Institutional Funding for Research Culture
Thriving research environments are essential to Wellcome’s strategic aims of driving innovative research to improve health. The Institutional Funding for Research Culture (IFRC) call will enable organisations to move beyond their current practice and explore ways to advance their research cultures.
Call at a glance
- Funding amount:
Up to £1 million
- Funding duration:
Up to 2 years
- Coapplicants:
- Not accepted
Disabled applicants
If you are disabled or have a long-term health condition, we can support you with the application process.
About this call
The Institutional Funding for Research Culture is an invitation only call in which each organisation is only able to submit one application. The call intends to have a cross-organisational impact. For this reason, we require the lead applicant for this award to be the Vice-Chancellor or equivalent.
Applicants will articulate their vision to advance a culture that fosters inclusive, equitable, open, engaged, and ethical research. (hereafter referred to as a ‘positive research culture’). They will be asked to identify a specific challenge they are currently facing and outline how this grant would enable them to realise their ambitions and what potential solutions they anticipate implementing. This call offers an opportunity to experiment with new approaches and ideas to promote a positive research culture. The proposed work should be a pilot or proof-of-concept, with the potential to scale up, followed by an evaluation stage.
Wellcome is interested in learning from this work, so successful applicants will take part in Wellcome-organised meetings with a network of other awardees to share best practise and successes from their work.
What we are looking for
Proposals must focus on how your organisation has identified a specific challenge to its ambitions to create a positive research culture. You must also identify the anticipated impact, benefits, and risks of your work.
Please address the following points in your proposal. These do not have to be addressed separately/individually or used as section headings but are there to direct you in providing a case for support that addresses the assessment criteria.
- Identification of the barriers to a positive research culture and the potential to overcome them:
- A conceptual model of the challenges, barriers, and points of intervention that contribute to the issue, and where the pilot or exploratory activity will focus
- A summary of the activities you will undertake
- An explanation of how you selected the proposal that was submitted, and how you believe this model is consistent with a positive research environment
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Breadth of impact:
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A clear case for how Wellcome funding will enable you to explore innovative solutions to these challenges
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An indication of how the activities could enable research culture change
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A plan outlining how the outcomes of the activities will be communicated within and beyond the organisation
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Information on how you have engaged with key stakeholders such as researcher engagement, and institutional leadership engagement within your organisation to understand the challenges, barriers and points of intervention you hope to explore
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Evaluation:
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An outline of how you plan to evaluate the activities (costs to cover this can be requested within the application)
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Evaluation may build on a theory of change (or similar framework), that looks at processes undertaken and the outcomes these have produced in terms of changed perceptions, changed structures and changed opportunities.
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The evaluation should also include identification of what may and may not have had the impacts/ results that were anticipated.
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The evaluation should be both qualitative and quantitative in nature.
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Institutional commitment:
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A clear commitment, from your host organisation/s to the proposed programme of activities (more information is available in the statements of commitment section).
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The word limit is 3,000 words. References and figure legends do not count towards the word limit.
Additional information, including tables, figures, Gantt charts and graphs should be limited to two A4 pages and provided as an appendix.
Team skills and experience
Please address the following points in the section ‘Team composition and management’. These do not have to be addressed separately/individually or used as section headings but are there to direct you in providing a case for support that addresses the assessment criteria.
- An overview of the team, their skills and experience that show there is a clear commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion
- A description outlining how the lead applicant will ensure that the project has cross-organisational impact
- An outline of how the team was selected and how much time each team member will dedicate to the project
- An overview of the management structure. You must identify an individual who will play a significant role in the leadership or management of the project
- A plan to manage the governance of the project
Statements of commitment
The administering organisation of the lead and coapplicants (if different) must provide a statement of commitment that shows the organisation and its senior leaders involved are committed to delivering the programme.
Statements must be written by someone in the organisation that has the ability to commit to:
- giving the lead applicant and coapplicants time to deliver this programme.
