Climate Impacts Awards: Unlocking urgent climate action by making the health effects of climate change visible

The team must: 

• Be transdisciplinary, combining knowledge from different scientific disciplines with that of public and private sector stakeholders and citizens. See this OECD report for further information on what we mean by transdisciplinary.
• Demonstrate strong health expertise and climate expertise (particularly climate and meteorological science). Additional expertise could span across economics, political science, private sector, legal sector, public engagement, media or communications and specific sections such as housing, agriculture or employment.
• Have a majority of members with a history of collaborating and successfully delivering projects.
• Have a strong record of working in climate change and health research, in communities most affected by climate change and in collaboration with policymakers or decision makers involved in delivering climate solutions.
• Have experience designing and planning research projects with major policy implications.
• Have experience designing and delivering communications and/or engagement activities, co-produced with impacted communities and key stakeholders with key policy impact.
• Include the necessary expertise, technical skills and organisational support to deliver the proposed research.
• Include either a lead applicant or coapplicants based in each country where the research will take place.
• Be of an appropriate size for the proposed research. Teams must consist of at least two applicants (including the lead applicant) and must not exceed eight applicants (the lead applicant and seven coapplicants). This requirement does not limit the number of collaborators.
• Actively foster a diverse, inclusive and supportive research environment. 

The lead applicant must:

• Be a team leader who wants to advance transdisciplinary research on the impacts of climate change on health.
• Have experience leading transdisciplinary teams and working in the science-policy-society interface.
• Have prior experience of research engaging with policy partners.
• Have knowledge brokering skills such as the ability to bring together research teams and impacted communities.
• Actively promote a diverse, inclusive and supportive environment within their team and across their organisation.
• Have the experience needed to drive and lead a collaborative, large-scale research project and the necessary support structures in place to enable this.
• Have a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract, or the guarantee of one, for the duration of the award. The contract should not be conditional on receiving this award. Lead applicants with less than three years remaining on their contract at the point of application must have secured their next position at an eligible organisation and provide a letter of support from them.
• Be able to contribute at least 20% of their research time to this award.
• Be based anywhere in the world (apart from mainland China).
• Be based at an eligible organisation that can sign up to Wellcome’s grant conditions.

There can only be one lead applicant on applications to this scheme. Wellcome cannot make awards to teams with co-lead applicants.

Read more about who cannot apply.

Read more about when lead applicants can request salary costs, and what other costs can be covered.

Coapplicants can be based at the same or different organisations as other applicants, including in different countries. They can be based anywhere in the world (apart from mainland China). They can be at any career stage and come from any relevant discipline. We would encourage teams to consider including at least one early-career stage researcher.

Each coapplicant must:

• Be essential for delivery of the proposed project and make a significant contribution, for example, in designing the proposed research and leading a specific component of the project.
• Be able to contribute at least 20% of their research time to this project.
• Have a guarantee of space from their organisation for the duration of their commitment to the project, but do not need to have a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract.
• Be based at an eligible organisation that can sign up to Wellcome’s grant conditions. This can include a sole trader or self-employed person’s business. 

Read more about when coapplicants can request salary, and what other costs can be covered.

Lead applicant

You must contribute at least 20% of your research time to this award.

If you are based in the UK or Republic of Ireland at a higher education institute (HEI), research institute or non-academic healthcare organisation, you cannot ask for your salary.

If you are based at a charity, non-governmental organisation (NGO) or social enterprise, you can ask for a contribution to your salary, equal to the time you will spend on the award. 

If you are based outside the UK or Republic of Ireland, you can ask for a contribution to your salary if you hold a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract that states that you have to get your salary from external grant funding.

The amount we pay will be proportionate to the time you contribute to the award, for example, if you contribute 30% of your time to the award we will fund 30% of your salary.

If you are requesting contribution to your salary, your administering organisation must:

• confirm that your employment contract states that you have to get your salary from external grant funding to participate in the research
• guarantee to provide salary support, including any salary costs not covered by Wellcome, if you cannot get it from other sources for the period of time you are working on the grant.

Coapplicants

Coapplicants must contribute at least 20% of their research time to this programme.

If any coapplicant employed on your grant holds a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract and has to get their salary from external grant funding, you can ask us for a contribution to their salary in your application.

The amount we pay will be proportionate to the time they contribute to the award, for example, if they contribute 30% of their time to the award we will fund 30% of their salary.

