These grants provide support for researchers who want to establish, maintain or enhance longitudinal population studies (LPS) for the benefit of the wider scientific community.
This scheme is now closed. Read an update about why we've taken this decision from Mike Turner, Director of Science.
We will continue to support research that maximises the value and improves the usefulness of LPS through our fellowships, Investigator Awards and Collaborative Awards. Find out more about these schemes.
Longitudinal Population Study (LPS) grants are for teams of researchers to do one or more of the following:
To be eligible, you and any coapplicants should be essential to the proposed activities and have:
We would normally expect applicants to have a salary, or a guarantee of a salary, for the duration of the award period. If your employment contract states that you must get your salary from external grant funding, and you are based in the UK or a low- or middle-income country, you can ask us for this in your application. Your host organisation must confirm details about your contract.
You should be based at a host organisation in the UK or an eligible low- or middle-income country. Your coapplicants can be based anywhere in the world.
Your proposed LPS should usually be based in the UK or a low- or middle-income country. If it is not, please contact Bruna Galobardes to discuss your eligibility before you apply.
There are two types of funding you can apply for.
1. Core support grants (up to £5 million)
These grants support new and existing LPS, such as cohorts, panel surveys and biobanks. The grants may include some funds for answering scientific questions, but the majority of funds should be for core costs.
We also accept applications for pilot studies to determine the feasibility of setting up a new LPS. The planned outcome of the pilot study should be a funding application to create a new LPS.
Your LPS must:
In your proposal, you should be able to demonstrate that your LPS has:
If your proposed LPS is based in a low- or middle-income country, you will need to demonstrate that it meets the highest achievable quality standards for the context in which it operates.
2. Enhancing value grants (up to £1.5 million)
These grants support approaches that maximise the value of LPS.
This includes:
Examples of activities we’ll consider include (but are not limited to):
Data to be linked can include:
We won’t consider proposals for:
You can apply for this type of funding through our other funding schemes (eg Investigator Awards in Science, Collaborative Awards in Science and our fellowship schemes).
An LPS grant offers up to five years of support.
There are two levels of funding you can apply for:
Depending on how much you apply for, you may need to contact us first. See the 'How to apply' section on this page.
We don't usually consider applications for less than £75,000.
Support includes:
We will only cover salary costs for staff, full or part-time, who are necessary to develop the LPS and/or manage it (but not research personnel).
If you’re doing fieldwork or clinical studies in a low- or middle-income country, we’ll consider requests for necessary research staff. Please contact us to discuss this.
We don't usually provide a salary for any applicants for this scheme.
We don't provide studentship stipends.
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:
You should allow for salary pay awards during Year 1. These should be based on pay awards already agreed: if you don’t know what the pay award is yet then use our inflation rate.
From Year 2 onwards, you should use your organisation's current pay rates. We'll provide a separate inflation allowance for salary inflation costs.
Find out more about people working on a Wellcome grant.
We may make a contribution towards the salary of departmental technicians funded by Research England and its equivalents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. You will need to provide a full audit record of their time on your project.
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:
We will pay for the materials and consumables you need to maintain the LPS, including:
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:
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 doesn’t use full economic costing methodology to establish charge-out rates for animal house facilities, you can ask for funds to cover:
We won’t provide estates or depreciation costs.
You can ask for items of equipment that are essential to your proposed research project. Costs may include purchase, delivery, installation, maintenance and training, where necessary.
We will cover VAT and import duties if:
You can ask for larger items of equipment if they're not available at your host organisation.
If a complete piece of equipment costs £100,000 or more, we expect a contribution of at least 25 per cent 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.
We will cover maintenance costs for equipment if:
We won’t cover maintenance costs for equipment if there is a mechanism in place to recoup these costs through access charges.
We will cover the cost of one personal computer or laptop per person up to £1,500.
We won't pay for:
You can ask for the cost of access to shared equipment or facilities if they’re essential to your research project. These may include materials and consumables, plus a proportion of:
We don’t cover the costs of:
If the facilities or equipment were paid for by a Wellcome grant, you can only ask for access charges if:
You can ask for overheads if your grant will be based at a:
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:
The total cost for overheads should not be more than:
These costs must directly support the activity funded by the grant.
In your grant application you must:
Conference attendance
You can ask for a contribution towards the costs of attending scientific and academic meetings to publicise the LPS, including the costs to offset the carbon emissions of your travel. The limits are:
You’ll need to specify the amount you’re requesting for each person.