- providing continual professional development opportunities for all staff employed on the grant.
The statement of commitment should include financial or in-kind support such as staff posts, teaching buy-out, or resources. If your organisation is unable to provide financial support, the statement of commitment should outline alternative ways that your organisation will support this work. It may also include the development of policies or initiatives within your organisation.
The letter of support should also include:
- how the proposed plan of work is a clear fit within its overall vision and complements other research culture strategies and initiatives within the organisation.
- any other funding the organisation may have received from Research England or other external bodies, to advance research culture.
The statements should be uploaded as additional information with the proposal section of the application form.
Wellcome encourages you to explore your institution's challenges and apply based on your institution’s needs. We expect transparency, honesty and specificity in identifying these challenges, as a basis for creating meaningful change. Proposed activities should be above and beyond what is already in place/planned at your institution.
We understand that funding calls targeting research culture are unusual. To provide additional guidance, we have collated a list of examples of what a pilot/proof of concept could focus on. These are not mandatory, and you should not be limited by these suggestions:
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Improving access to research careers for under-represented groups
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Approaches to creating an inclusive and supportive environment for research staff
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Innovative approaches to team science (team science is team-based research involving two or more research groups)
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Developing and furthering open research practices that support positive research cultures
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Approaches to promoting the status, inclusion, or collaborative embedding of non-research staff (for example technicians and professional service staff) as valuable members of research communities
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Exploring new approaches to management and leadership skills training for researchers
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Exploring new ways of educating and understanding bullying and harassment in the research environment
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Supporting early or mid-career researchers to overcome career progression barriers
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Looking at new methods for reward and recognition in recruitment and promotion criteria
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Developing innovative approaches for inclusive research design e.g. anti-racist, anti-ableist or gender diverse data sets or models
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Developing and embedding expertise in ethics, societal impact, or responsible innovation
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Embedding engaged research for example, community-engaged research, patient participation with underserved groups, relationship building etc
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Innovative approaches to structure and hierarchy within institutional contexts and their impacts on research culture
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Innovative methods for reducing precarity in research careers
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Identification of the barriers to a positive research culture and the potential to overcome them (25%): Considering the context or setting in which the work will be conducted, the proposal has outlined relevant barriers and novel plans to address them. The plans appear feasible, with a reasonable chance of success.
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Breadth of impact (25%): The proposal has outlined plans that have the potential to benefit a community of researchers. The outcomes of the project have the potential to inform strategies that would provide a long-term benefit.
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Evaluation (20%): The proposal includes clear evaluation of the outcomes and impact of the proposed activities.
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Institutional Commitment (15%): The organisation/s have provided a clear commitment to the proposed programme of activities.
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Team skills and experience (15%): The team has the appropriate skills and experience and there is a clear commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion. The appropriate personnel within the organisation/s have been engaged.
Wellcome is committed to the values of this call and will ensure that the funding decision process is transparent and equitable. For this call, applications will be reviewed by a committee made up of internal and external stakeholders. The committee will make a number of funding recommendations. If the committee is unable to fairly decide between several fundable applications, Wellcome will use a lottery funding method. This means that funding may be allocated randomly amongst a limited number of equally fundable applications. Wellcome hopes this will support fairness and work towards removing biases.
Leadership
The Institutional Funding for Research Culture call is an invitation only call in which each organisation is only able to submit one application. The call intends to have a cross-organisational impact. For this reason, Wellcome requires the lead applicant for this award to be the Vice-Chancellor or equivalent. The Vice-Chancellor or equivalent should have overall oversight of this award to ensure that it is best placed to meet the needs of the call.
In line with the values of this call, the lead applicant should recruit their teams in a fair and equitable way. We anticipate that the lead applicant will either:
- put together a group of researchers or professional staff (from any career stage) to develop and carry out the proposal
- shortlist internal applications from groups of researchers or professional staff (from any career stage), and internally review these applications via an internal panel. The panel selects the proposal to submit, and the lead applicant commits to sponsoring this work if it is funded.