The coapplicant's organisation must:

• confirm that the coapplicant has to get their salary from external grant funding to participate in the research
• guarantee to provide salary support, 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:

• Are employed by a charity, non-governmental organisation or social enterprise. The amount they request must be proportionate to the time they will spend on the grant.
• Don’t have a permanent, open ended or long-term rolling contract and they:
  • Will spend 80% of their time on this grant. In this case, they can ask for their full salary. Their post does not need to be underwritten and can be contingent on the application being successful.
  • Will spend less than 80% of their time on the grant. In this case, 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.
  • Are employed on the award as post graduate research assistants. If they are to spend 100% of their time on the award, their post does not need to be underwritten by the host organisation and can be contingent on the application being successful. 

Alternatively, coapplicants may get their salary through employment on another grant.

Staff working on your programme

We will cover the salary costs of all staff, full or part-time, who will work on your grant.

Staff members may include:

• research assistants or technicians employed on your grant
• specialist service staff and technical experts, for example, environmental sustainability, data analysis, fieldwork and clinical studies
• project manager, if you have multiple applicants on your programme
• support if you or a member of staff employed on your grant is disabled or has a long-term health condition – see 'Disability-related adjustment support'

Teaching buyout

If you’re a humanities and social sciences researcher, you can ask for funds for teaching replacement to cover the cost of a temporary replacement lecturer. You must retain at least a 10% commitment to teaching.

Costs:

• can cover up to 33% FTE of your contracted time
• are usually for a person at a more junior level than the postholder
• can be spread across the full period of the grant.

If you already get buyout costs from another grant (funded by Wellcome or elsewhere), you can ask us for this cost, but only for the period of time on your Discovery Award when you won't receive buyout costs from another grant.

You must provide a letter from your employing organisation, confirming that your contract includes a teaching commitment. You should include this in your grant application.

PhD/Research Masters fees

We do not provide studentships or PhD/Research Masters fees for staff on this award.

You can ask for costs to cover the following types of training.

Continuing professional development and professional skills training

You can ask for a contribution towards these costs.

Types of training can include:

• research leadership, professional and people management skills
• career development support
• responsible conduct of research
• diversity and inclusion
• promotion of a healthy research culture
• understanding and reducing the environmental impact of research

We expect your host organisation to provide and fund this 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 and each member of staff employed on your grant who will be:

• in a post of 12 months duration or more only
• working on Wellcome funded awards for at least 50% full time equivalent

You will need to justify these costs in your application.

Research skills training

You can ask for costs to cover training for the technical and research skills you need to deliver your proposed research.

You can ask for whatever research skills training you need for you, and each member of staff employed on your grant, who will be:

• in a post of 12 months duration or more only
• working on Wellcome funded awards for at least 50% full time equivalent

You will need to justify these costs in your application.

We will pay for the materials and consumables you need to carry out your project, including:

• laboratory chemicals and materials (for example reagents, isotopes, peptides, enzymes, antibodies, gases, proteins, cell/tissue/bacterial culture, plasticware and glassware)
• project-specific personal protective equipment (PPE) that is above the standard expected for the setting
• printing associated with fieldwork and empirical research
• associated charges for shipping, delivery and freight

You can ask for funds to buy animals if they are essential to your project. We will also fund the charge-out rates for animal house facilities if your organisation uses full economic costing methodology. These costs include:

• running costs (including animal maintenance, any experimental procedures, licences and relevant staff training)
• appropriate estates costs
• cage and equipment depreciation costs, but not building depreciation costs

We may not pay the full charge-out rate for an animal house facility if we've provided significant funding towards the infrastructure and/or core support of the facility.

If your organisation does not use full economic costing methodology to establish charge-out rates for animal house facilities, you can ask for funds to cover:

• the cost of buying animals
• running costs (including animal maintenance, any experimental procedures, licences and relevant staff training)
• staff costs, for example, contributions towards the salaries of animal house technicians

We will not provide estates or depreciation costs.

Equipment purchase

You can ask for basic items of equipment that are essential to your research project. 

Costs may include purchase, delivery, installation, maintenance and training, where necessary.

