costs
  • Contract research organisations
  • Other costs

Eligibility Criteria

• You can apply for a Wellcome Discovery Award if you are a researcher who wants to pursue bold and creative research ideas. You must aim to make a major contribution to your research field by:
  • Generating significant shifts in understanding
  • Developing methodologies, conceptual frameworks, tools or techniques that could benefit health-related research.
• You will be expected to actively promote a diverse, inclusive and supportive research environment within your team and across your organisation.
• Your research can be in any discipline – including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), experimental medicine, humanities and social science, clinical/allied health sciences, and public health – as long as it has the potential to improve human life, health and wellbeing, and aligns with their funding remit.
• The research can be in a single discipline or multidisciplinary.
• An award can be held by an established researcher or a team of researchers led by an established researcher.
• Lead applicant(s)
  • Whether you are applying as the sole applicant or the lead applicant for a team, you must have:
    • International standing as a research leader in your field
    • Experience of leading innovative and creative research
    • A track record of managing and training others.
  • If you are the lead applicant for a team, you must also be able to demonstrate you can drive and lead a substantial collaborative research programme.
  • You must be able to contribute at least 20% of your research time to the programme.
  • You must be based at an eligible host organisation that can sign up to their grant conditions. It must be in one of the following:
    • UK
    • Republic of Ireland
    • A low- or middle-income country (apart from India and mainland China).
  • It must be a not-for-profit organisation. It can be a:
    • Higher education institution
    • Research institute
    • Non-academic healthcare organisation
    • Charity or social enterprise.
• Coapplicants(s)
  • Coapplicants can be at any career stage and based anywhere in the world, apart from mainland China.
  • Each coapplicant must make a significant and essential contribution to the research proposal, for example designing the research, writing the application and/or managing the programme. They must be able to contribute at least 20% of their research time to the programme.
  • Coapplicants must be based at an eligible organisation that can sign up to their grant conditions.
  • The organisation can be a not-for-profit:
    • Higher education institution
    • Research institute
    • Non-academic healthcare organisation
    • Charity or social enterprise.

For more information, visit Wellcome Discovery Awards.