Global Research & Innovation Initiatives and Programme Opportunities
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Wellcome Trust

Initiative/Organisation

Wellcome Trust

Goal

The Wellcome Trust is an independent, global charitable foundation supporting research projects in the areas of infectious diseases, climate and health, and mental health. In the field of infectious diseases, the Trust’s focus is on developing an improved understanding of disease reservoirs, environmental zoonotic threats, and drug resistance, as well as supporting the creation of a data and surveillance architecture to better detect and improve escalation.

Open opportunities

The Wellcome Trust publishes calls for proposals on a dedicated Funding opportunity webpage.
Please see below for further information about open opportunities.

Call for proposals

There are currently five opportunities available:

Application deadline
  • Wellcome Career Development Awards (July 2024 round): 25 July 2024
  • Wellcome Discovery Awards (July 2024 round): 30 July 2024
  • Wellcome Early-Career Awards (October 2024 round): 1 October 2024
Next round of applications
  • Wellcome Career Development Awards (November 2024 round)
      • Opening date: 26 July 2024
      • Closing date: 26 November 2024
  • Wellcome Discovery Awards (December 2024 round)
      • Opening date: 31 July 2024
      • Closing date: 3 December 2024
  • Wellcome Early Career Awards (February 2025 round)
      • Opening date: 2 October 2024
      • Closing date: 25 February 2024
Opportunity type
  • Wellcome Early-Career Awards
      • Applicant to ask for salary and up to GDP 400 000 million for research expenses. Funding duration should be 5 years or less.
  • Wellcome Career Development Awards
      • Applicant to ask for salary and the resources needed for the research programme. Funding duration should be 8 years or less.
  • Wellcome Discovery Awards
      • The average size of a Discovery Award is GDP 3.5 million. The average duration of a Discovery Award is 7 years.
Eligibility criteria

Applicants from UK, Republic of Ireland and Low- or middle-income countries (apart from India and mainland China)

Intellectual property policy

The Wellcome Trust does not seek to directly own or co-own IP arising from our research funding. IP created by Wellcome-funded researchers will generally be owned by their employers. For further detail on the Trust’s IP policy, please click here.

Funding level

Depending on the specific opportunity.

Find out more

For further information and guidance on applying for Wellcome funding or managing an existing grant, click here.

To contact the Trust’s Funding Information Advisers, please click here or phone +44 (0)20 7611 5757.

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This tool was created by FTI Consulting for GSK and EFPIA.
For all enquiries please contact niro@fticonsulting.com
Privacy policy

This tool was created by FTI Consulting
for GSK and EFPIA.
For all enquiries please contact niro@fticonsulting.com
Privacy policy

What type of funding are you looking for?

  • Grant:
    Grants are direct financial contributions from the European Union budget awarded by way of a donation to third-party beneficiaries (usually non-profit-making organisations) engaged in activities that serve EU policies.
  • Loan:
    Loans are measures of financial support provided on a complementary basis from the budget in order to address specific policy objectives of the European Union. Such instruments are implemented in partnership with public and private institutions such as banks, venture capitalists or angel investors.

What stage of development are you seeking R&I funding for?

  • Basic science: Basic science covers the various exploratory steps even prior to discovery
  • Discovery: Drug discovery aims to find potential disease-altering targets, such as a gene or a protein in humans. Prior to testing candidate compounds for safety
  • Preclinical development: Preclinical development concerns the testing of candidate compounds for safety in specific indications or disease conditions. Introduction of candidate compound in living biological systems (animals)
  • Phase 1 clinical trials: These are the first clinical trials on humans(usually 20-80 volunteers) testing the safety, side effects, best dose, and timing of a new treatment
  • Phase 21/2b clinical trials: This is the follow-up trial with roughly 100 to 500 patients to analyse efficacy and safety
  • Phase 3 clinical trials: These trials usually involve several hundreds to many thousands patients and tests the results of earlier clinical trials on larger populations to generate robust data on safety, efficacy and benefit-risk relationships of the medicine. Comparison to placebo and/or active comparator (best standard treatment)
  • Registration & launch: This concerns post-study, prior to launch, activities related to market launch. That can include, among others, marketing authorisation, regulatory activities, post-study communication or HTA
  • Introduction & delivery: This concerns all post-launch activities

What do you want to develop?

  • Treatment or vaccine:
    Refers to a drug or vaccine
  • Diagnostic or medical device:
    Refers to diagnostics and medical devices
  • Platform:
    Refers to a digital health platform or medical app
  • Knowledge:
    Refers to conducting research to help build our understanding on a topic
  • Standards:
    Refers to creating a benchmark for a specific issue

What type of organisation are you?

  • Small & medium-sized enterprises:
    <250 employees, annual revenue <EUR 50,000,000) or balance sheet < EUR43 million. This applies to individual firms only. If part of larger group, check the User Guide: https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/42921
  • Large enterprises:
    >250 employees or annual revenue > EUR 50,000,000. Non-profit organisation (non-governmental organisations that are recognised with a non-profit status)
  • Non-profit organisations:
    Non-governmental organisations that are recognised with a non-profit status
  • Academic:
    Linked to a university or equivalent
  • Public:
    Local, regional, federal government representative

What stage of diagnostics development does your research aim to cover?

  • Development:
    Product development
  • Validation:
    Lab and clinical validation
  • Evaluation & Authorisation:
    Regulatory approvals
  • Access:
    Monitoring

What stage of medicine or vaccine development does your research aim to cover?

  • Discovery and development:
    Identification of promising compounds for development and initial experiments to gather information
  • Preclinical research:
    Laboratory and animal testing to answer basic questions about safety
  • Phase 0 (clinical):
    Testing on limited number of subjects at subtherapeutic doses
  • Phase I (clinical):
    Testing on <100 healthy subjects with the disease/condition
  • Phase II (clinical):
    Testing on up to several hundred subjects with the disease/condition
  • Phase III (clinical):
    Testing on 300 to 3,000 volunteers with the disease/condition
  • Preregistration / Phase IV (clinical):
    Testing on several thousand volunteers with the disease/condition
  • Clinical (unspecified):
    Clinical phase unknown
  • Evaluation & Authorisation:
    Activities relating to marketing authorisation
  • Access:
    Monitoring

Where are you based?

  • Africa : Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Central African Republic (CAR), Chad, Comoros, Congo (Democratic Republic of the), Congo (Republic of the), Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
  • America (non-US & Canada) : Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela
  • Asia-Pacific : Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, China (including special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau), Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kiribati, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, North Korea, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Vietnam
  • Europe (non-EU) : Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom
  • European Union (EU) : Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
  • Middle East : Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen
  • United States (US) & Canada : United States, Canada

What type of organisation are you?

  • Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME):
    Staff headcount 50 < and turnover ≤ EUR 10 m or balance sheet total ≤ EUR 10 m (small); Staff headcount 250 < and turnover ≤ EUR 50 m or balance sheet total ≤ EUR 43 m (medium)
  • Large enterprise:
    Staff headcount > 250
  • Non-profit organisation:
    Association, foundation, or equivalent
  • Academic:
    University, research institute, or equivalent
  • Individual:
    Private citizen
  • Public sector:
    Local, regional, federal government representative
  • Other:
    None of the above or uncertain