Small Grants fund programmes of activities that enable researchers to build professional networks, develop new research agendas and increase the impact of their work.
You can apply for a Small Grant if you're a humanities or social science researcher with a compelling research vision and you want to do one or more of the following:
You must have a PhD or equivalent and the relevant experience to deliver a programme of activities.
You must be based at a university or other research organisation in the UK, Republic of Ireland or a low- or middle-income country.
You must propose a programme of events or activities, not one-off events or activities.
The programme could include a combination of different activities. Typical activities are likely to include organising conferences, seminars, meetings or workshops, and any research related to delivering these.
Your activities should bring together people who are relevant to your research, such as academics, policy makers and/or healthcare practitioners.
Read about the grants we've awarded and the research we support in the humanities and social sciences.
You can't apply if you want to:
A Small Grant is usually up to £30,000. Grants usually last for six to twelve months but the duration can be flexible, eg for a series of annual conferences.
You should ask for a level and duration of funding that's justifiable for your proposed activities.
Support can include:
You can ask for salary costs for yourself and any staff, full or part time, who will work on your project, provided:
Staff members normally include research assistants employed on your grant. If you’re doing fieldwork or clinical studies in a low- or middle-income country, we’ll consider requests for more research staff.
You will need to be able to justify these costs.
We will pay for the materials and consumables you need to carry out your proposed research, including:
You can ask for travel and subsistence costs to cover:
You’ll need to justify each visit and its duration.
If you or any staff employed on your grant will be doing research away from your host organisation, you can ask for:
You should use the most suitable and economical form of travel. Please include a breakdown for each part of your trip eg air fares and number of journeys.
If you're working overseas or away from your host organisation 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.
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.
You can ask for a contribution towards the cost of hosting:
The meeting should either be:
The meeting can be held in:
Costs can include:
We don't fund overheads.
This scheme is now closed.
Complete your application 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.
Wellcome staff review applications on a regular basis. There are no interviews. We aim to give you a decision within 18 weeks of receiving your application. In most cases, feedback won’t be provided to unsuccessful applicants.
If you are disabled or have a chronic health condition, we can support you with the application process.
2 April 2019, 17:00 BST
May 2019
This is the final round of Small Grants in Humanities and Social Science.
11 July 2019, 17:00 BST
August 2019
Find out about some of the people and projects we've funded for this scheme.
Contact our information officers if you have a question about funding.
If you have a question about the research content or scope of your proposal, email hss@wellcome.org.
Read about the career journeys of some of our researchers.
Few careers are straightforward. Lucy took two years' break from academia, changed disciplines to return – and became a new parent just as she started her postdoc.