Senior Research Fellowships support independent researchers who are emerging as global leaders in their field and want to tackle the most important questions in science.
The way we fund research is changing to support our new strategy. A simplified set of funding schemes will be open for applications in summer 2021.
This scheme will close to applicants during 2021. See 'key dates' on this page for the final application deadline.
Salary and research expenses covered
Typically 5 years, but can be up to 7 years if a strong scientific justification is provided (see the ‘What we offer’ section on this page for an update on renewals)
This scheme will close in 2021. These are the final dates.
10 November 2020, 17:00 GMT
January 2021
Due to Covid-19, we may not be able to hold interviews. Candidates will be contacted with further details.
16 February 2021, 17:00 GMT (was 9 February)
April 2021
Due to Covid-19, we may not be able to hold interviews. Candidates will be contacted with further details.
This is the final round.
1 July 2021, 17:00 BST
September 2021
Due to Covid-19, we are not holding interviews. Candidates will be contacted with further details.
You can apply for a Senior Research Fellowship if you're already leading your own independent research programme and you are an emerging global leader in your field.
You should have a higher degree (PhD or equivalent) and significant research experience.
You should be able to show:
If you are thinking of applying, we strongly encourage you to contact the relevant person in our Science team first.
You must have sponsorship from a head of department or equivalent at an eligible host organisation. Your host organisation must be located in one of the following:
If you hold, or have recently held, a senior fellowship supported by another funding body, you can apply for a Senior Research Fellowship renewal of up to 5 years. You will need a 50% salary contribution from your host organisation. After this, you can’t apply for a renewal. Please contact the relevant Science team to discuss this and to find out how to apply.
See the 'What we offer' section on this page for an update on renewals.
If you've been away from research (for example for a career break, maternity leave, shared parental leave or long-term sick leave), we'll take this into account when we consider your application.
All research proposals must:
If you are a national of a low- or middle-income country and you propose to work in a low- or middle- income country, your research proposal must also focus on a health priority in that country.
We will review:
You are not usually eligible if:
If either of the above apply to you, please contact the relevant person in our Science team before you apply. If you don't, your application is likely to be rejected.
In addition, you can't usually apply if:
If you've already been unsuccessful with a full application for this scheme or one of the following schemes, please contact us before you apply again.
You can't apply to carry out activities that involve the transfer of grant funds into mainland China.
Your host organisation must administer the fellowship for the full duration of your award.
Your sponsor at the host organisation must be a head of department or equivalent.
You also need a sponsor at every additional location you propose to work in if:
Your sponsor and host organisation must guarantee that you'll get:
See the 'What we offer' section on this page for an update on renewals.
Your sponsor's support should be part of a longer-term commitment to help you achieve your career aspirations.
We expect you to spend about 80% of your time on research-related activities. The rest of your time can be spent on other activities, such as clinical commitments, teaching or administration. If you are a clinician and you need additional time to maintain your clinical skills, please contact the relevant Science team to discuss this.
A Senior Research Fellowship is typically 5 years, but can be up to 7 years if scientifically justified.
New applicants who are awarded this fellowship after 1 October 2020 will no longer be able to apply for a renewal at the end of their award.
Current Senior Research Fellows can apply for a renewal if they are on their first award and it ends on or before 31 October 2022. They must submit their application by 1 July 2021 (see the 'key dates' section on this page). We will cover 50% of their salary and direct research costs.
The fellowship may be held on a part-time basis.
The award includes:
We will fund the total cost of your salary for the entire period of the grant.
You can only receive one salary.
If you're working in a low- or middle-income country of which you are a national and you already have a salary, your host organisation may use it to pay the person who replaces you.
You should ask your host organisation to calculate your salary. It should:
Your salary should include:
You shouldn't include:
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 you don’t know what the pay award is yet then use our inflation rate of 2.0%.
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.
Find out more about fellows working on a Wellcome grant.
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. You can also ask for:
We will provide:
We won't provide a supplement if you are paid on a clinical academic salary scale.
