Our mission is to transform understanding of life, health, and wellbeing through curiosity-driven research across a diverse range of perspectives and contexts.
The greatest advances in knowledge come from unexpected places, discovered by researchers who have the time and support they need to pursue new lines of investigation.
But 75% of researchers believe their creativity is being stifled, preventing them from making new breakthroughs.
We want to change this.
By funding ambitious, curiosity-driven research across a range of academic disciplines, we can give researchers from different backgrounds the resources they need to take on big questions and overcome barriers to progress.
Discovery research is our term for studies, across a breadth of disciplines, that lead to new knowledge and insights into life, health and wellbeing.
We have a long track record of funding curiosity-based ideas, which have led to important and unexpected advances.
For example, we:
In the search for these kinds of breakthroughs, we support a broad range of projects, from exploring the fundamental processes that underpin biology, to the development of new methodologies, clinical research, and the social, political, and cultural contexts of disease.
Discovery research is expansive, only limited by the imaginations of researchers, and the resources available to them.
At a time when many funders are moving away from supporting curiosity-based discovery, and towards projects with a nearer-term impact, we have made a bold commitment to support discovery research as one of the best ways to achieve significant shifts in our understanding of health, life, and wellbeing.
Our independence means we can fund research over a long period of time, even when the link to health impact is not immediately clear. By doing this, we can support researchers to produce a bedrock of new knowledge and research capabilities that can be used to address the health challenges of today – and of tomorrow.
"By focusing on discovery research, we want to enable researchers to be ambitious, take on difficult problems, and adopt creative and innovative approaches to push the boundaries of our understanding of life, health and wellbeing."
We fund transformative research across all fields and disciplines that generates new knowledge with the potential to improve health, life and wellbeing.
We support researchers with the resources, time and freedom to develop their skills and potential and investigate big questions.
Through our Discovery Research programme, we want to change the research ecosystem, optimising environments to provide the culture, tools, technology, methodologies and platforms needed for success.
We want to help break down silos, enabling collaborative and interdisciplinary research.
Dr Aimee Grant, Senior Lecturer in Public Health at Swansea University, tells us how her experience of autism and maternity care inspired her to research the topic, how it could improve autistic adults’ lives – and make healthcare more accessible.
The Human Cell Atlas aims to map all the cells in the human body. In what ways can these maps shape the future of our health? Learn more from Dr Sarah Teichmann and Prof Muzlifah Haniffa from the Human Cell Atlas Organising Committee.
Christiane Hertz-Fowler, our Head of Directed Activity, outlines what we mean by directed funding, the types of initiatives it supports and how it can drive major advances in research.
Learn about discovery research Wellcome is funding across the globe and why it’s key to our strategy
Bioimaging is vital to the future of health research, but there are barriers to access and progress in the field. Wellcome’s Marion Mercier, Stephen Gray and Luigi Martino explain what we are planning to do about it.
We prioritise research that has the potential to build and shape fields of enquiry, or open new ones, whether through a significant shift in understanding, or through the development of accessible new research tools, technologies, methodologies, and enabling platforms.
Pioneering discoveries are more likely to occur in creative environments between a diverse range of people, so we are working with partners and those we fund to support a thriving, inclusive research culture.
Current practices prioritise outputs over people’s wellbeing. We want to help build a better research culture – one that is creative, inclusive and honest.
Thank you to everyone who joined us online to learn how Wellcome Discovery Research funding can support research and researchers based in low- and middle-income countries around the world.
You can now watch the recordings of these sessions.
We encourage researchers to apply for our Discovery Research funding awards, which include dedicated schemes for early-career and mid-career researchers.
We also offer directed funding to tackle 'big questions' that require sizeable focus and make field-building investments in areas where open response activities are not sufficient to make progress.
Discovery Research funding is available across three awards for researchers at various stages of their careers:
This award supports researchers to establish their independence and trajectory in discovery research.
Wellcome Career Development Awards
For mid-career researchers who are ready to lead a substantial, innovative research programme and achieve international standing.
This award supports established researchers and teams.
For a more detailed description of what projects we will and won’t provide funding for, visit our remit page for Discovery Research.
We also invite organisations to apply for contract opportunities that support our mission.
Wellcome is an independent charitable foundation. To find out where we get our grant funding from, visit our investments page.
Head of Discovery Researchers
Wellcome
Head of Early Career and Career Development Researchers
Wellcome
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Perspectives on and experiences of research culture, based on a survey of more than 4,000 researchers in the UK and globally.
