Climate Impacts Awards: Unlocking urgent climate action by making the health effects of climate change visible
The aim of this scheme is to make the impacts of climate change visible across a wide range of physical and mental health outcomes in order to drive urgent climate policy and practice change at scale. This scheme will fund transdisciplinary teams to deliver short-term, high-impact projects, combining evidence generation with communications and/or public engagement.
Scheme at a glance
This scheme is now closed
- Lead applicant career stage:
- Administering organisation location:
- Anywhere in the world (apart from mainland China)
- Strategic programme:
- Climate & Health
- Frequency:
- Annual
- Funding amount:
Up to £2.5 million. In exceptional cases we may award above this.
- Funding duration:
Up to 3 years
- Coapplicants:
- Accepted
About this scheme
We will fund transdisciplinary teams that may include researchers, policymakers, practitioners, community stakeholders, communications, and public engagement experts with capacity to use evidence to drive climate action. By engaging decision-makers from the outset we expect that teams will increase the profile of the evidence, advance impactful narratives on the effects of climate change on health and use these to drive urgent policy and practice change at scale.
This will include generating and synthesising evidence (including across multiple sites/countries) on under-researched but significant health issues arising from climate impacts that fill a policy and practice-relevant evidence gap and/or present localising knowledge to specific contexts where evidence is missing. Funded projects should engage affected populations and communities, policy makers and/or practitioners in the framing, delivery, and/or communication of the research.
We will prioritise funding for research that serves the expressed needs of at-risk populations and communities with high exposure and vulnerabilities to the health impacts of climate change. In this context, vulnerability may result from the intersection of factors such as geography, socio-economic status, demography, gender, race, ability, ethnicity, co-morbidities and occupation.
There are many reasons the impacts of climate change could be invisible. These include but are not limited to:
- distance: decision makers not being based where the impacts are happening
- ideology: political polarisation results in missing voices; disinformation or lack of information
- chemistry: climate impacts on environmental drivers of health outcomes may not be visible to the naked eye. For example, pollutants that result from flooding
- linkage between climate change and health impacts not being explicitly made
- lack of priority of health impacts because populations are overfamiliar with the problem
- lack of metrics to be able to measure certain things and a lack of data needed to quantify the impacts
- communications challenges: lack of accessibility, jargon heavy science language, health impacts not making headlines.
This scheme is motivated by several recent reports and analyses that indicate that the window to take urgent climate action is closing rapidly (UN Environment Programme 2022). Despite the overwhelming evidence of the negative impacts of climate change the message is still not getting through.
By considering under-researched health issues such as maternal and child health, nutrition, and mental health (Berrang-Ford et al 2021 in Nature Climate Change), and focusing on low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) and disadvantaged populations, evidence gaps can be addressed while elevating the voices of those most affected (Berrang-Ford et al 2021, Abbott 2015). Furthermore, context-specific health evidence may strengthen economic and environmental arguments that can tip the balance towards greater action on climate change including, for example, on the limits of adaptation or loss and damage (Hinkel et al 2020 in Climatic Change, Bharadwaj et al 2023 from the International Institute for Environment and Development).
This scheme will support proposals that:
1. Identify a policy and/or practice-relevant evidence gap that can be filled within a short time frame (for example, 12 to 18 months) by generating or synthesising evidence on context-specific direct and environmentally mediated health effects of climate change.
Examples of evidence gaps include (but are not limited to) current and future climate impacts on:
- Mental health of young people in small island developing state(s)
- Heat-related morbidity and mortality associated with non-communicable diseases and housing type
- Health-related impacts of flooding in informal settlements in coastal megacities that indicate the limits of adaptation
- Nutritional status of infants in El Niño/La Niña Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-affected regions in a changing climate
- Non-communicable diseases of outdoor workers in drought-prone areas
2. Have potential to change policy and practice at scale for at-risk populations and communities.
Examples include (but are not limited to) evidence that informs/stimulates:
- Health integration into national or city wide adaptation or net-zero plans
- Development of sector-specific practice or regulatory guidelines that can protect health, for example, health-centric approaches to climate risk-based finance or net zero, resilient building code that protects health
- Win-win policy and/or practice opportunities that improve health while reducing climate risk. For example action which improves health, reduces climate risk and creates economic opportunity.
