Mental Health Award: Finding the right treatment, for the right people, at the right time for anxiety and depression
This call aims to support validation of biological, psychological, social or digital markers to enable stratification in anxiety and/or depression as early as possible. Stratification will allow targeted treatment and ensure that the right people get the right treatment at the right time.
Scheme at a glance
- Lead applicant career stage:
- Leading a research programme, Postdoctoral research, Postgraduate training, Returning to research, Early-career researcher, Mid-career researcher, Established researcher
- Administering organisation location:
- Strategic programme:
- Mental Health
- Frequency:
- One-off
- Funding amount:
Up to £5 million
- Funding duration:
Up to 5 years
- Coapplicants:
- Accepted
Disabled applicants
If you are disabled or have a long-term health condition, we can support you with the application process.
About this call
The Institutional Funding for Research Culture is an invitation only call in which each organisation is only able to submit one application. The call intends to have a cross-organisational impact. For this reason, we require the lead applicant for this award to be the Vice-Chancellor or equivalent.
Applicants will articulate their vision to advance a culture that fosters inclusive, equitable, open, engaged, and ethical research. (hereafter referred to as a ‘positive research culture’). They will be asked to identify a specific challenge they are currently facing and outline how this grant would enable them to realise their ambitions and what potential solutions they anticipate implementing. This call offers an opportunity to experiment with new approaches and ideas to promote a positive research culture. The proposed work should be a pilot or proof-of-concept, with the potential to scale up, followed by an evaluation stage.
Wellcome is interested in learning from this work, so successful applicants will take part in Wellcome-organised meetings with a network of other awardees to share best practise and successes from their work.
Eligibility and suitability
Proposals must focus on how your organisation has identified a specific challenge to its ambitions to create a positive research culture. You must also identify the anticipated impact, benefits, and risks of your work.
Please address the following points in your proposal. These do not have to be addressed separately/individually or used as section headings but are there to direct you in providing a case for support that addresses the assessment criteria.
- Identification of the barriers to a positive research culture and the potential to overcome them:
- A conceptual model of the challenges, barriers, and points of intervention that contribute to the issue, and where the pilot or exploratory activity will focus
- A summary of the activities you will undertake
- An explanation of how you selected the proposal that was submitted, and how you believe this model is consistent with a positive research environment
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Breadth of impact:
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A clear case for how Wellcome funding will enable you to explore innovative solutions to these challenges
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An indication of how the activities could enable research culture change
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A plan outlining how the outcomes of the activities will be communicated within and beyond the organisation
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Information on how you have engaged with key stakeholders such as researcher engagement, and institutional leadership engagement within your organisation to understand the challenges, barriers and points of intervention you hope to explore
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Evaluation:
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An outline of how you plan to evaluate the activities (costs to cover this can be requested within the application)
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Evaluation may build on a theory of change (or similar framework), that looks at processes undertaken and the outcomes these have produced in terms of changed perceptions, changed structures and changed opportunities.
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The evaluation should also include identification of what may and may not have had the impacts/ results that were anticipated.
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The evaluation should be both qualitative and quantitative in nature.
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Institutional commitment:
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A clear commitment, from your host organisation/s to the proposed programme of activities (more information is available in the statements of commitment section).
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The word limit is 3,000 words. References and figure legends do not count towards the word limit.
Additional information, including tables, figures, Gantt charts and graphs should be limited to two A4 pages and provided as an appendix.
Team skills and experience
Please address the following points in the section ‘Team composition and management’. These do not have to be addressed separately/individually or used as section headings but are there to direct you in providing a case for support that addresses the assessment criteria.
- An overview of the team, their skills and experience that show there is a clear commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion
- A description outlining how the lead applicant will ensure that the project has cross-organisational impact
- An outline of how the team was selected and how much time each team member will dedicate to the project
- An overview of the management structure. You must identify an individual who will play a significant role in the leadership or management of the project
- A plan to manage the governance of the project
Statements of commitment
The administering organisation of the lead and coapplicants (if different) must provide a statement of commitment that shows the organisation and its senior leaders involved are committed to delivering the programme.
