How Wellcome assesses funding applications

This guide provides details of the different stages we may use to assess your funding application for our open calls and schemes. However, all funding opportunities vary. Our funding pages have more specific information about how applications are assessed – including information about eligibility and assessment criteria.

We will first check your eligibility for the funding opportunity (for example, based on your location or career stage). If your application is ineligible, we will withdraw your application and contact you to explain why.

Some funding opportunities include a preliminary application stage. Preliminary applications will be reviewed by our team to check they meet key requirements. Those that do will be invited to submit a full application.

Full applications may be assessed by an external advisory committee. The external advisory committee scores your application against assessment criteria specific to each funding scheme or call.

Our Strategic Programme teams use this information to select the final shortlist of applications. In some instances, we may apply positive action.

At this stage, you will be informed whether your proposal has been selected for the shortlist.

For some funding schemes or calls (for example, our Discovery Research schemes), we send shortlisted applications for an additional written review by external experts.

Wellcome staff select external reviewers for their close subject-matter knowledge of the research and/or techniques proposed.

The written reviews are shared with the external advisory committees and with applicants.

An external advisory committee conducts a final review of your application and any expert written reviews. At this stage, you may be invited for an in-person interview with the external advisory committee.

Interviews consist of two main parts:

1. Presentation – 10 minutes

   You will be asked to prepare a short presentation about your application. The content of your presentation is up to you, but the committee may find it useful if you specifically reference the key elements of the assessment criteria for the scheme, which are outlined on the relevant scheme page. You may wish to address the written reviewers’ comments and provide any updates on developments since your initial submission. 
   
   Your presentation slides will need to be submitted before the interview. 

2. Questions – 20 minutes

   After your presentation, the external advisory committee will have 20 minutes to ask you questions about your application.
   
   Typically, two members of the committee are assigned to lead the interview, but all members will have the opportunity to ask questions. For Mental Health funding applications, a lived experience expert will serve as the third lead reviewer. 

We will let you know the date and time of your interview about a month in advance. We will make any required accessibility adjustments for the interview. We can also accommodate online interviews or online committee members.

Each committee member will score your application privately to avoid bias. Their scores are then collated by Wellcome staff to provide a final ranking of your application.

Every funding scheme or call will have its own assessment criteria. For example, Early-Career Awards, Career Development Awards and Discovery Awards score:  

• Your skills and experience (25%)
• Your project (50%)
• Your proposed plan to foster a positive and inclusive Research Environment (25%)

For Mental Health funding interviews, the scoring criteria also include your plans to involve lived experience experts as part of your research.

The external advisory committees provide a ranked list of applications that they consider to be fundable according to the assessment criteria for the funding scheme or call.  

Wellcome staff will then use this to make the final funding decisions, considering the budget available and any strategic priorities.

Once the final decisions have been made, our funding managers will contact you within two days with the final decision about your application: 

• If you are successful, we will inform you of your award offer and confirm the costs you have requested in your proposal. A few weeks after these checks are complete, we will issue your award letter.
• If you are not successful, you will receive an outcome letter a few weeks after being informed of the decision. We will include the key points from the committee’s discussion and the reasons for the decision.