The supplement is fixed. It won't be increased each year.
We will add this supplement to your award – you do not need to add it to your application.
If you have to move to take up the post at your host organisation, you can ask for £1,000. You'll need to justify this.
You can ask for funding for research staff. This will usually include two to three staff, but if you’re doing fieldwork or clinical studies in a low- or middle-income country, we’ll consider requests for more research staff.
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 carry out your proposed research, including:
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.
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.
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:
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:
You’ll need to specify the amount you’re requesting for each person.
You can also ask for 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, provided:
You can ask for up to £1,000 per person for each conference.
We provide travel and subsistence costs for you and any research staff employed on your grant for UK and overseas visits to collaborators, and for collaborators to visit your laboratory. You’ll need to justify each visit and its duration.
We will pay for other essential visits, for example 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.
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 or any research staff employed on your grant will be doing research away from your home laboratory, we'll help with the additional costs of working on the project overseas. Please see the 'Overseas allowances' section for details.
If you or any staff employed on your grant will be spending time in another country, we’ll help you with the additional costs of working on the project overseas.
Our overseas allowances are:
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 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.
This supplement is to help with start-up and relocation costs during your first year. You can be a citizen of any country (including the UK) but to be eligible you must be:
You can't ask for this supplement if you've already accepted an offer from your host organisation.
You can also apply for this supplement if you're planning to work at one of our Africa and Asia Programmes. When you apply:
You or your host organisation can ask for up to £500,000. We expect your host organisation to match the amount being requested. You should talk to your organisation about this.
We cover costs that aren't typically provided by this funding scheme, such as:
The matching contribution from your host organisation:
We don't cover costs that employers are usually responsible for, such as:
Please provide details of the costs you're asking for. Don't include the contribution from your host organisation.
Your sponsor's letter of support must confirm that your host organisation will match this amount.
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 from outside the UK, and your host organisation is in the UK, you're guaranteed an endorsement of a Tier 1 Global Talent visa application.
If you have team member(s) who will spend at least 50% of their working time contributing to the award, they may be eligible to apply for a Tier 1 visa through the endorsed funder route.
We don't fund overheads unless they're included on this page.
You must submit your application through the Wellcome Trust Grant Tracker (WTGT).
Start your applicationWe strongly encourage you to contact the relevant person in our Science team before you start the application process, particularly if you're unsure about your eligibility or if you're applying for more than five years of funding.
You can also get some tips to help you write a Wellcome grant application.
Complete the 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/BST) on the deadline day.
We'll let you know if you're not eligible.
One of the following expert review groups will review your application, depending on your area of research:
If successful, we will invite you for an interview. We'll give you at least two weeks' notice.
We'll seek written comments from external expert reviewers. Unattributed comments will be sent to you before your interview.
Due to COVID-19, we are not holding interviews at the moment. Candidates will be contacted with further details about the decision-making process.
If you are disabled or have a chronic health condition, we can support you with the application process.
What you need to know if you're a grant applicant or grantholder.
You must submit your application by 17:00 (GMT/BST) on the deadline day. We don’t accept late applications.
10 November 2020, 17:00 GMT
January 2021
Due to Covid-19, we may not be able to hold interviews. Candidates will be contacted with further details.
16 February 2021, 17:00 GMT (was 9 February)
April 2021
Due to Covid-19, we may not be able to hold interviews. Candidates will be contacted with further details.
This is the final round.
1 July 2021, 17:00 BST
September 2021
Due to Covid-19, we are not holding interviews. Candidates will be contacted with further details.
Find out about some of the people and projects we've funded for this scheme.
Log in to our online grants system (Grant Tracker). You can save your application and return to it any time.
We strongly encourage you to contact the relevant person in our Science team before you start the application process.
Contact our information officers if you have a general question about funding.
Read about the career journeys of some of our researchers.
As a world-renowned scientist, Liz had to navigate plenty of obstacles throughout her career – from getting support for early-stage research ideas to influencing international policy.
See our other schemes for researchers who are interested in leading a research programme.