Contract opportunities

We are seeking an agency to help us create and deliver a compelling brand story for Discovery. Wellcome’s work is broadly divided into two modes – Discovery and Solutions – under which sit all our strategic programmes. Discovery mode includes our Discovery Research programme, proposed activity on AI and computational science, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Wellcome Leap and many activities undertaken by our free museum and library, Wellcome Collection. We need a cohesive narrative that brings these different projects together under one banner. Developing this brand story will help facilitate effective communication around this activity and strengthen Wellcome’s position at the forefront of science and research.

Fungal infections are an emerging threat to global health due to multiple factors such as climate change and antifungal resistance. Despite their significance, research on fungal pathogens lags behind research on other organisms.  

There is a critical need to explore how climate variability and climate change impact fungal pathogens and to gather data that support or may support this research. Consequently, Wellcome is inviting qualified consultancy teams, think tanks, and do tanks to submit proposals that will contribute to our understanding of the potentially complex relationships between fungal pathogens and climate.  

This RFP aims to support comprehensive reviews and data analyses that might identify existing gaps in research, data, and knowledge. The selected supplier will contribute to clarifying the current state of evidence and data availability in this field to inform future investments and catalyse novel research. 

Wellcome and UKRI believe that lived experience expertise is vital for the success of mental health research. We want a supplier to develop a platform of resources to improve lived experience collaboration in mental health research. Where possible, we want the supplier to develop these resources based on existing examples from practical contexts.

Wellcome is commissioning a project to advance the use of psychometric evidence in mental health research. We are seeking experts across mental health, evidence synthesis, psychometrics and data science to:  

1. Systematically review psychometric evidence underlying Wellcome’s current common metrics (for example, sensitivity to change). These would be published as living systematic reviews on an appropriate platform.
2. Develop a free-to-use, interactive, living evidence interface drawing data from these systematic reviews. This includes providing bespoke evidence for use in specific settings (for example, the validity of the PHQ-9 in a specific geographical context).   

Our goal is for this platform to support existing efforts to implement common metrics and stimulate further engagement and research on measurement in mental health.  

Please submit an expression of interest if you would like further details regarding our live webinar planned for 3 April 2025.

Join our webinar for applicants of this RFP on Thursday, 3rd April 2025 at 13:30-14:30 BST. We will outline the goal of this work and what we are looking, followed by a Q&A session. All attendees will be anonymous.

Wellcome is organising the third annual meeting of the Pathogen Variants Network members from 23 to 25 September 2025. This will bring together members of the six research teams in a predominantly in-person meeting format in Bangkok, Thailand. 

We seek to appoint an experienced facilitator to facilitate the workshop on 24 and 25 September 2025. 

We also seek to appoint an experienced science writer to prepare a meeting report for Wellcome’s internal use. 

Wellcome, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), is seeking to commission a supplier to develop standardised definitions for cholera epidemiology using in-person expert consultations and the Delphi method, a structured communication technique involving a panel of experts. The supplier is expected to disseminate and ensure uptake of newly refined standardised definitions on cholera epidemiology through publication in a scientific journal and the WHO website, and presentations at cholera meetings and conferences. 

Wellcome is seeking an organisation to undertake a landscape review of the employment contracts and salary provision in use for academic researchers across the globe, as well as the teaching buyout provisions of other funders. The work will provide intelligence into the provision in a number of specified countries where a significant amount of Wellcome-funded research takes place.  

Wellcome’s Climate and Health programme seeks an experienced facilitator to co-design and deliver a support programme for a new cohort of grantees funded through the Advancing climate mitigation solutions with health co-benefits in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) call. The programme content will be tailored to the needs of the cohort, with primary objectives focused on peer learning and skills development, as well as amplifying the impact of research outputs. Preference will be given to suppliers based in LMICs for the delivery of this programme. 

Wellcome’s Climate and Health programme seeks to understand where we can best play a catalytic role in strengthening the already seeded research field, as well as how we can best support research and broader ecosystems that help accelerate transitions to sustainable food systems. This work will focus specifically on opportunities related to Europe (including the UK).

Please only submit a full proposal if you have been invited to do so.

Wellcome is seeking a learning and support partner for a co-created Community Engagement Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Framework (MEL). Over the past year, we have collaborated with several global partners to co-develop a MEL Framework in an open-source e-learning platform format. For the next phase of this project, we seek a supplier with strong strategic and delivery capacities to support key partners in utilising the framework. This contract requires the successful contractor to sub-contract the consultancy that developed the original MEL framework, Itad.

Wellcome’s Insight team is looking to commission and collaborate with an organisation who can deliver and manage a long-term insight community and platform (Audience Insight Collective) involving Wellcome’s diverse audiences in 12+ countries. Our audiences include researchers, scientists, policymakers and strategic partners across the globe - all of whom make a contribution to, or are interested in, life, health and well-being. In order to achieve its strategic objectives, Wellcome needs to reach, engage and influence our audiences. As such, there is a need to provide timely and relevant insight to inform engagement and influencing approaches. The Audience Insight Collective should help us meet this need in providing access to our audiences in a more agile and equitable way. 

Wellcome’s Climate and Health programme seeks to significantly increase our understanding of the effects of climate change on human health and identify the interventions and policies that can respond to the climate crisis in a way that protects and improves human health. This programme of work is intended to monitor, evaluate and learn about the Climate Impacts Awards, an annual funding call run through the Climate and Health team at Wellcome.

We are seeking proposals from qualified cybersecurity firms to conduct comprehensive security testing of our Laboratory Information Management System, SEDRI-LIMS. The goal is to identify potential vulnerabilities and provide guidance on any risk mitigations to ensure the integrity, confidentiality and availability of our digital product.

The aim of this activity is to identify the most promising areas for intervention, pinpoint opportunities and gaps, and determine where further mechanistic research is most required or where the current evidence base is weak. The outcome of this activity will be a report, developed in collaboration with a science writer dedicated to the project, of a quality to be publishable externally.

We are looking to appoint a science writer to work with three to four experts to produce a report for Wellcome focused on how to best fund research that will ultimately improve treatment and early intervention options for young people under 18 experiencing symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. 

Wellcome’s Research Culture and Communities team are seeking a supplier to work with us to deliver up to £1 million of funding to small, Black-led initiatives supporting the careers of Black-heritage academic researchers. The supplier would act on behalf of Wellcome to deliver a flexible, accessible and impactful grant-giving programme that goes beyond traditional funding models. The selected organisation should have a track record of working with Black/racially minoritised communities.

Centres for Exchange (CfE) is a collaborative learning and design project led by Wellcome’s Community Engagement team. CfE aims to re-envision knowledge exchange with communities in research. Over the last year, we collaborated with global partners and communities to develop a framework that rethinks knowledge exchange with communities in health research. In this next Proof of Concept phase of CfE, we will fund up to nine community-based organisations in India, Kenya and South Africa, to implement and learn from the framework.