Mental Health Award: applying neuroscience to understand symptoms in anxiety, depression and psychosis

The team must:

• Include the necessary expertise, technical skills and organisational support to deliver the proposed research.
• Ensure the contribution of each coapplicant (and collaborator, if applicable) to the project is evident and justified.
• Consider involving people with lived experience of mental health problems as part of the project team. This can be as lead applicants, coapplicants and/or collaborators, and the team needs to justify their inclusion/exclusion. If included, the overall team should include the skills needed to effectively involve and collaborate with lived experience experts.
• Demonstrate how they will approach ethical and equitable partnerships, including how this will be approached in partnerships between low- or middle-income country and high-income country researchers. 
• Include coapplicants based in each country where the research will take place if research is occurring in more than one location. 
• Be of an appropriate size for the proposed research. Teams must consist of at least two applicants (including the lead applicant) and must not exceed eight applicants (excluding collaborators).
• Actively foster a diverse, inclusive and supportive research environment within the team and across represented organisations.  

The lead applicant must:

• Have the experience needed to drive and lead a collaborative, large-scale research project and/or the necessary support structures in place to enable this. 
• Have experience of people and research management, as appropriate for their career stage.  
• Have experience of, or demonstrate commitment to, effectively leading a team that embeds lived experience expertise, as relevant to the research project. 
• Have a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract (or the guarantee of one) for the duration of the award. The contract should not be conditional on receiving this award.  
• Be able to contribute at least 20% of their research time to this project.  
• Be based at an eligible organisation that can sign up to our grant conditions. 

Read more about who can’t apply.

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

Coapplicants can be based at the same or different organisations as other applicants, including in different countries. They can also be at any career stage and come from any relevant discipline.

Each coapplicant must:

• Be essential for the delivery of the project and make a significant contribution, for example, in designing the proposed research and leading a specific component of the project. Their involvement should be justified in the application, demonstrating the value of their contribution to the team.
• Demonstrate the team’s commitment to effectively embed lived experience expertise, as relevant to the research project.  
• Have a guarantee of space from their administering organisation for the duration of their commitment to the project, but do not need to have a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract.  
• Be able to contribute at least 20% of their research time to this project.  
• Be based at an eligible organisation that can sign up to our grant conditions.

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

Collaborators are distinct from coapplicants as they will support the delivery of the project but will not lead on a specific component of the research. For example, collaborators could provide technical, clinical or subject-matter expertise on statistical analysis or measurement of specific variables. They could also provide access to tools or resources, such as longitudinal datasets, clinical records, or organisations led by or working in collaboration with lived experience experts. Collaborators are not assessed for eligibility and they are not required to give a minimum research time commitment to the award. 
 

Read about the different applicant roles for Wellcome applications. 

Lead applicant

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

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

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

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

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

Your administering organisation must confirm:

• that you have to get your salary recovery from external funding to participate in the research
• that they will underwrite the salary and post for the period of time that you will be working on the grant.

Coapplicants

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

If any coapplicant employed on your grant holds a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract 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. 

The coapplicant's organisation must confirm: 

• that the coapplicant has to get their salary from external grant funding to participate in the research 
• that they will underwrite the post, including any salary costs not covered by Wellcome, for the period of time that the person will be working on the grant. 

Coapplicants can also ask for salary where they: 

• Are employed by a charity, 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. In this case, they can ask for their full salary. Their post does not need to be underwritten and can be contingent on the application being successful. 
  • Will spend less than 80% of their time on the grant. In this case, they can request salary proportionate to the time they will spend on the grant. The host organisation must guarantee space and salary support if they cannot get it from other sources for the period of time they are working on the grant. Their post cannot be contingent on the application being successful.  
  • Are employed on the award as post graduate research assistants. If they are to spend 100% of their time on the award, their post does not need to be underwritten by the host organisation and can be contingent on the application being successful. 

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

Staff working on your programme

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

Staff members may include:

• research assistants or technicians employed on your grant
• experts with lived experience
• specialist service staff, for example data analysis, fieldwork and clinical studies
• a 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.