While the proposals should be context specific, Wellcome will consider the scaleability of the proposed activities/outputs. For instance, whether the methods, findings, or recommendations could be replicated in other contexts, sectors, countries.
3. Involve one or more stakeholders with the motivation and power to drive urgent innovation and action while engaging with at-risk communities to help frame and deliver the project.
Examples of stakeholders include:
- Local or national governments
- Civil society and community-based organisations
- International or multilateral organisations
- Private sector
4. Use public engagement and communication expertise to understand the lived experience of health impacts and build support for policies and practices that reduce or reverse those impacts.
Wellcome is looking for applications that meaningfully engage relevant stakeholders and communities and reflect this in the communications and public engagement strategy. For example, an advocacy strategy needs to be more than writing a report and creating pamphlets for a conference. A wide range of approaches are acceptable if they achieve the objectives for the scheme.
Examples of formats/media include:
- Community involvement in analysing and interpreting research findings
- Amplifying the voice of impacted communities within policy and public debate
- Partnerships with media (any channel of communication) or social media
- Partnerships with relevant health or climate campaigning or advocacy organisations
- Public engagement online or at in-person events
We are looking for research where environmentally-driven aspects of climate change are the primary driver(s) of a given health outcome. We are cognizant that all health outcomes have a social context, for example, the impact of heat stress on maternal/child health is in scope, as the health issue is a direct impact of climate change (despite also having socially-mediated outcomes in terms of who is most affected).
In comparison, the impact of limited access to healthcare on climate refugees is not in scope, since the primary driver of poor health outcomes is socially-driven and not a direct impact of climate change. We expect that social context to be represented in the proposal but not as the entry point.
In this call, Wellcome is not looking to fund research on an adaptation or mitigation strategy, which itself might have health effects. For example, an adaptation strategy to prevent flooding in an area by shifting the river system that results in unintended health consequences. Wellcome is not looking to fund research on these unintended consequences of mitigation or adaptation actions through this call. We may consider funding opportunities on those topics in the future.
We expect that competitive applications would contain transdisciplinary teams including stakeholders such as policy actors and/or practitioners, civil servants, private sector, civil society actors. If all the necessary team can be found in one institute that is fine.
For this scheme we use the OECD definition of transdisciplinary research, whereby the research combines knowledge from different scientific disciplines with that of public and private sector stakeholders and citizens, and therefore can be used to address complex societal challenges.
There is no fixed proportion of the budget that applications should dedicate to evidence generation/synthesis vs. communications/public or policy engagement.
Eligibility and suitability
About you
You can apply for this award if you are a team leader who wants to advance transdisciplinary research on the impacts of climate change on health.
You will be expected to:
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have prior experience of research engaging with policy/practitioners/implementation partners
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have knowledge brokering competencies such as the ability to act as a bridge between research teams and impacted communities
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actively promote a diverse, inclusive, and supportive environment within your team and across your organisation.
Your research team can include researchers from any discipline (natural, physical and social sciences as well as technology) but must be transdisciplinary (see the definition of transdisciplinary from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development here), and include expertise in public engagement and communications.
During your award we expect you to:
- identify an important policy and/or practice evidence gap where the case can be made that evidence generation or synthesis could help drive urgent action
- create a transdisciplinary team involving researchers, policy makers, communicators, and other stakeholders with a history of engagement with at-risk populations and communities
- co-develop and co-produce the necessary evidence to fill the identified gap with the involvement of impacted populations and communities
- deliver public engagement that embeds at-risk populations and communities within the research life cycle
- communicate the evidence to the target audience
- provide recommendations for potential solutions.
