OVERVIEW: The U.K.-based Wellcome Trust supports projects, scholarships and research in the fields of infectious diseases, the health effects of climate change, and mental health. Its grants support researchers at every stage of their careers.
IP TAKE: The Wellcome Trust is a major global health funder involved in a range of research projects, initiatives, and health collaboratives and institutes. Across its many endeavors, Wellcome prioritizes projects that support equitable health outcomes. Its philosophies and funding priorities are clearly delineated at its detailed website, so it’s worthwhile for grantseekers to spend some time navigating the webpages devoted to each funding area. While Wellcome’s application process is competitive, it awards hundreds of fellowships, scholarships and research grants each year, and its pockets run deep. Wellcome maintains a frequently updated list of open funding opportunities. In 2018, Wellcome unveiled Wellcome Leap, a major new U.S.-based initiative that funds “bold, unconventional programs that aim to achieve scientific and technological breakthroughs.”
The Wellcome Trust is a transparent and accessible funder. It publishes news and reports about its activities and maintains a searchable database of project summaries submitted by previous grantees. The majority of its grants have open application processes with multiple grant cycles each year. Individual researchers seeking grants from Wellcome should note that they must have the endorsement of the organization with which they are professionally affiliated, and in many cases must conduct the application through the research support administration of said organization.
PROFILE: Wellcome Trust, one of the largest charitable foundations in the world, was established by the estate of Sir Henry Wellcome, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur, upon his death in 1936. Wellcome was a cofounder of Burroughs Wellcome & Co., which, following a series of mergers between 1995 and 2000, is now an integral part of the pharmaceutical giant GSK (GlaxoSmithKline). Based in London, the Wellcome Trust’s mission is to “support science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone.” Its Programs currently target three broad areas of health: Mental Health, Infectious Disease, and the intersection of Climate and Health.
Wellcome also funds Discovery Research, which supports advances in health from “unexpected sources.” It supports these funding areas through several different programs, or what it calls “Schemes,” that focus on different stages of researchers’ careers, running the gamut from undergraduate education research to career development awards aimed at aiding established researchers.
Grants for Science Research
The Wellcome Trust’s Discovery Research grants fund “ambitious, curiosity-driven research across a range of academic disciplines.” Its funding in this area breaks down into three types targeted at researchers at different stages in their careers.
Wellcome Early-Career Awards provide up to five years of salary plus research expenses for researchers with three years or less of post-doctoral experience to pursue innovative projects that “deliver shifts in understanding that could improve human life, health and wellbeing.”
Wellcome Career Development Awards provides up to eight years of support for “mid-career researchers from any discipline who have the potential to be international research leaders.”
Wellcome Discovery Awards make grants to “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.”
In addition to grants, Wellcome Trust supports research through two subsidiary organizations under its control:
- Wellcome Leap creates “bold, unconventional programs, funded at scale,” to accelerate breakthroughs in health research. It also established and maintains the Wellcome Leap Health Breakthrough Network, “the largest, most rapidly ‘activatable’ health research network in the world.” (See IP’s reporting for more about Wellcome Leap.)
- Genome Research Limited manages the Wellcome Genome Campus, which houses the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Wellcome Connecting Science, which are focused on genome research and engagement.
Grants for Climate Change and Global Health
The Wellcome Trust’s grants for Climate and Health aim to catalyze “a transformation in the scale of research into the impacts of climate change on human health.” It seeks to fund research projects that can “define the interventions and policies that can respond to the climate crisis in a way that protects and improves human health.”
- Relevant projects address global health issues arising from climate change, such as the increase of tropical diseases, microbes potentially released from arctic thawing, and food insecurity resulting from climate change’s effects on farming capabilities.
- Wellcome is also concerned with the increase in severity of natural disasters, such as tropical storms, hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, and heatwaves. It prioritizes funding projects that involve “quantitative data on the effects of climate change on health,” “identifying the benefits to health of urgent climate change mitigation actions,” “establishing evidence on how to protect health through climate change adaption actions,” and “creating a global climate and health community with the skills and tools necessary to make a significant impact.”
- Wellcome also funds research into climate change diseases through its Discovery Research grants.
Grants for Diseases
The Wellcome Trust’s grants for Infectious Disease research fund projects that “increase our understanding of the sources of infectious disease and the factors that drive disease escalation,” as well as developing “accessible and affordable solutions to control the impact of infections” in collaboration with local communities, policymakers, and nonprofits.
- Wellcome’s research interests are currently focused on improving our knowledge of disease reservoirs, environmental zoonotic threats, and drug resistance to better understand the origins and potential solutions to increasing impacts of disease.
- The trust is also interested in improving clinical trial methods, regulatory policies, data architecture, and prevention protocols.
- Wellcome also funds research into infectious diseases through its Discovery Research grants.
Grants for Mental Health
The Wellcome Trust’s grants for Mental Health aim to “find innovative ways to intervene as early as possible in depression, anxiety, and psychosis in order to improve the life trajectory of millions of people globally.” It supports research projects working to understand “how the brain, body, and environment interact,” find improved ways of identifying and grouping people suffering from or at risk of mental health conditions, and develop new forms of intervention, whether “pharmacological or non-pharmacological.”
- Wellcome is open to exploring holistic solutions that incorporate all sources of support, including healthcare providers, workplaces, educational institutions, friends and family, and the medical research community. It is also working to standardize data collection and analysis methods and advocating for science-based approaches to mental health policy.
- Wellcome also funds research into mental health through its Discovery Research grants.
Important Grant Details:
Wellcome’s grants may range anywhere from $100,000 to $1.5 million. In a recent period, Wellcome invested over £1.6 billion in supporting projects in science, health and wellbeing, and “addressing global health challenges.”
Wellcome primarily funds organizations based in the UK and Ireland. It also supports nonprofit organizations in “low- and middle-income countries” in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. It does not fund operations in India or mainland China.
- Grantseekers are advised to research the foundation’s granting schemes carefully to find the most appropriate program.
Deadlines vary by grant and several granting programs have multiple cycles per year. Grantseekers should familiarize themselves with the application guidelines of their chosen grant before applying.
Individual applicants must be sponsored by an eligible host organization, which may be an institute of higher education, research institute, nonprofit, or healthcare organization.
- To learn more about the trust’s grantees, explore its list of grants awarded.
Grantseekers may reach out to Wellcome through its contact form or by phone at +44-(0)20-7611-8888 for further inquiries.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
LINKS: