Wellcome Discovery Awards

Whether you are applying as the sole applicant or the lead applicant for a team, you must have:

• international standing as a research leader in your field
• experience of leading innovative and creative research
• a track record of managing and training others.

If you are the lead applicant for a team, you must also be able to demonstrate you can drive and lead a substantial collaborative research programme.

How much time you must contribute

You must be able to contribute at least 20% of your research time to the programme.

What type of contract you must hold

At the point of application, you should have a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract, or the guarantee of one. The contract should not be conditional on receiving this award.

Your salary must be paid by your administering organisation for the duration of the award.

If you have less than three years remaining on your contract at the point of application, you must have secured your next position at an eligible organisation and provide a letter of support from them.

If you are based in a low- or middle-income country

If you are based in a low- or middle-income country, you can ask for a contribution to your salary if you hold a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract and have to get your salary from external grant funding.

Time spent away from research

You can apply if you've been away from research (for example a career break, parental leave, or long-term sick leave). We'll allow for this when we consider your application.

If you have retired, please contact us before applying.

Coapplicants can be at any career stage and based anywhere in the world apart from mainland China.

Each coapplicant must make a significant and essential contribution to the proposed research, for example leading a strand of the research or managing the programme. We expect all applicants to be involved in designing the research and preparing the application. The added value of the team approach must be clear.

Coapplicants can be based in the same or in different organisations, and come from any discipline. They must be able to contribute at least 20% of their research time to the programme.

Coapplicants must be based at an eligible organisation that can sign up to our grant conditions.

The organisation can be a not-for-profit:

• higher education institution
• research institute
• non-academic healthcare organisation
• charity or social enterprise.

It can also be a commercial organisation.

Coapplicants can request their salary if they have a permanent, open ended or long-term rolling contract and have to get their salary from external grant funding, or 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.

Coapplicants without a permanent, open ended or long-term rolling contract can request salary depending on the amount of their time they will spend on the grant.

• Less than 80% of coapplicant's time on the grant: they can request salary proportionate to the time they will spend on the grant. Their 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 dependent on the application being successful.
• 80% of coapplicant's time on the grant: they can request their full salary. Their organisation does not have to guarantee salary support if salary cannot be obtained from other sources for the period of time they are working on the grant. The post can be dependent on the application being successful.
• If the coapplicants are employed on the award as postgraduate research assistants and 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 dependent on the application being successful.

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

Time spent away from research

Coapplicants can apply if they've been away from research (for example a career break, parental leave, or long-term sick leave). We'll allow for this when we consider your application.

If a coapplicant has retired, please contact us before applying.

You can involve collaborators in your application and award.
Collaborators support the delivery of the project but don't lead on a specific component of the research. For example, collaborators could support by:

• sharing facilities
• providing access to resources
• providing expertise on working in different countries
• sharing subject-specific knowledge and guidance.

Collaborators are not paid for their input but you can request costs for their expenses. In your application, you will need to confirm that you have contacted your proposed collaborators and they are willing to participate. Collaborators do not need to confirm their participation themselves.

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, you cannot ask for your salary.

If you are based in a low- or middle-income country, you can ask for a contribution to your salary if you hold a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract and 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 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 they cannot get it from other sources for the period of time they are working on the grant.

Coapplicants

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 without a permanent, open ended or long-term rolling contract can request salary depending on the amount of their time they will spend on the grant.

• Less than 80% of coapplicant's time on the grant: they can request salary proportionate to the time they will spend on the grant. Their 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 dependent on the application being successful.
• 80% of coapplicant's time on the grant: they can request their full salary. Their organisation does not have to guarantee salary support if salary cannot be obtained from other sources for the period of time they are working on the grant. The post can be dependent on the application being successful.
• If the coapplicants are employed on the award as postgraduate research assistants and 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 dependent on the application being successful.

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. 

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 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 PhD/Research Masters fees. Each applicant can ask for fees for up to two research assistants or technicians in total on the grant, to a maximum of eight per team. Early-career applicants (up to and including holders of early-career fellowships) may not supervise a PhD student alone but can be a co-supervisor with a mid-career or established colleague.

Research assistants/technicians should be defined as staff members and incur a lower fee than the student rate. Where organisations do not have a staff rate they may request fees at the home student rate. If no other rate is available, they may request the international student rate. 

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 and
• 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 and
• 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 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.

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.

Travel costs

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:

• Lead applicant – £2,000 a year
• Coapplicants on your grant – £2,000 each a year
• Research and technical staff on your grant – £1,000 each a year.

We provide costs to cover caring responsibilities for any staff employed on your grant attend a conference. This includes childcare and any other caring responsibility they 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 would 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, libraries, archives, 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 it if 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 laboratory, 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, 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.

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
• public engagement materials where dissemination (including printing and publishing) is a key activity of the project
• 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

• 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
• 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.