We will cover VAT and import duties if:

• the usual UK exemptions on equipment used for medical research don’t apply
• you’re applying from a non-UK organisation, and you can show these costs can’t be recovered

You can also ask for specialised equipment if:

• it is essential to the success of the proposed research project
• it is not available at your host organisation or through collaboration, and
• you’ll be the main user and have priority access to the equipment

If a complete piece of specialised equipment costs £100,000 or more, we expect a contribution of at least 25% of the total costs, including maintenance, from the host organisation or another source. In some cases, we may expect a larger contribution. We’ll discuss this with you after we’ve assessed your application. Contributions can include benefits in kind, such as refurbishment or the underwriting of a key support post. 

Multi-component items must not be broken down into component parts to avoid this contribution.

Equipment maintenance

We will cover maintenance costs for equipment if:

• you are requesting it in your application
• it is existing equipment that is:
  • funded by us or another source
  • essential to the proposed research project
  • cost effective and environmentally sustainable to keep maintaining it

We won’t cover maintenance costs for equipment if there is a mechanism in place to recoup these costs through access charges.

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

You can ask for the cost of access to shared equipment, facilities or services if they’re essential to your project.

These may include materials and consumables, plus a proportion of:

• maintenance and service contracts
• staff time costs for dedicated technical staff employed to operate the equipment or facility.

We don’t cover the costs of:

• estates and utilities
• depreciation or insurance
• other staff, for example, contributions towards departmental technical, administrative and management staff time

We do cover these costs if related to animal housing facilities.

If the facilities or equipment were paid for by a Wellcome grant, you can only ask for access charges if:

• the grant has ended
• any support for running costs and maintenance contracts has ended

You can ask for overheads if your grant will be based at a:

• university outside the UK
• research organisation that does not receive core funding for overheads
• charitable or not-for-profit organisation
• small or medium-sized commercial organisation

You can also ask for overheads on any part of your grant that is sub-contracted to any of the organisations listed above.

If you’re based at a UK university, you can’t ask for overheads for sub-contracted activity if your university will include the sub-contracted funding in its annual reporting for the charity support element of UK government block funding, for example the Charity Research Support Fund for universities in England.

Overheads can include:

• estates, for example building and premises
• non-project dedicated administrative and support staff
• administration, for example finance, library and room hire

The total cost for overheads should not be more than 20% of the direct research costs.

These costs must directly support the activity funded by the grant.

How to apply for these costs

In your grant application you must:

• give a full breakdown of costs (you can't ask for a percentage of the research costs)
• explain why these costs are necessary for your research
• include a letter from the finance director of your host organisation, or the sub-contracted organisation, confirming that the breakdown is a true representation of the costs incurred

Research should be designed to minimise travel. You can ask for the cost of essential travel. The mode of transport should be low carbon, even if it is more expensive (for example travelling by train instead of flying). 

 We will not pay for business class flights. 

Conference attendance

You can ask for a contribution towards the costs of attending scientific and academic meetings and conferences, including registration fees. The limits are:

• Grantholder – £2,000 a year
• Research and technical staff 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 research
• 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.

Other travel

We will pay for other essential visits, for example to facilities, for sample collection and for fieldwork. You can include subsistence costs. 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: 

• The cost of a low carbon mode of transport, even if it 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 environmental sustainability policy for what you and your organisation can 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 host organisations, or Wellcome, as appropriate. We expect you to choose the most economical options, booked in advance where possible.

If you’re from a low- or middle- income country and will be working in a high-income country for more than one month and up to 12 months, you can also ask for up to £10 a day to cover extra costs, such as transport and incidentals.

If you’re away for more than 12 months, we will pay the costs of your housing. You should discuss your needs with your administering and host organisations.

The allowance we provide will be based on family and business need. We will set the maximum allowance we pay for each location. This will be based on current market data or, where data is unavailable, in consultation with your administering organisation, using equivalent market rates. Please contact us if you need help calculating the costs.

We will cover the direct expenses you have to pay to find and rent a home. We will not cover the cost of utilities or any refurbishment.

Overseas research

If you or any research staff employed on your grant will be doing research away from your home organisation, we'll help with the additional costs of working on the project overseas. Please see the 'Overseas allowances' section for details.

If you or any staff employed on your grant will be spending time in another country, we’ll help you with the additional costs of working on the project overseas.

Our overseas allowances are:

• a contribution towards the personal cost of carrying out research overseas, to ensure that you are not disadvantaged
• provided on the assumption that you’ll be paying income tax, either in your home country, or the country you will be working in (your personal tax is your responsibility).
• provided on the understanding that you or your partner will not receive equivalent allowances from elsewhere
• determined by the amount of time you will spend away from your home country.