We expect to see an explanation of how you selected the project team and/or submitted proposal, and how you believe the decision-making model used is consistent with a positive research environment.
If you are planning to retire before the end of the proposed award, we would expect you to include a succession plan for the ongoing leadership of the proposal in your application.
Coapplicants
Applications should include professional staff and researchers who have experience in running or facilitating a research programme, community, network, or of delivering relevant projects. Coapplicants do not need to be research staff. Individuals who hold technical or other non-research positions are eligible to be coapplicants. We encourage multidisciplinary teams that feature social science expertise and, if applicable, lived experience expertise and professional staff.
Each additional coapplicant must be essential to the success of the grant, and their role within the application must be clearly outlined. They must also make a significant and essential contribution to the proposal, for example designing the proposal, writing the application, or managing the programme. Each application can include no more than six coapplicants, excluding the lead applicant.
Coapplicants with a permanent, open ended or long-term rolling contract can request a contribution to their salary on this award where their contract states that they have to get their salary from external grant funding. The amount of salary we will pay will be proportionate to the time that the coapplicant is contributing to the grant.
The host organisation of each of the coapplicants must confirm:
- that the coapplicants employment contract states they must get salary recovery from external grant funding.
- that they will underwrite the post, including any salary costs not covered by Wellcome, for the period of time that the person will be working on the grant.
Coapplicants can also ask for salary where they don’t have a permanent, open ended or long-term rolling contract if:
- they will spend 80% of their time on this grant, coapplicants can ask for their full salary. Their post does not need to be underwritten and can be contingent on the application being successful.
- they will spend less than 80% of their time on the grant, coapplicants can request salary proportionate to the time they will spend on the grant. The host organisation must guarantee space and salary support if they cannot get it from other sources for the period of time they are working on the grant. Their post cannot be contingent on the application being successful.
Coapplicants can also be employed by a charity, social enterprise or commercial organisation. The amount they request must be proportionate to the time they will spend on the grant.
Alternatively, coapplicants may get their salary through employment on another grant.
Partnerships
You can include a partner organisation either in the UK or internationally that will help you deliver your vision. It is possible for your partner organisation to be another invited applicant to this call (see full list of institutions invited to apply). Please note, no more than three invited organisations can combine to submit a joint application to this call. If invited applicants submit together, they can increase the maximum funding request. For example, if two institutions submit a joint application, they can request up to £2m, if three institutions submit a joint application, they can request up to £3m. Please note that each institution can only request funding through one application, be it joint or individual. If you would like to include a partner organisation to help you deliver your vision, from the UK or internationally, we would expect the Vice-Chancellor or equivalent to be listed as coapplicant on the award and provide a letter of commitment to this project .
What is expected of your administering organisation
The lead applicant's host organisation must be able to sign up to our grant conditions. If applicants are based at more than one host organisation, these organisations must sign sub-agreements with the lead applicant's host organisation.
If your organisation sub-awards any part of the Grant, it remains accountable to us for the conduct of the Grant Activities and the use and financial management of the Grant. Your organisation should carry out appropriate due diligence on, and put in place written terms and conditions with the relevant sub-awardee to enable your organisation to comply with their obligations to us under the Terms and Conditions.
What we offer
We encourage you to think broadly and creatively about what you will need to achieve the aims of your grant. Costs can be requested up to £1million for up to 2 years. All costs requested must be clearly justified and support the goal of the proposal.
Salaries can be requested for staff to support the goals of the proposal. We will cover the salary costs of all staff, full or part-time, who will work on your grant. All staff positions will need to be clearly justified.
Lead applicants cannot request a contribution to their salary on this award.
Coapplicants can request salary if they don’t have a permanent, open ended or long-term rolling contract. If they:
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will spend 80% of their time on this grant, they can ask for their full salary. Their post does not need to be underwritten and can be contingent on the application being successful.
