Deadline: 15-Apr-25
Wellcome is currenlty accepting applications for the Mental Health Award to provide funding for validation activities for novel targets with a clear therapeutic concept and strong biological rationale related to early intervention in anxiety, depression and/or psychosis.
Funded proposals will generate data supporting the target’s therapeutic potential in the development of new and improved pharmacological treatments.
Funding Information
- Funding amount: Up to £700,000 per project
- Funding duration: Up to 2 years
Who can apply?
- You can apply to this call if you are a team of researchers:
- from disciplines relevant to drug discovery and mental health science, including but not limited to genomics, neuroscience, computational psychiatry, molecular biology in psychiatry, medicinal chemistry, neuropharmacology, in-vitro/vivo/silico pharmacology and drug discovery
- from an eligible organisation
- based anywhere in the world (apart from mainland China)
- They encourage applications from teams that:
- are diverse and interdisciplinary, within one or across multiple institutions and with collaborations covering multiple areas of expertise
- include researchers at any stage of their career
- The team must:
- Include the necessary expertise, technical skills and organisational support to deliver the proposed research, including any consultants or service providers. The team must include at least one person with knowledge on the biological mechanisms of the relevant mental health condition(s).
- Consider consulting people with lived experience of mental health problems as appropriate in the development and sharing of the project.
- Be of an appropriate size for the proposed research. Teams must consist of at least two applicants and not exceed five applicants (team size requirement includes the lead applicant and coapplicants but excludes collaborators and consultants).
- Include either a lead applicant or coapplicant(s) based in each country where the research will take place.
- Actively foster a diverse, inclusive and supportive research environment.
- Where applicable, consider how they will ensure ethical and equal partnerships, including any partnerships between low- or middle-income country and high-income country researchers.
- The lead applicant must:
- Have relevant experience in one or more areas of expertise that is required to deliver the proposal.
- Have the experience needed to drive and lead a collaborative research project and the necessary support structures in place to enable this.
- Have a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract or the guarantee of one for the duration of the award. The contract cannot be conditional on receiving this award.
- Be able to contribute at least 20% of their research time to this project.
- Coapplicants
- Coapplicants can be based at the same or different organisations as other applicants, including in different countries. They can be at any career stage from any relevant discipline.
- Each coapplicant must:
- be essential for the delivery of the project and make a significant contribution, for example, in designing the proposed research and leading a specific component of the project
- have a guarantee of space from their administering organisation for the duration of their commitment to the project, but do not need to have a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract
- be able to contribute at least 20% of their research time to this project
Who can’t apply?
- You should not apply for this call if:
- You intend to carry out activities which involve the transfer of funds into mainland China.
- You cannot demonstrate that you can dedicate enough time and resources to the project, if funded.
- You are already an applicant on two applications for this funding call:
- you can only be a lead applicant on one application and a coapplicant on one other application
- you can be a coapplicant on two applications
- You must demonstrate that you have sufficient capacity for both projects if funded. The applications should be for different projects with no overlap of activities.
- You already have applied for, or hold, the maximum number of Wellcome awards for your career stage.
For more information, visit Wellcome.