The award will be held by a team of researchers led by an established team leader from an eligible administering institution (see below).
Lead applicant
At the time of submission:
- Must have experience in leading transdisciplinary research-communication activities that deliver policy and/or practice actions that serve the expressed needs of populations and communities at-risk of the health impacts of climate change.
- Should have experience leading a team, have prior experience of research engaging with policy, practitioners and implementation partners, and have knowledge brokering competencies - such as the ability to act as a bridge between research teams and climate-impacted communities.
- Must be able to demonstrate that they have a permanent, open-ended, or long-term rolling contract for the duration of the award.
- Must be able to contribute at least 20% of their time to this project.
- Must be based at an eligible administering organisation that can sign up to our grant conditions.
Wellcome cannot make awards to teams with co-lead applicants.
Administering organisation and team institutions
You must be based at an eligible administering organisation that can sign up to our grant conditions (it can be based in any country apart from mainland China). The project must have a team leader or coapplicant based in all countries where the research activities are taking place.
For this scheme Wellcome will not distinguish or prioritise between lead applicants from universities or research institutions.
Eligible administering organisations for the proposal and team member institutions can be:
- academic institutions
- non-governmental
- civil society
- international and multilateral organisations
- private sector organizations
- local or national government.
Administering organisations must be able to meet Wellcome grant conditions. For-profit organisations are eligible to apply as long as they are able to sign up to our grant conditions.
One organisation can submit multiple different applications.
The team
Team members (coapplicants, staff, consultants) must include all the requisite research, public engagement and/or communication skills and capacities to carry out the proposed work including co-producing the project with key local stakeholders serving the expressed needs of the impacted populations and communities at the heart of the proposal.
For example, team members could include (but are not limited to) backgrounds in:
- climate,
- health,
- specific sectors,
- economics,
- political science,
- media.
Your team or consortia should be able to demonstrate:
- a strong track record in research on the impacts of climate change on health
- a strong track record in working with communities most affected by climate change
- a strong track record of working in collaboration with policymakers, implementers and/or decision makers involved in delivering climate solutions (including finance) in relevant sectors
- experience designing and planning research projects in collaboration with in-country implementation partners from government, NGOs and/or other relevant institutions and organisations
- experience designing and delivering communications and/or public engagement activities responsive to the expressed needs, interests and capacities of at-risk communities.
We will be looking across the team or consortia (including lead applicant and coapplicants) for the criteria identified on this page. The lead applicant must have experience in leading transdisciplinary research-communication activities that deliver policy and/or practice actions that serve the expressed needs of populations and communities at-risk of the health impacts of climate change.
Coapplicants
- Can be based anywhere in the world (apart from mainland China).
- Must be able to contribute at least 20% of their time to this project.
- Must be essential for delivery of the proposed project and provide added value to the team, for example designing the research, writing the application, providing training, knowledge brokering or managing the programme.
- Must have a guarantee of space from the administering organisation for the duration of the award.
- Must be based at an eligible organisation that can sign up to our grant conditions.
- Must include in-country policy actors and/or practitioners, civil servants, private sector, civil society actors.
- Do not need to have a permanent, open-ended, or long-term rolling contract at their organisation.
- Can be at any career stage.
- Can only be a lead applicant on one application for this scheme. Lead applicants can be included as a coapplicant on one other application, but they must be able to demonstrate that they have sufficient capacity for both projects if funded. Coapplicants can be listed on a maximum of two applications only.
Your application can have a maximum of 7 coapplicants. Applicants should ensure that each coapplicant provides added value to the team in terms of the expertise and experience outlined in the criteria.
Time spent away from research and part-time working
You can apply if you've been away from research (for example a career break, maternity leave, or long-term sick leave). We'll allow for this when we consider your application. Lead and coapplicants can be part-time. There is no formal minimum, but part-time working needs to be compatible with delivering the proposal successfully.