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will spend less than 80% of their time on the grant. They can request salary proportionate to the time they will spend on the grant. The host organisation must guarantee space and salary support if they cannot get it from other sources for the period of time they are working on the grant. Their post cannot be contingent on the application being successful.
Coapplicants with a permanent, open ended or long-term rolling contract can request a contribution to their salary on this award where their contract states that they have to get their salary from external grant funding. The amount of salary we will pay will be proportionate to the time that the coapplicant is contributing to the grant.
The host organisation of each of the coapplicants must confirm:
- that the coapplicants employment contract states they must get salary recovery from external grant funding.
- that they will underwrite the post, including any salary costs not covered by Wellcome, for the period of time that the person will be working on the grant.
Staff salaries should be appropriate to skills, responsibilities and expertise. You should ask your host organisation to use their salary scales to calculate these costs, which should include:
- basic salary
- employer’s contributions, including any statutory obligations (for example, National Insurance contributions if you’re based in the UK) and pension scheme costs
- Apprentice Levy charges for UK-based salaries
- any incremental progression up the salary scale
- locally recognised allowances such as London allowance.
You should allow for salary pay awards during Year 1. These should be based on pay awards already agreed: if you don’t know what the pay award is yet then use our inflation rate.
For Year 2, you should use your organisation’s current pay rates. We’ll provide a separate inflation allowance for salary inflation costs.
If you have named people on your grant whose salaries will be funded by Wellcome, you can ask for visa or work permit costs to help them take up their posts at the host organisation. You can also ask for:
- visa costs for the person's partner and dependent children
- essential associated costs, such as travel to attend appointments at a visa application centre or embassy if you can justify these
Immigration Health Surcharge costs for the person, their partner and dependent children if they will be in the UK for six months or more.
If there are named staff employed to work on this grant, whose salaries will be funded through this award, funds can be requested for visa or work permit costs to help them take up their posts at the host organisation.
This can also include:
- visa costs for the person's partner and dependent children
- essential associated costs, such as travel to attend appointments at a visa application centre or embassy if you can justify these
- Immigration Health Surcharge costs for the person, their partner and dependent children if they will be in the UK for six months or more.
If an applicant, coapplicant, or named member of staff employed on the grant is disabled or has a long-term health condition, you can ask for support to help them carry out their work to support the award.
This can include but is not limited to:
- additional costs for staff to help with day-to-day activities related to your project assistive technology to help use computers, research equipment or materials – for example, text to audio software
- care costs for assistance animals if you need to travel.
We will not pay for capital or building costs, such as access ramps.
You can ask for these costs if your government and/or employer:
- does not cover any of the costs
- only covers some of the costs (if they do, we will only meet the shortfall).
The costs we provide must not replace the support you may get from the government or your organisation, who are responsible for providing these costs.
If you don't know what these costs are now, you can ask for them after we've awarded your grant.
Continuing professional development and professional skills training, for staff employed on the grant.
We expect your host organisation to provide and fund continuing professional development and professional skills training. However, if these types of training are not available, or the quality is inadequate, you can ask for up to £500 a year for you, the coapplicants, and each member of staff employed on your grant who will be:
- in post for 12 months or more, and
- working on the grant for at least 50% of their time.
Types of training can include:
- leadership, professional and people management skills
- career development support.
You will need to justify these costs in your application.
Project skills training, for staff employed on the grant
You can ask for costs to cover training for any project specific skills needed to deliver your proposed project, for you, the coapplicants, and each member of staff employed on your grant, who will be:
- in post for 12 months or more, and
- working on the grant for at least 50% of their time.
You will need to justify these costs in your application.
Organisational training
You can ask for costs for training staff in your organisation who are not employed on this grant. This training must contribute to the aims of your application, for example when exploring new approaches to management or leadership skills training. This must not replace existing training or be used to fund training already in place.
We will provide costs for hosting:
- a conference
- a session within a conference
- a symposium
- a networking event
- a seminar series
- advisory board meetings, if relevant.