Statements must be written by someone in the organisation that has the ability to commit to:
- giving the lead applicant and coapplicants time to deliver this programme.
- providing continual professional development opportunities for all staff employed on the grant.
The statement of commitment should include financial or in-kind support such as staff posts, teaching buy-out, or resources. If your organisation is unable to provide financial support, the statement of commitment should outline alternative ways that your organisation will support this work. It may also include the development of policies or initiatives within your organisation.
The letter of support should also include:
- how the proposed plan of work is a clear fit within its overall vision and complements other research culture strategies and initiatives within the organisation.
- any other funding the organisation may have received from Research England or other external bodies, to advance research culture.
The statements should be uploaded as additional information with the proposal section of the application form.
Webinars
We have been running webinars to discuss the call and allow participants to ask the Wellcome Mental Health team questions. A recording of our 6 April webinar in partnership with the World Health Organization is available, where you can watch:
- Promoting Stratification in Global Mental Health Research, a talk by Dr Pim Cuijpers, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
- A discussion on the importance of stratification in mental health, by Dr Mark van Ommeren, Head of Mental Health Unit within the WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance.
- A presentation by the Wellcome Mental Health team about how Wellcome are supporting stratification in mental health research.
- The questions and answers session.
What we offer
We encourage you to think broadly and creatively about what you will need to achieve the aims of your grant. Costs can be requested up to £1million for up to 2 years. All costs requested must be clearly justified and support the goal of the proposal.
Salaries can be requested for staff to support the goals of the proposal. We will cover the salary costs of all staff, full or part-time, who will work on your grant. All staff positions will need to be clearly justified.
Lead applicants cannot request a contribution to their salary on this award.
Coapplicants can request salary if they don’t have a permanent, open ended or long-term rolling contract. If they:
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will spend 80% of their time on this grant, they can ask for their full salary. Their post does not need to be underwritten and can be contingent on the application being successful.
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will spend less than 80% of their time on the grant. They can request salary proportionate to the time they will spend on the grant. The 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.
Coapplicants with a permanent, open ended or long-term rolling contract can request a contribution to their salary on this award where their contract states that they have to get their salary from external grant funding. The amount of salary we will pay will be proportionate to the time that the coapplicant is contributing to the grant.
The host organisation of each of the coapplicants must confirm:
- that the coapplicants employment contract states they must get salary recovery from external grant funding.
- 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.
For coapplicants who are humanities and social sciences researchers, we will consider requests for research or teaching replacement to cover the cost of a temporary replacement lecturer, for the period of time the coapplicant is committing to the grant. Applicants must retain at least a 10% commitment to teaching.
These costs:
- can cover up to 33% FTE of 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 the coapplicant already gets buyout costs from another grant (funded by Wellcome or elsewhere), they can ask us for this cost, but only for the period of time they’re committing to this grant when they 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.
If an applicant, coapplicant, or named member of staff employed on the grant is disabled or has a long-term health condition, you can ask for support to help them carry out their work to support the award.
This can include but is not limited to:
- additional costs for staff to help with day-to-day activities related to your project assistive technology to help use computers, research equipment or materials – for example, text to audio software
- care costs for assistance animals if you need to travel.
We will not pay for capital or building costs, such as access ramps.
You can ask for these costs if your government and/or employer:
- does not cover any of the costs
- only covers some of the costs (if they do, we will only meet the shortfall).
The costs we provide must not replace the support you may get from the government or your organisation, who are responsible for providing these costs.
If you don't know what these costs are now, you can ask for them after we've awarded your grant.
Continuing professional development and professional skills training, for staff employed on the grant.
We expect your host organisation to provide and fund continuing professional development and professional skills 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, the coapplicants, and each member of staff employed on your grant who will be:
- in post for 12 months or more, and
- working on the grant for at least 50% of their time.
Types of training can include:
- leadership, professional and people management skills
- career development support.
You will need to justify these costs in your application.
