About us

Wellcome Trust was founded after the death of Sir Henry Wellcome.

First grants were made by the Wellcome Trust to support Henry Wellcome’s mission for the Trust, to improve health through research.

Wellcome established the Wellcome Research Travel Grants scheme, the first funding in the UK for university researchers to make short visits to other laboratories around the world.

Wellcome provided £100,000 to build Wellcome Institute for Research on Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Cattle in Nairobi, Kenya.

Wellcome trustees adopted a more proactive funding policy. As well as responsive-mode grants, they looked for opportunities to fill gaps and create opportunities to advance research.

To support research in Thailand and Laos, Wellcome established the Wellcome Trust-Mahidol University-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Programme in partnership with the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University.

The KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme was established in partnership with the Kenya Medical Research Institute. 

Wellcome joined the Human Genome Project, the largest international collaboration ever undertaken in biology. Over 13 years, thousands of scientists around the world sequenced the 3 billion pieces of genetic information in every human cell (except red blood cells).

Wellcome supported the creation of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU), a large-scale clinical and public health research unit with site offices in Vietnam, Indonesia and Nepal.

The Wellcome Sanger Institute was established to complete one-sixth of the total sequencing for one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted in biology: sequencing the human genome.

The Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme was established to use science to drive health and wellbeing in Malawi. 

Nearly a third of the Human Genome Project was sequenced at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. New knowledge and tools stemming from the project are now transforming healthcare, such as through better diagnosis of rare genetic disorders.

Wellcome Collection, our museum and library, opened in London, UK.

Wellcome signed an agreement between the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK and University College London to found The Francis Crick Institute which would go on to become the largest biomedical research institute in Europe.

In response to the biggest ever outbreak of Ebola virus, Wellcome led a fast, coordinated programme of research. These efforts contributed to the first Ebola vaccine being licensed and approved in 2019.

Wellcome was a founding member of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which funded nine Covid-19 vaccines.

Wellcome Leap was established with a $250mn investment from Wellcome, to support scientists, technologists and innovators from around the world to pursue bold ideas that would fall outside the remit of conventional life sciences funding.

Wellcome and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $150 million each to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to help end the Covid-19 pandemic and prevent another major outbreak.

The UN’s annual Climate Change Conference (COP) included a Health Day for the first time.