What’s expected of the administering organisation:
- You must be based at an eligible organisation that can sign up to our grant conditions and grant funding policies.
- We expect organisations based in the UK to meet the responsibilities required by the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers for institutions, managers and researchers. Any organisation with Wellcome funding that is based outside the UK is expected, at a minimum, to follow the principles of the Concordat.
- We also expect your administering organisation to:
- give you, and any staff employed on the grant, at least 10 days a year (pro rata if part-time) to undertake training and continuing professional development (CPD) in line with the Concordat. This should include the responsible conduct of research, research leadership, people management, diversity and inclusion, and the promotion of a healthy research culture.
- provide a system of onboarding, embedding and planning for you when you start the award.
- provide you with the status and benefits of other staff of similar seniority.
- if your administering organisation is a core-funded research organisation, this award should not replace or lead to a reduction in existing or planned core support.
Inclusive research design
The proposed research should be equitable, diverse and inclusive in a way that is appropriate to the place in which the research is conducted and the aims of the research or other activities.
This should focus on:
- Who defines and does the research: we expect our partners to demonstrate to us that their research community has substantive input from, and engagement with, the primary end users or subjects of their research, be they patients, participants or policymakers.
- How the research is done: we expect our partners to demonstrate to us that their research agenda and the design and conduct of their research substantively engages with the needs and values of the people and communities who are participating in, or are the subject of, their research.
- Who benefits from the research: Wellcome already has a commitment to focusing on those most affected by our health challenges. Accordingly, we expect our research partners to be able to demonstrate within their research and activity plans that their outputs will be made meaningfully accessible and used by those who most need it and, if appropriate, those who participated in the research.
Who can’t apply
You cannot apply if you intend to carry out activities that involve the transfer of grant funds into mainland China.
For those holding other Wellcome awards:
- An early-career researcher can be a lead applicant on one Wellcome award and a coapplicant on one other Wellcome award, or a coapplicant on two Wellcome awards.
- A mid-career researcher can be a lead applicant on one Wellcome award and a coapplicant on two other Wellcome awards, or a coapplicant on three Wellcome awards.
- An established researcher can be:
- a lead applicant on two Wellcome awards, one as the sole applicant and one as lead applicant for a team, or both as the lead applicant for a team. They can also be a coapplicant on two other Wellcome awards; or
- a lead applicant on one Wellcome award, as the sole applicant or lead for a team, and a co-applicant on three other Wellcome awards; or
- a coapplicant on four Wellcome awards.
The awards should be for different research projects, with no overlap in work packages.
About your proposal
What is in and out of scope
In scope
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Proposals where the primary focus is on the current or future direct and environmentally mediated physical or mental health outcomes attributable to climate/climate change (see Haines & Ebi 2019 for definitions), making visible the extent of the problem and driving climate action.
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Proposals that focus on identifying and filling evidence gaps and testing solutions via pilot actions are in scope, however these pilot actions should be a secondary aim of the proposal, and contain justification on how these solutions and/or actions may be scalable.
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Proposals that focus on the impacts of slow-onset events such as sea-level rise and drought are in scope.
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Proposal that aim to change a policy or practice around a healthcare provision would be considered in scope.
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Proposals that aim to present evidence of the impacts on health from climate variability and/or climate change are in scope.
Out of scope
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Proposals where the primary focus is on:
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socially mediated health impacts (such as via migration and livelihoods)
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current or future health impacts attributable to the consequences of climate change action (mitigation or adaptation)
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current or future health impacts attributable to the drivers of climate change (for example, fossil fuel emissions).
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Evidence generation and/or synthesis without substantive public engagement and/or communications.
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Public engagement and/communications without substantive evidence generation and/or synthesis.
How applications will be assessed
Applications will be triaged internally with expert methods advisors. Shortlisted applications moved forward for review by the funding advisory committee which will make funding recommendations to Wellcome's Climate and Health team. The team will use these as a basis for final funding decisions.