Project skills training, for staff employed on the grant
You can ask for costs to cover training for any project specific skills needed to deliver your proposed project, for you, the coapplicants, and each member of staff employed on your grant, who will be:
- in post for 12 months or more, and
- working on the grant for at least 50% of their time.
You will need to justify these costs in your application.
Organisational training
You can ask for costs for training staff in your organisation who are not employed on this grant. This training must contribute to the aims of your application, for example when exploring new approaches to management or leadership skills training. This must not replace existing training or be used to fund training already in place.
We will provide costs for hosting:
- a conference
- a session within a conference
- a symposium
- a networking event
- a seminar series
- advisory board meetings, if relevant.
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.
All costs for workshops, conferences and meetings should be clearly specified, broken down and justified.
You can request costs associated with continued engagement with key stakeholders such as researcher engagement, and institutional leadership engagement. This could include, for example, focus groups, workshops, or surveys.
We will consider travel and subsistence requests if essential to the goal of the grant.
Conference attendance
You can ask for a contribution towards the costs of attending project relevant meetings and conferences, including registration fees and the costs to offset the carbon emissions of your travel. The limits are:
- Lead applicant and coapplicants – £2,000 each a year
- Staff employed 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 project
- 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.
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 administrating organisations, or Wellcome, as appropriate. We expect you to choose the most economical options, booked in advance where possible.
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.
We will provide funds if you need to outsource project work to:
- contract research organisations
- other fee-for-service providers.
You may ask for the following costs where they are essential for the award (you will have to justify them in your application):
- Consultancy fees
- Dissemination costs
- Costs for evaluating the pilot
- Costs for co-creation and working with other sectors
- Recruitment, advertising and interviewee travel costs for staff to be employed on the grant
- Specialist publications that are relevant to the project and not available in institutional libraries.
How to apply
1. Before you apply
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Make sure you read everything on this page, including the material linked in the ‘Useful documents’ section.
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Consider submitting questions relating to this call using the 'Contact us' section below and include the title of the call in the subject line.
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You do not need to contact us before you write and submit your application.
2. Submit your preliminary application
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Complete your application on Grant Tracker.
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Get some guidance on using Grant Tracker.
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Your application must be submitted by 17:00 (BST) on the deadline day.
3. Shortlisting
At the shortlisting stage, Wellcome staff and Wellcome’s lived experience advisors will review your preliminary application. If shortlisted, we will invite you to submit a full application within two months.
All shortlisted applications will receive feedback on the application. No feedback will be offered if your application is not shortlisted due to the quantity of applications that we expect to receive.
4. Invitation to full application
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Complete your full application through our new application portal. More information and guidance will be available after preliminary applications have closed.
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Submit your application to your host organisation for approval.
5. Host organisation reviews your application and submits it to Wellcome
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Your application must be submitted by 17:00 (BST) on the deadline day in September 2023.
6. Interviews
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A committee will interview shortlisted candidates online and make funding recommendations to Wellcome. Committee membership will be shared with applicants prior to the interview but will be made up of an international panel of experts.
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Accessibility requirements will be accommodated.
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You will be required to give a presentation to the Committee. Details of the requirements for this presentation will be shared in advance.
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The focus of the interview will be on questions and answers. The committee will assess across the full set of criteria rather than one specific aspect of the proposal. They will consider your proposal and interview responses and will make funding recommendations to Wellcome.
7. Funding decision
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Final funding decisions will be made by Wellcome’s Mental Health Team.
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You will receive an email notification of the funding decision soon after the decision has been made.
8. Feedback
- Written feedback will be provided to those applicants unsuccessful at interview, including the reasons for a decision.
- Details of how we will handle any personal or confidential information contained in your application are available in our Grants Privacy and Confidentiality Statement.
Key dates
You must submit your application by 17:00 (BST) on the deadline day. We don’t accept late applications.
Webinar
13 February 2023Watch the recordingApplication deadline
9 May 2023Application outcomes announced
August 2023
Contact us
If you have any queries about submitting your application form, please contact Harriet Wykeham (h.wykeham@wellcome.org).
Please note, Wellcome will not review draft applications or concept notes.