Graduate development programme

The Corporate Affairs team brings together Wellcome’s strengths in public engagement and communications to advance trust, influence and reputation in service of the health challenges and discovery research, so Wellcome creates lasting social impact and behaviour change.

Corporate Affairs teams:

• The Communications team shapes Wellcome’s reputation, brand and influence with both internal and external audiences.
• The Public Engagement and Campaigns team focuses on building trust, social impact and behaviour change, with target audiences important to our vision and ambitions.
• The Planning and Insight team ensures that all the other teams in Corporate Affairs (and beyond) work effectively together to deliver Wellcome’s shared objectives.

The Digital and Technology (D&T) team is here to ensure we have the digital services, products, data, and technology all wrapped up in great support service and experience needed for the organisation to be able to deliver its strategic vision and ambitions. 

Digital and Technology teams:

• The Digital and Data team will develop a data strategy for Wellcome and provide expertise around digital and data delivery.
• The Technology team develops and manages the strategic and long-term objectives of the Technology function that meet the needs of Wellcome and the delivery of our strategy​. 
• The Experience Design team is responsible for delivering products and services for our users that are user-friendly and solve business and user problems. 
• The Information Security team continues to develop the tools, training and automation required to increase information security across Wellcome.
• The Strategy and Governance team is responsible for coordinating the work and activities needed to implement D&T’s strategy in support of Wellcome’s strategy and vision.

The Finance team provides expertise in areas of finance, risk, procurement, control and general business management, to enable informed decision-making and high-quality delivery of organisational goals across Wellcome.

Finance teams:

• The Commercial Finance and Planning and Analysis team provide business partnering across the organisation to enable effective decision making, manage the financial planning process as well as producing analysis and reporting for the Executive Leadership team, the Board of Governors and to each area of the organisation.
• The Risk team has responsibility for monitoring risk in Wellcome’s investment portfolio and providing oversight of the risk environment across the whole of Wellcome, in line with our strategic ambitions.
• The Financial Accounting team ensures we manage our accounting and payments processes effectively and efficiently, play a huge role in producing the annual report and financial statements and work closely with the Investments team.
• The Procurement team are responsible for ensuring we have appropriate procurement policies and procedures in place and for helping the organisation navigate these.
• The Tax team have two main functions: to ensure compliance with our tax obligations and to provide expert input into business decisions or activities supporting both the Investments team and the rest of Wellcome whenever needed.

The Legal team’s purpose is to support the delivery of the new strategy with creative legal solutions, ensuring Wellcome complies fully with its legal, ethical, and regulatory obligations and upholds high standards of governance, ethics and conduct.

Legal teams:

• The Investments Legal team will continue to offer high-quality legal and transactional support to the Investments division, in collaboration with Finance and Tax colleagues.
• The Ethics, Governance and Compliance team is here to ensure we comply with all relevant legal and regulatory requirements, uphold high standards of governance, and to work across Wellcome and beyond to ensure that we all focus on how we do things and not just what we do.

The operations team is here to support Wellcome’s vision through a range of functions: research funding, finance, legal, digital and technology, risk and the central team. It is also about the extensive operations that deliver our free museum and library, which aim to challenge how we all think and feel about health.

Operations teams:

• The International Operations team supports the successful delivery of, and effective cross-Wellcome coordination on, Wellcome’s international programmes, working with colleagues in Research Programmes and beyond.
• The Internal Audit team provide risk-based assurance to both Executive management and the Board of Governors via the Audit and Risk Committee across all aspects of Wellcome activities.
• The Central team provides effective support to the Director and Chair, including delivery of secretariat functions to the Board of Governors, Executive Leadership team and its subgroups.
• Wellcome Collection is Wellcome’s free museum about health and being human. Its vision is to be a place that challenges the ways people think and feel about health by connecting science, medicine, life and art.

The delivery of our new strategy is fundamentally dependent on the skills, wellbeing and motivation of our people. We know we can’t hope to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone without investing in our people.

People teams:

• The Culture, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion team brings direction, accountability, expertise and support to our journey to become an inclusive employer and funder, and build an internal culture that supports our people and drives behaviours that further our mission.
• The Environment and Workplace Services team provides specialist, person-centred expertise to Wellcome and our partners in our buildings, global events and global travel.
• The People Operations team provides expertise and guidance on all people and employment matters.
• The People Strategy and Transformation team enables the organisation to connect so that complex team and organisation-wide people projects and major BAU (business as usual) are implemented effectively, reflecting lessons we’ve learned from past initiatives.
• The Reward and Wellbeing team contributes to the attraction and retention of the talent needed to deliver our strategy by making Wellcome a great place to work. We create, implement and manage inclusive, coherent, competitive, market-facing, fit-for-purpose and equitable compensation, benefits, health, safety and wellbeing strategies.
• The Talent team focuses on recruitment, development and performance within a culture that is owned by everyone.

Research Funding (previously called Grants) enables, supports and manages all of the funding operations for Wellcome.

Research Funding teams:

• The Funding Management team comprises our teams of grants advisors. They manage and deliver the end-to-end grants application and award process.
• The Funding Operations and Governance team provides the underlying operational and governance framework for Wellcome’s funding activities.
• The Funding Logistics team provides specialised support for discovery research and the health challenge programmes in their directed and discretionary funding and implementation of funding calls.

Research, in all its forms, is central to Wellcome’s vision to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone.

To this end we fund discovery research across a wide range of disciplines, with the intention of coming to understand life, health and wellbeing at their deepest levels. We also support research, resources and innovation across three health challenges: mental health, the health impact of climate change and infectious diseases.

Research Programmes teams:

• The Discovery Research team brings together open mode and directed funding to achieve significant shifts in our understanding of life, health and wellbeing – both through research and through the generation of new tools.
• The Climate and Health team bring together a wide range of activities to achieve the long-term vision that climate change does not harm health in the most affected communities, while keeping the needs of these communities at the heart of the programme.
• The Mental Health team brings together a wide range of activities to achieve the long-term vision of a world in which no one is held back by mental health problems. The team’s mission is to find better ways to prevent and treat anxiety, depression and psychosis globally.
• The Infectious Disease team bring together a wide range of activities to achieve the long-term vision of a world in which escalating infectious diseases are under control in the communities most affected.
• The Translation and Portfolio Integration team coordinate translation support for discovery research and the three health challenges and ensure that the four programmes form an integrated portfolio in line with Wellcome’s vision and ambitions.
• The Data for Science and Health team support trustworthy data science that transforms how science solves health challenges and makes discoveries.
• The Research Environment team leads Wellcome’s coordinated activities to shape the research environment in pursuit of Wellcome’s vision and ambitions.

The Strategy team’s job is to help all of Wellcome to set and implement an inspiring strategy, to work across Wellcome to develop and champion the ambitious changes we want to see in the world, and to build the partnerships we need to deliver this.

Strategy teams:

• The Strategy and Programme Office helps to implement Wellcome’s strategy, set our future direction and priorities, and understand whether we are achieving the long-term impact that we want as an organisation.
• The Transition and Legacy team leads Wellcome’s work to close the areas of funding and direct activities that don’t fit with our new strategy.
• The Policy team leads Wellcome’s efforts to set our influence priorities for decision-makers on each of the health challenges and discovery research programmes and develop our arguments and act as expert advocates to deliver these goals.
• The Government Relations and Strategic Partnerships team leads Wellcome’s efforts to establish and deepen its strategic partnerships and influence key organisations who can help us to deliver our mission.