Carbon offset costs

We expect the people we fund to choose travel that has a lower carbon impact, even if it’s more expensive (for example travelling by train instead of flying). We will not pay for business class flights. 

You can ask for costs to offset the carbon generated by the travel as part of your overseas allowances. 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 for other sustainability initiatives to be included in applications.

See our environmental sustainability policy for information on what you and your organisation need to do.

See a list of low- and middle-income countries, as defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

You can ask for the following allowances. You need to provide estimated costs as accurately as possible.

We cover fieldwork costs if they’re essential and you can justify them. Costs can include:

• survey and data collection, including communication and data collection services and any associated costs such as essential field materials, travel costs and language translation services
• the purchase, hire and running costs of vehicles dedicated to your project
• expenses for subjects and volunteers, including the recruitment of participants, their participatory fees and travel costs
• statistical analysis.

You can ask for other fieldwork costs that aren’t listed here, but you’ll need to justify them.

How we calculate your inflation allowance

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 using data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). You'll receive the following allowance if the costs in your application are in pounds sterling.

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.

If your organisation receives open access block grant funding, you can ask them to cover your 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.

You cannot ask for these charges in your grant application.

If you need to carry out clinical research using NHS patients or facilities, we will cover some of the research costs.

Annex A of the guidelines for attributing the costs of health and social care research and development (AcoRD) sets out the costs we cover, and which costs should be funded through the Department of Health and Social Care in England, or its equivalent in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. If you're based in the Republic of Ireland, we would expect you to adhere to the spirit of these principles.

Read more information on our clinical trials policy.

If your proposal involves clinical research using NHS resources, check if you need to upload a SoECAT form with your full application.

You can ask for costs that are essential to the project. These can include:

• materials, including printing and publishing
• other costs relating to engagement activities that are essential to carry out your research, patient involvement (including under-served groups) and community engagement
• dissemination of research results and findings arising from Wellcome funded research and workshops.

For more information, please refer to our guidance on using an engaged research approach.

We will provide funds if you need to outsource project work to:

• contract research organisations
• other fee-for-service providers.

Allowed costs

You may ask for the following costs (you will have to justify them in your application):

• specialist publications that are relevant to the research and not available in institutional libraries
• consultancy fees
• expenses for subjects and volunteers – includes recruitment of participants, their participatory fees and travel, as well as interviewee expenses
• reasonable research-associated costs related to the feedback of health-related findings but not any healthcare-associated costs
• costs associated with developing an outputs management plan
• questionnaires, recruitment material, newsletters etc for clinical, epidemiological and qualitative research studies
• recruitment, advertising and interviewee travel costs for staff to be employed on the grant
• purchase, hire and running costs of project-dedicated vehicles
• project-specific personal protective equipment (PPE) that is above the standard expected for the setting
• computing, including recurrent costs dedicated to the project (for example, software licences
• public engagement materials where dissemination (including printing and publishing) is a key activity of the project
• costs to host/a contribution towards the cost of hosting:
  • a conference
  • a session within a conference
  • a symposium
  • a seminar series
  • advisory board meetings, if appropriate.
  • The meeting should either be:
    • for research purposes, for example data gathering
    • to disseminate your research findings, for example to policy makers.
  • 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.

Disallowed costs

We will not pay for:

• estates costs – such as building and premises costs, basic services and utilities.*
• phone, postage, photocopying and stationery, unless you can justify these within a clinical or epidemiological study
• page charges and the cost of colour prints
• research, technical and administrative staff whose time is shared across several projects and isn’t supported by an audit record*
• PhD stipends
• charge-out costs for major facilities* – departmental technical and administrative services, and use of existing equipment
• cleaning, waste and other disposal costs*
• office furniture, such as chairs, desks and filing cabinets
• clothing, such as lab coats and shoes
• non-research related activities such as catering, room and venue hire for staff parties, team-building events and social activities
• indemnity insurance (insurance cover against claims made by subjects or patients associated with a research programme)
• ethics reviews, unless you are in a low- or middle-income country
• radiation protection costs
• contingency funds
• organisation insurance
• clinical examination or course fees
• working capital costs of commercial organisations.

*We will fund these costs in the case of animal-related research.