Costs can include:
- travel and accommodation for keynote speakers
- external room hire and catering
- event publicity and conference materials
- childcare and other caring responsibility costs for delegates
- any costs related to accessibility and inclusion.
All costs for workshops, conferences and meetings should be clearly specified, broken down and justified.
You can request costs associated with continued engagement with key stakeholders such as researcher engagement, and institutional leadership engagement. This could include, for example, focus groups, workshops, or surveys.
We will consider travel and subsistence requests if essential to the goal of the grant.
Conference attendance
You can ask for a contribution towards the costs of attending project relevant meetings and conferences, including registration fees and the costs to offset the carbon emissions of your travel. The limits are:
- Lead applicant and coapplicants – £2,000 each a year
- Staff employed on your grant – £1,000 each a year
We provide costs to cover caring responsibilities if you or any staff employed on your grant attend a conference. This includes childcare and any other caring responsibility you have. We will pay these if:
- Wellcome is providing the salary
- the conference is directly related to the project
- the caring costs are over and above what they'd normally pay for care
- the conference organiser and their employing organisation are unable to cover the costs.
You can ask for up to £1,000 per person for each conference.
Collaborative travel
You can ask for travel and subsistence costs for collaborative visits for you and any staff employed on your grant. You’ll need to justify each visit and its duration.
Carbon offset costs
This applies to all types of travel costs Wellcome provides.
You can ask for:
- essential travel costs, even if the low carbon option is more expensive (for example travelling by train instead of flying)
- project-related resources or activities that provide an alternative to travel, such as video conferencing, communication and file-sharing software
- costs to offset the carbon emissions generated by the essential travel. If carbon offsetting for travel is not part of your organisational sustainability strategy, you can ask us for a similar level of support for other sustainability initiatives. Your organisation must get our approval before submitting an application.
We won't pay for the core infrastructure that your host organisation should provide, unless you're eligible to ask for these costs under our overheads policy. Examples of these costs include:
- organisation-wide video conferencing packages
- high-speed broadband
- HD screens.
See our carbon offset policy for travel for information on what you and your organisation need to do.
Subsistence costs
If you’re away for up to one month you can ask for subsistence costs. These include accommodation, meals and incidentals (for example, refreshments or newspapers).
If your administering organisation has a subsistence policy, use their rates.
If your administering organisation doesn’t have a subsistence policy, please use the HMRC rates.
If you’re away for more than one month and up to 12 months, we will pay reasonable rental costs only, including aparthotels. You should discuss appropriate rates with your administering and administrating organisations, or Wellcome, as appropriate. We expect you to choose the most economical options, booked in advance where possible.
Computer equipment
We will cover the cost of one personal computer or laptop per person up to £1,500.
We won't pay for:
- more expensive items, unless you can justify them
- installation or training costs.
We will provide funds if you need to outsource project work to:
- contract research organisations
- other fee-for-service providers.
Funds can be requested for short-term research awards for permanent staff or researchers on fixed term contracts. These awards must clearly support the objectives of your proposal and must be completed by the grant end date. If requested, please provide information about how you plan to distribute these awards in a fair and equitable manner.
These funds can cover direct research costs, in line with standard Wellcome policy for research grants. Please see details of eligible costs here.
If you are requesting these funds, please outline within the “other” costs section of the form.
We will add an inflation allowance to your award. Your inflation allowance is based on your total eligible costs and the duration of the award.
We will use an inflation allowance that reflects the inflation rate of the country where the host organisation is based (based on data from the International Monetary Fund).
The costs in your application must be based on current known costs, excluding inflation. You should allow for salary pay awards during Year 1. These should be based on pay awards already agreed; if you don’t know what the pay award is yet then use the IMF rate for the currency your award will be made in.