Wellcome has a preference for proposals focussed on climate impacts in low- or middle- income countries or for those focussed on disadvantaged populations in high-income countries. Wellcome does not have a preference for single or multi-country studies but does have a preference for proposals that aim to demonstrate the scale of the problem.
There is no preference for proposals that generate new data versus synthesise evidence.
The total number of projects we fund through this scheme will depend on a number of factors, such as the number and quality of applications received.
The funding advisory committee will review applications based on the following criteria:
Strategic importance, approach and methods (50%):
- The importance of the proposed work in the context of the health impact
- The relevance of the proposed work in driving context-specific climate action
- The proposal provides a plausible Theory of Change that describes where the climate and health evidence gap is, how you will address it and how you will make the evidence visible to policymakers, practitioners, civil servants, private sector actors to drive policy and practice change
- The appropriateness of the approach and methods, and communications/public engagement strategy, and whether they can achieve your stated aims within the given time frame
- Monitoring and evaluation to track and assess the results of planned activities throughout the lifetime of the project
- Environmental sustainability considerations within the project delivery plans
The team, skills and experience (25%):
- The team composition including an appropriate combination of individuals and organisations with the capacity, skills and experience to deliver the project
- Evidence of a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion
- Proposals need to provide sufficient evidence that the team is capable of delivering the proposed work within the timeframe and that the data, methods and tools proposed are scientifically valid and approriate to ensure the timely delivery of the plan
Approach to co-production and stakeholder engagement (25%):
- The experience of team members in both designing and planning research questions, and developing effective communications and/or public engagement activities in collaboration with relevant stakeholders (including at-risk communities, policy makers and/or practitioners) so that they are responsive to expressed needs, interests, and capacities of at-risk populations that this project is intended to serve
- The extent to which the proposed approach to research, communications and/or public engagement is co-produced with, and demonstrates responsiveness to the expressed needs, interests, and capacities of the at-risk populations that this project is intended to serve
The maximum word count for the programme of work description is 3,000 words.
Applicants do not need to submit ethics approval to the administering organisation by the deadline, but should give some consideration to potential ethical issues that may arise through the proposed work in the application.
Please provide any relevant links including publications, websites, social media and videos etc. However, the reviewees are not required to go through each link so we advise you to use links strategically, and be sure to include all of the crucial information in the text of the application.
What we offer
Lead applicant
If you are based in the UK or Republic of Ireland, you cannot ask for your salary.
You can ask for a contribution to your salary if you are based in another high-income country (not UK or ROI) or a low-and middle-income country (LMICs) and hold a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract that states that you have to get your salary from external grant funding.
If you work at a charity you can request salary. Wellcome requires lead applicants to be completing research and leading a research team. Your charity would have to be capable of signing up to Wellcome's grant conditions and carrying out the research.
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.
You will have to contribute at least 20% of your research time to this award.
Your administering organisation must confirm:
- that your employment contract states you must get salary recovery from external grant funding
- that they will underwrite the salary and post for the period of time that you will be working on the grant.
Coapplicants
If any coapplicant employed on your grant holds a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract that states that they have 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.
They will have to contribute at least 20% of their research time to this programme.
Your administering organisation must confirm:
- that the coapplicant’s employment contract states they must get salary recovery from external grant funding
- that they will underwrite the salary and post 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, social enterprise or commercial organisation. 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. 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. They can request salary proportionate to the time they will spend on the grant. The administering 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 administering 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, for example 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 science researcher, you can ask for funds for research or 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 fees
We do not provide studentships on this award. But if applicants employ a research assistant or a technician on the grant, they can ask for the costs to cover their Research Masters or PhD fees. Each applicant can ask for fees for one research assistant or technician at a time on the grant.