You can also ask for costs to cover caring responsibilities if any staff employed on your grant attend a conference. This includes childcare and any other caring responsibility they have, provided:
You can ask for up to £1,000 per person for each conference.
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.
We may pay for other essential visits, eg to facilities, for sample collection and for fieldwork. You can include subsistence costs.
This is a new policy. It applies to all types of travel costs Wellcome provides.
You can ask for:
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:
See our carbon offset policy for travel for information on what you and your organisation need to do.
If you’re away for up to one month you can ask for subsistence costs. These include accommodation, meals and incidentals (eg 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.
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:
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.
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:
and
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:
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:
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 (eg 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 Grants Management.
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 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:
Boarding school fees
We will consider paying the cost of boarding school fees in your home country if:
The allowance covers:
We will not cover the costs of:
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:
All fares should be:
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:
You can ask for other fieldwork costs that aren’t listed here, but you’ll need to justify them.
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. You'll receive the following allowance if the costs in your application are in pounds sterling, euros or US dollars.
Award duration (in months) | Inflation allowance |
---|---|
0-12 | 0.0% |
13-24 | 1.0% |
25-36 | 2.0% |
37-48 | 3.0% |
49-60 | 4.1% |
61-72 | 5.1% |
73-84 | 6.2% |
These rates are calculated using compound inflation at 2.0% a year from Year 2 onwards.
If your costs are in any other currency, we will use an inflation allowance that reflects the inflation rate of the country where the host organisation is based.
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 our inflation rate.
Wellcome's studentship stipend scales for non-clinical/basic science PhD studentships include an annual increase for inflation.
If your organisation receives block funding, you can ask them to cover your open access article processing charges.
If you're at an organisation that doesn't receive block grant funding, we’ll supplement your grant when your paper has been accepted for publication.
You can't ask for these charges in your grant application.
If you need to carry out clinical trials or 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 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.
If you already have an LPS, you can ask for costs to meet the criteria we’ll use to assess your application. Costs can include:
Read our Longitudinal population studies strategy [PDF 166KB] for more information about our assessment criteria.
Costs you may ask for (you will have to justify these costs in your application):
Costs we won’t pay:
*We will fund these costs in the case of animal-related research.
Costs grantholders can claim on biomedical science research grants.
You can also apply for Research Enrichment funding to increase the impact of your work through activities in public engagement and diversity and inclusion.
If you're a coapplicant from a developed country outside the UK, we don't offer research expenses to your host organisation.
We don't fund overheads unless they're included on this page.
This scheme is now closed.
Read our Longitudinal population studies strategy [PDF 166KB] for more information about the criteria we’ll use to assess your application.
Find out more about our longitudinal population studies work.
You should provide a supporting statement from your host organisation that outlines their commitment to the long-term sustainability of the study.
View a Sample preliminary application form for Longitudinal Population Study Grants [PDF 451KB].
Get some tips to help you write a Wellcome grant application.
We’ll assess your eligibility and suitability and give you a decision within four weeks of the preliminary deadline. If your preliminary application is successful, we’ll invite you to submit a full application.
Complete your full application form on Grant Tracker. Submit it to the 'authorised organisational approver' at your host organisation for approval. Make sure you leave enough time for the approver to review and submit your application before the deadline. The approver may ask you to make changes to your application.
If your proposal involves clinical research using NHS resources, check if you need to upload a SoECAT form with your full application.
Your application must be submitted by 17:00 (GMT) on the deadline day.
We'll seek written comments from external expert reviewers. Unattributed comments will be sent to you before the committee meeting.
If you’re applying for an Enhancing value grant, you’ll have the opportunity to respond to the comments in writing.
If you’re applying for a Core support grant and are invited to submit a full application, you’ll be invited to an interview.
At the interview, you’ll be asked to make a five-minute presentation and answer questions from the Longitudinal Population Studies Committee. Interviews take place at the Wellcome offices in London. We can pay your travel and accommodation costs. Get advice on how to prepare for a Wellcome funding interview.
The Longitudinal Population Studies Committee will review your full application.
We aim to notify you of our decision within four to six weeks of the committee meeting.
If you are disabled or have a chronic health condition, we can support you with the application process.
This scheme is now closed.
Find out about how we've worked with the funding community to develop principles and obligations setting out what we expect from those responsible for clinical training, trainees and funders across the UK.
Find out about some of the people and projects we've funded for this scheme.
If you have a question about the closure of this scheme, please go to LinkedIn for an update from Mike Turner, Director of Science.
Contact our information officers if you have a question about funding.