Read more about disability support for grantholders.

Collaborators

Collaborators cannot ask for a contribution to their salary within the application, but the costs associated with their agreed input into the project, including materials and consumables and project-related travel, can be requested.

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 Mental Health 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 on the grant, they can ask for the costs to cover their PhD 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.

We will only pay the international student fee rate for low- and middle-income nationals who are registered to study for a PhD in a high-income country. In all other situations, we will pay home student fees. 

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 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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

Conference attendance

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

• Lead applicant – £2,000 per year
• Coapplicants – £2,000 each per year
• Staff employed on the grant – 1,000 each per 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, libraries, archives, 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:

• The cost of low carbon travel where practical, even if it's 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 of the journeys you make. 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.

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.

If you are involving people with lived experience at the application design stage, you cannot include a consultation charge for this work. Wellcome will not be held responsible for any costs associated with the production of a response to this funding call.

We expect people with lived experience involved in approved applications to be appropriately compensated or paid for their time. The budget that must be requested during the application process should include appropriate remuneration for lived experience experts and costs for involvement.

We cannot advise on ways to appropriately compensate or pay people with lived experience, as approaches differ between organisations and contexts. However, when thinking about appropriate compensation or payment, we would encourage you to think about the experience, knowledge and skills that someone will be bringing to the project, as well as their responsibility within the process. Make sure that you have appropriately budgeted for the costs needed to support meaningful involvement, as set out in your proposal. For example, this could include (but not be limited to):

• consultant fees for lived experience experts on the project
• travel costs
• salary costs for lived experience researchers embedded in a team
• expenses to support meetings or workshops.

It is not possible for us to advise on social security, in terms of people with lived experience being paid for their involvement, as the arrangements will be different in different countries. It is the responsibility of the research team to ensure that they are abiding by any relevant regulations in their context, and we would encourage you to seek advice from relevant local organisations if needed.

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.

You can also ask for overheads on any part of your grant that is sub-contracted to any of the organisations listed above, including if you're sub-contracting to small or medium commercial organisations.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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, including for lived experience experts
• 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 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.

Before you apply

• Make sure you read everything on this page.
• You do not need to contact us before your write and submit your application.

Submit your application to your administering organisation for approval

• Complete your application form on Wellcome Funding platform.
• Submit it to the 'authorised 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.

Administering organisation approves and submits it to Wellcome

• Your application must be submitted by 17:00 (BST) on the deadline day. 

Shortlisting

• We will check your eligibility for the call and that your application is within the call’s remit. If your application is ineligible or is not within the remit of the funding call, we will withdraw your application and contact you to explain why.
• A committee will assess eligible and in remit applications against the assessment criteria outlined below, to make shortlisting recommendations to Wellcome.
• Committee membership will be comprised of a diverse range of international members and will take into account Wellcome’s diversity and inclusion priorities.
• If your application is shortlisted, we will invite you for interview. 

Written expert review 

• We will seek external written expert review on shortlisted applications. Reviewers will be selected based on their expertise within the relevant research field and not on their level of seniority.
• Unattributed comments will be sent to shortlisted applicants before the interview.

Interview

• The committee will interview shortlisted applicants online and make funding recommendations to Wellcome. 
• The lead applicant will attend the interview, accompanied by up to two coapplicants. 
• Accessibility requirements will be accommodated. 
• You will be asked to give a presentation at the start of your interview. Details of the requirements for this presentation, and the date when slides need to be submitted to Wellcome, will be shared in advance. 
• We will provide further information on the structure of the interview, room layout and committee membership before the interview. 
• The focus of the interview will be on questions and answers. The committee will assess the application against the full set of assessment criteria, rather than one specific aspect of the proposal. 
• The committee will consider your application, the expert reviewers’ comments and interview responses when making funding recommendations to Wellcome.

Funding decision

• Final funding decisions will be made by Wellcome’s Mental Health Team.
• You will receive an email notification of the funding decision soon after the decision has been made in December 2024.
• The reasons for a decision will be provided to unsuccessful applicants in writing.