Wellcome Trust: Collaborative Awards in Science

Deadline: 21 April 2020

Wellcome Trust is seeking applications for its Collaborative Awards in Science to promote the development of new ideas and speed the pace of discovery.

The Trust funds teams of researchers, consisting of independent research groups, to work together on the most important scientific problems that can only be solved through collaborative efforts.

Funding Information

• A Collaborative Award provides funding up to £4 million.
• The duration of funding is usually up to five years.

The Trust is looking for:

• Your proposal should describe a significant piece of work that addresses the most important questions, in an area relevant to Wellcome’s mission.
• You should be able to demonstrate why the scientific problem you are tackling can only be solved through an integrated, collaborative team effort.
• The Trust encourages interdisciplinary research collaborations, although they are not essential.
• The Trust will review:
  • The track records of all team members, relative to their career stage;
  • The importance of your research question(s) to your field(s);
  • The feasibility of your proposal;
  • The suitability of the environments in which you and your team members do the research;
  • The time you and your team members will spend on the Collaborative Award, and how it fits in with other academic commitments.

Eligibility Criteria

• You can apply for a Collaborative Award if you are part of a team of researchers who want to work together on an important scientific problem that requires a collaborative approach.
• Each applicant in your team must:
  • Be essential to the proposed collaborative research;
  • Bring different expertise to the research question;
  • Have proven research experience in their field and in collaborative research;
• Each applicant should also be leading their own research group.
• All applicants must be based at eligible organisations. You can all be based in the same or in different organisations.
• If you’re employed at an eligible core funded-research organisation, a Collaborative Award should not replace or lead to a reduction in existing or planned core support.
• The lead applicant must be based in the UK, Republic of Ireland, or a low- or middle-income country (apart from India or mainland China). Other applicants can be based in the same or different countries anywhere in the world.
• Each applicant should have a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract, or the guarantee of one. Your salary must be paid by your host organisation.
• Team size will depend on the proposed research, but it has to be more than two people, and usually no more than seven.
• If you, or any other applicants, hold a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract but have to get your salary from external grant funding, you can ask the Trust for this in your application. If this applies to you, or any other applicants on your grant, you must commit at least 10% of your working hours to this award. In this case, your host organisation must confirm details about your employment contract(s) or their policy on salary recovery costs.
• The space and resources you need must be agreed with your host organisation at the time of your application and made available to you from the start date through to the end date of your award.

How to Apply

For more information, visit https://wellcome.ac.uk/funding/schemes/collaborative-awards-science