We will only pay the international student fee rate for low- and middle-income nationals who are registered to study for a Research Masters or PhD in a high-income country. In all other situations, we will pay home student fees.
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. If the pay award is not yet known, applicants should use the International Monetary Fund inflation rate, selecting the ‘inflation, average consumer price’ option as indicator.
From Year 2 onwards, you should use your organisation’s current pay rates. We’ll provide a separate inflation allowance for salary inflation costs.
Read about the responsibilities of grantholders and host organisations for people working on a Wellcome grant.
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, and essential English language tests
- 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 you or a member of staff working on your grant is disabled or has a long-term health condition, you can ask for adjustment support to help you carry out your project.
Costs can include, but are 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.
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:
- measuring and monitoring the environmental sustainablity of your research
- research leadership, professional and people management skills
- career development support
- responsible conduct of research
- diversity and inclusion
- promotion of a healthy research culture.
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 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.
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 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.
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
- more than five years old
- cost effective 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 or Republic of Ireland
- 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 report to the UK Charity Research Support Fund.
Coapplicants need to provide a breakdown of finances and a letter of support from a finance director, and not just a percentage of total costs.
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 if you’re based in a low- or middle-income country
- 15% of the direct research costs if you’re based anywhere else.
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.
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.
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 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 laboratory, we'll help with the additional costs of working on the project overseas. Please see the 'Overseas allowances' section for details.
You can ask for these costs if you are applying from a higher education institution, a research institute, a non-academic healthcare organisation, a not-for-profit or non-governmental research organisation or a small company.
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, where practical, even if it’s more expensive (for example, travelling by train instead of flying).
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 carbon offset policy for travel for information on what you and your organisation need to do.
If you will be away more than 12 months, we will provide overseas allowances for your partner and any dependants if they are travelling with you.
If you will be away for 12 months or less and can justify why your partner and dependants must travel with you, we may provide overseas allowances for them.
We define your partner as the person:
- you’re married to
- you’re not married to but with whom you’ve been in a relationship for at least a year
and
- you live with at the same permanent address and share some form of joint financial commitment with, such as a mortgage.
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 will pay your travel costs at the beginning and end of your overseas work. Costs can be for air, ferry, train or coach fares.
All fares should be:
- in line with our carbon offset policy
- booked in advance where possible.
If you are away for up to 12 months, you can ask for up to 80kg of additional baggage or unaccompanied airline freight for your outward and return journeys.
If you are away for more than 12 months, you can ask for the costs of shipping your personal items at the beginning and end of your overseas work.
We will pay the full cost of transporting:
- half a standard shipping container if you’re travelling alone
- a whole standard shipping container (20ft) if you’re travelling with a partner and/or dependants.
We will pay the cost of your medical insurance and travel insurance.
If you will be working in a low- or middle-income country we will also cover the cost of emergency evacuation cover.
We won’t pay for medical insurance if you will be based in the UK or Republic of Ireland.
We will pay the costs of visas, vaccinations and anti-malaria treatment.
You can ask for this if you’ll be based in a low- or middle-income country and it is necessary.
Costs can include guards, panic buttons and alarms. You should ask your employing organisation for advice on the level of security you need.
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. If you need help calculating the costs please contact us.
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.
If you’re away for more than 12 months we will pay:
Local nursery or school fees
You can ask for these costs if you are in a location where there isn’t free local education of the same standard as in your home country.
Costs include:
- local nursery school fees up to a maximum of 570 hours a year for 3 to 4 year olds
- local junior or secondary school fees, up to the end of secondary school education.
Local international school fees
You can ask for these costs if local schools do not provide the same standard of education as in your home country. We will only pay the published termly school fees.
We will not cover the costs of:
- extracurricular activities, including field trips
- other extras including, but not limited to, uniforms, sports kit and equipment, transport, meals, books and electronic equipment.
Boarding school fees
We will consider paying the cost of boarding school fees in your home country if:
- a local international school is not available
- both parents, guardians or the sole care giver live outside the home country.
