Wellcome Early-Career Awards

Career stage and experience

At the point you submit your application, you must have completed a substantive period of research training relevant to your discipline.

You must have:

• completed a PhD (for example, in the life sciences) or an equivalent higher research degree. At the point of application you must have passed your viva examination.

or

• if you have not started a PhD or equivalent degree, at least four years' equivalent research experience (for example, in the humanities and social sciences).

You may also have some postdoctoral experience in your proposed field of study, but no more than three years unless you can demonstrate how other factors have impacted on your research career. When we review how much postdoctoral experience you have, we will allow for part-time work, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, career breaks (for example, parental leave or long-term sick leave) and other significant amounts of time spent outside research (for example, clinical training).

We will also consider whether you have changed research discipline. For example, moving from astrophysics to computational neuroscience. There may be some crossover, such as in research sites or techniques, but the shift should still be a significant change.

We consider postdoctoral experience as any periods spent in research after you passed your PhD/higher research degree viva.

You should be able to demonstrate:

• a good understanding of research methodology
• evidence of project delivery and analysis.

You should not need close supervision to complete your proposed research, although you may need training in new techniques and experimental approaches.

How much time you must contribute 

You must be able to contribute at least 80% of your research time in support of the project proposed in the award. You should not spend more than 20% of your time on non-research related activities, for example clinical duties, teaching or administration. If you're in a clinical craft speciality, you may spend up to 40% of your time on clinical duties.

Health professionals

If you are a health professional and you want to continue with clinical activities, you must be registered with, and be licensed by, the relevant professional regulator in the country you intend to work in. Read our Q&As for health professionals.

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

You can apply if you hold a permanent, open-ended or long term rolling contract and are based in a low- or middle-income country. All other eligibility criteria apply.

If you’ve spent time away from research

You can apply if you've spent time 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.

Depending on your previous career stage and the level of supervision and retraining you need now, you may also want to consider a Career Development Award.

Your sponsor must be an individual at your administering organisation. They must hold an established post (or an honorary academic appointment) at the organisation for the duration of the award. They will be expected to:

• Guarantee the space and resources you’ll need from the start date to the end date of your award.
• Ensure the research environment will support you to complete your project.
• Confirm workload expectations with you – you should not spend more than 20% of your time on non-research related activities, for example clinical duties, teaching or administration. If you’re based in a clinical craft specialty, you may spend up to 40% of your time on clinical duties.

If you plan to work for more than three months outside your administering organisation, you must also have an additional sponsor at that location. They must guarantee the space and resources you'll need during your visit.

You should also identify a mentor for the period of your award. They should have a track record in training and mentorship, and support and guide you on how to:

• manage your application
• develop your research career
• progress with your personal development
• manage the processes and regulations at your administering organisation (although they do not need to be based at your administering organisation).

Your sponsor can also be your mentor.

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.

We allow short-term funding from your administering organisation or a learned society that supported your transition from doctoral to postdoctoral research. This can include, but is not limited to, funding for: 

• developing new research ideas (rather than a substantive research project)
• career progression
• networking
• travel or residencies after your PhD.

You can have more than one period of short-term funding, but the combined duration cannot be more than three years.

We will fund the total cost of your salary for the entire period of the grant. 

You can only receive one salary.

If you hold a permanent, open-ended or long term rolling contract and are based in a low- or middle-income country, we will fund the cost of your salary for the duration of the award.

Your salary should be based on the pay scales of the host organisation that will be employing you. It should include: 

• your 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 
• any incremental progression up the salary scale 
• locally recognised allowances such as London allowance. 

You should not include: 

• any potential promotion costs 
• any Wellcome fellowship supplement that was part of a previous grant. 

If your host organisation is in a low- or middle-income country and you will be working in a high-income country for four weeks or more, you should be paid at an appropriate rate for that country, according to your age and experience. 

You should only allow for salary pay awards during Year 1. These should be based on pay awards already agreed. 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, we will automatically increase your salary, based on our current inflation allowance rates. 

If you are a clinical academic, your salary should be appropriate to your clinical status and within the salary scale for academic and senior clinical lecturers. 

If you're paid on a non-clinical salary scale, your basic salary should be in line with academics of a similar seniority. 

Read about the responsibilities of grantholders and host organisations for people working on a Wellcome grant. 

Visa and work permit costs

If Wellcome is going to pay your salary on the grant, you can ask for visa and work permit costs to help you take up the post at your host organisation. Award holders who need a visa to work in the UK may be eligible for a Global Talent Visa.  

You can also ask for: 

• visa costs for your partner and dependent children 
• Immigration Health Surcharge costs for you, your partner and dependent children if you will be in the UK for six months or more 
• essential associated costs, such as travel to attend appointments at a visa application centre or embassy, and English language tests, if you can justify these. 

If you have to move to take up the post at your host organisation, you can ask for up to £1,000. This is to cover personal removal costs only. 

You will have to explain in your application why you need this.

We will provide the salary costs for staff, full or part-time, who work on your project, up to the equivalent of a 36-month full-time post. For example, you can ask for 24 months' salary for a research assistant, and 12 months' salary for a technician.

You can ask for more staff costs (in addition to the equivalent of a 36-month full-time post) if you need:

• specialist service staff, for example data analysis, fieldwork and clinical studies
• support because you or a member of staff employed on your grant is disabled or has a long-term health condition – see 'Disability-related adjustment support'.

We do not provide studentships 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.

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

Your chosen research environment should have the necessary equipment for you to complete your work. You can ask for additional 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.

Overheads are not counted against your £400,000 limit for research expenses.

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.

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.

Overseas allowances are not counted against your £400,000 limit for research expenses.

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.

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
• recruitment, advertising and interviewee travel costs for staff to be employed on the grant
• purchase, hire and running costs of project-dedicated vehicles
• PhD fees for the grantholder (if required)
• 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*
• phone, postage, photocopying and stationery, unless you can justify these within a clinical or epidemiological study
• age 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.