You may ask for the following costs where they are essential for the award (you will have to justify them in your application):
- Consultancy fees
- Dissemination costs
- Costs for evaluating the pilot
- Costs for co-creation and working with other sectors
- Recruitment, advertising and interviewee travel costs for staff to be employed on the grant
- Specialist publications that are relevant to the project and not available in institutional libraries.
Open access charges
You cannot ask for open access charges on the application. If there are any outputs from award, that should be made open access, there are two ways these costs can be covered:
- If your organisation receives open access block grant funding, you can ask them to cover open access article processing charges
- If you're at an organisation that does not receive block grant funding, we’ll supplement your grant when your paper has been accepted for publication.
Other
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Core on-going activities
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Scaling up of existing activities unless it is evident that this investment will lead to a significant advancement of ongoing efforts or if testing an existing activity with another party would lead to new findings
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General capacity building that does not directly address identified research culture issues or challenges (see above, ‘What we are looking for’)
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Overheads
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Capital costs
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Administrative staff whose time is shared across several projects and isn’t supported by an audit record
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PhD stipends or fees
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Indirect costs – this includes general administration costs such as personnel, finance, library, room hire and some departmental services
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Office furniture, such as chairs, desks and filing cabinets
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Non-related activities such as catering, room and venue hire for staff parties, team-building events and social activities
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Indemnity insurance (insurance cover against claims made by subjects or patients associated with a research programme)
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Contingency funds
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Organisation insurance
How to apply
Before you apply
- Make sure you read everything on this page
- If your organisation wishes to apply to this call, we ask that the Vice-Chancellor or equivalent creates a Grant Tracker account. The Vice-Chancellor or equivalent should then contact us at researchenvironment@wellcome.org with their email address so the application form can be made available to them by 31 January. Application forms will be made available on the 1 February
- Please watch the webinar about this call from 13 February
- You can see questions from the webinar on Slido, here
Submit your application to your host organisation for approval
- Complete your application on Grant Tracker
- Submit it to the 'authorised organisational approver' at your host organisation for approval. Make sure you leave enough time for the approver to review and submit your application before the deadline. The approver may ask you to make changes to your application
- Get some guidance on using Grant Tracker
Host organisation reviews your application and submits it to us
- Your application must be submitted by 17:00 BST on the 9 May 2023
Shortlisting
- We will check your eligibility for the scheme and that your application demonstrates how you will meet the aims of the scheme. If your application is ineligible or does not demonstrate how you will meet the aims of the scheme, we will withdraw your application and contact you to explain why.
- Your application will be reviewed by the Institutional Funding for Research Culture advisory group. There will be no interviews.
Funding decision
- You will receive an email notification of the funding decision soon after the decision has been made.
Feedback
- Written feedback will be provided to all unsuccessful applicants.
Key dates
You must submit your application by 17:00 (BST) on the deadline day. We don’t accept late applications.
Webinar
13 February 2023Watch the recordingApplication deadline
9 May 2023Application outcomes announced
August 2023
Contact us
If you have any queries about submitting your application form, please contact Harriet Wykeham (h.wykeham@wellcome.org).
Please note, Wellcome will not review draft applications or concept notes.
List of invited institutions
- Birkbeck University of London
- Cardiff University
- Goldsmiths, University of London
- Imperial College London
- Institute of Cancer Research
- Keele University
- King's College London
- Lancaster University
- Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
- London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
- National University of Ireland Galway
- Newcastle University
- Queen Mary University of London
- Queen's University Belfast
- St George's, University of London
- Trinity College Dublin
- University College Cork
- University College Dublin
- University College London
- University of Aberdeen
- University of Birmingham
- University of Bristol
- University of Cambridge
- University of Dundee
- University of Durham
- University of East Anglia
- University of Edinburgh
- University of Exeter
- University of Glasgow
- University of Leeds
- University of Leicester
- University of Liverpool
- University of Manchester
- University of Nottingham
- University of Oxford
- University of Sheffield
- University of Southampton
- University of St Andrews
- University of Strathclyde
- University of Sussex
- University of Warwick
- University of York