The allowance covers:
- up to a maximum of £30,000 a year for each child for the published termly fees only
- the cost of return airfares at the start and end of each school term, in line with our carbon offset policy for travel.
We will not cover the costs of:
- additional annual leave airfares
- extracurricular activities, including field trips
- other extras including, but not limited to, uniforms, sports kit and equipment, transport, meals, books and electronic equipment.
We will cover the cost of providing special needs education as far as possible. Please contact us to discuss your needs.
We would not usually expect to provide an education allowance if you will be working in a high-income country.
If you will be away for more than 12 months, we’ll pay for you to travel back to your home country for annual leave. This is in addition to your outward and return travel costs and depends on how long you will be away:
- 12-24 months – 1 annual leave trip
- 25-36 months – 2 annual leave trips
- 37-48 months – 3 annual leave trips
- 49-60 months – 4 annual leave trips
- 61-72 months – 5 annual leave trips
- 73-84 months – 6 annual leave trips
- 85-96 months – 7 annual leave trips.
All fares should be:
- in line with our carbon offset policy
- booked in advance where possible.
If you will be away for more than 12 months, you can ask for up to 100 hours of lessons in the local language for you and/or your partner during the first 12 months of your visit.
We will cover 100% of the costs for local language school classes or up to 50% of the costs of individual tuition.
We will not cover the cost of examinations or personal learning materials such as DVDs and books.
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.
| Award duration (in months) | Inflation allowance |
|---|---|
| 0-12 | 0.0% |
| 13-24 | 1.19% |
| 25-36 | 2.41% |
| 37-48 | 3.64% |
| 49-60 | 4.89% |
| 61-72 | 6.16% |
| 73-84 | 7.45% |
| 85-96 | 8.77% |
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. Data privacy and governance safeguards around indigenous/traditional knowledge are acceptable.
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, such as collaborating with people with lived experience, 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.
Applicants can use day rates, provided an appropriate estimate for the number of days to be worked is included in the relevant section of the proposal.
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).
Disallowed costs
We will not pay for:
- estates costs – such as building and premises costs, basic services and utilities. This also includes 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*
- indirect costs – this includes general administration costs such as personnel, finance, library, room hire and some departmental services
- 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.
How to apply
1. Before you apply
- Make sure you read everything on this page.
- Get some tips to help you write your grant application.
- You do not need to contact us before you write and submit your application.
- Watch our webinar on the scheme. View questions submitted for the webinar on Slido.
2. Submit your application to your administering organisation for approval
- Complete your application on Grant Tracker.
- View the sample application form.
- Submit it to the 'authorised organisational approver' at your administering 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.
3. Administering organisation reviews your application and submits it to us
- Your application must be submitted by 17:00 BST on the deadline day.
4. Shortlisting
- Shortlisting will be carried out internally as the application assessment criteria outlines above.
5. Funding decision
- An external expert committee will make funding recommendations to us based on which we will make final funding decisions.
- You will receive an email notification of the funding decision soon after the decision has been made.
6. Feedback
- Written feedback will be provided to all unsuccessful applicants at each decision point, including the reasons for a decision.
Log in to our online grants system. You can save your application and return to it any time.
Disabled applicants
If you are disabled or have a long-term health condition, we can support you with the application process.
Key dates
You must submit your application by 17:00 BST on the deadline day. We don’t accept late applications.
Open to applications
- 20 February 2023, 13:00 UTCWatch recording
Webinar
- 13 April 2023
Full application deadline
- July 2023
Final funding decisions
Contact us
Questions on eligibility, what we offer and applications
If you have a question about eligibility, what we offer or about completing the application form using Wellcome Trust Grant Tracker, send our funding information advisers a message.
Remit questions
If you have a question about your proposal, contact us at: climateimpacts@wellcome.org
We do not answer questions on the scope or competitiveness of proposals.