Funding opportunities

£10M will be available to support interdisciplinary research clusters. 

NC3Rs are collaborating with the MRC, in partnership with BBSRC and EPSRC, to support interdisciplinary research clusters to drive the development, validation and/or adaptation of human in vitro models of complex disease that can replace the use of animals in academia and/or industry. Research clusters could include bioengineers, biologists, biophysicists, clinicians, computational scientists and industry scientists and should focus on disease areas of high unmet need and/or address common needs to impact multiple fields.  

The aim of the call is to generate clusters which will:

• Improve understanding of human disease mechanisms and better support therapeutic development for disease intervention.
• Overcome limitations of current in vivo and in vitro models to represent human pathophysiology and disease heterogeneity.
• Accelerate the development, validation and uptake of technologies and methods to accurately and reproducibly model human disease and reduce the reliance on animal models.

Register for their joint webinar on Wednesday 16 October for more information about the scheme.

ICURe Explore awards train, fund and support research teams to determine whether there is a market for products or services that utilise their ideas, research and technologies. For this call, NC3Rs are partnering with the BBSRC to support researchers exploit their 3Rs tools and technologies. Up to £35k is available to enable researchers to ‘get out of the lab’ and engage in a 12-week full-time programme to validate commercially promising ideas in the marketplace. Successful applicants will learn how to test what potential customers think about their 3Rs idea, product, or service. They will also receive training and interview practice, and have access to a network of entrepreneurs, investors and funders. At the end of the process, the most promising teams will have the opportunity to access further support and apply for up to £300k of ICURe Exploit funding from Innovate UK.

BBSRC-NC3Rs ICURe Explore awards are open to bioscience teams in all UK universities, BBSRC-funded institutes and approved public sector research enterprises (PSREs). The research underpinning the 3Rs innovation, products or services being carried forward for market exploration by the team MUST build on a previous BBSRC, UKRI and/or NC3Rs grant(s). 

Postdoctoral career development fellowships provide an opportunity for exceptional postdoctoral clinicians to consolidate their research experience.

Postdoctoral clinicians may apply for Crick funding to spend one year full-time or two years part-time working in a Crick research group, on a project agreed between the fellow and the Crick group leader.

This scheme aims to:

• Foster long-term clinical links and collaborations.
• Provide clinicians with a postdoctoral extension of their research experience, and with scientific networking, training and career development opportunities.
• Provide a platform from which fellows may apply for external funding, e.g. clinician scientist fellowships, to be held at the Crick or elsewhere.

Fellows at the Crick will be embedded in a vibrant multidisciplinary research community of more than 1000 scientists carrying out research to improve our understanding of health and disease. 

This opportunity would suit talented and motivated postdoctoral clinicians who are passionate about research and show outstanding potential for continuing a career in academic medicine and research. Applicants should have completed a medical degree, or equivalent clinical professional qualification, and hold, or be about to hold, a research PhD. 

The application submission window for Crick fully funded fellowships (route 1) is open from early March 2025 to end of April 2025. 

Applications from fellows with funding for their own salary support (route 2) are welcome all year round.  

The VALIDATE Network aims to accelerate vaccine research and development for three groups of complex neglected intracellular pathogens that cause significant mortality and morbidity throughout the world, particularly in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs): Mycobacteria (causing tuberculosis, leprosy and other diseases), Leishmania (causing leishmaniasis) and Burkholderia pseudomallei (causing melioidosis).

The VALIDATE Pump Priming grant for 2024 are available for projects of up to £50,000 via competitive application to the Network Management Board (NMB). Projects should run for a maximum of 12 months and should lead to relevant and useful data for the field, or produce pilot data that will lead to a larger grant application to an external funder.

Funding is for VALIDATE Network members only.

Apply for funding from the Medical Research Council to support emerging or established research partnerships between businesses and academic partners (lead must be UK-based).

Co-developed programmes should enhance knowledge of the safety and toxicity of advanced therapies, developing tools and resources to assess and mitigate safety risks. The research will integrate discovery and translational science, aiming to propel future advanced therapies into clinics.

Where justified, multiple partners can participate on either side of the partnership, with MRC funding academic costs of £2 million to £4 million FEC for up to five years. Equal contribution is expected by the business partner(s).

Interested in working with us to discover and develop transformative therapeutics in cancers affecting children and young people? Submit a proposal to C-Further to express your interest. 

They are seeking projects from the international research community for either targets well-validated in childhood cancer indications or existing therapeutic assets for childhood cancers.

• They are interested in any type of therapeutic modality and indication with high unmet need.
• Unlike typical grant funding, they offer a truly collaborative approach to project development and delivery.
• Their founding partner organisations have a strong track record in drug discovery which will be leveraged as part of investment into projects.
• They strive to progress therapeutic discovery programmes through to clinical development in collaboration between their in-house drug discovery capabilities and the originator researchers.
• Depending on the nature and stage of the project, as well as the researcher’s capabilities to progress the drug discovery, researchers might be eligible for award funding for specific activities.

Their call for collaborative projects is open to researchers in academia or industry worldwide. EOIs should have a single lead applicant, however co-applicants are welcome.

Join C-Further online on 18 September, from 4–5 PM (BST), for a researcher webinar to introduce C-Further and its capabilities and guide potential applicants through the process of submitting an expression of interest. You can sign up here.  

Round 10 of BactiVac Network catalyst funding for pump priming projects is now OPEN. Funding is available to support collaborations between Network members in bacterial vaccinology to explore new approaches and strategies to advance their vaccines in partnership with LMICs and industry, and acquire the data to support substantive funding applications. BactiVac aims to fund a diversified portfolio of projects to catalyse research in bacterial vaccinology.

The catalyst funds available for projects up to £50,000 for a maximum of 6 months duration. Projects are required to align to one of the following:

• Focus on pathogens with outbreak potential
• Tackle the global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) challenge

Submission deadline for applications is 06 October 2024 (23.59 hours UK time).

Full details about the call are available on our website: BactiVac Catalyst Pump Priming Projects.

For more details and regular updates, please follow BactiVac on X (Twitter) @BactiVac using the hashtag #BactiVacFunding. You can also download BactiVac Catalyst Funding flyer to circulate and/or display within your organisation. For all queries, please email: bactivac@contacts.bham.ac.uk