Discovery research
Discovery research leads to new insights into our life, health and wellbeing. Researchers from any background have the freedom and flexibility to ask bold and creative questions that will improve our health.
What we do
Wellcome improves health for everyone by funding research, leading policy and advocacy campaigns, and building global partnerships.
Collaborative research that involves a diverse range of people from different fields of interest is key to progress in health science – and to achieving our aim of fostering a healthier, happier, world.
But many researchers feel they lack the time, finances, and creative environments they need to make breakthroughs.
That’s why we’re committed to funding ambitious global research projects that will transform our understanding of life, health, and wellbeing.
Programmes
Plus, we’re taking on the biggest health challenges facing humanity – climate and health, infectious disease, and mental health – to find urgent solutions and accelerate preventions.
Climate and health
Our vision is a world in which climate change does not harm health in the communities it affects most.
Infectious disease
Our vision is a world in which escalating infectious diseases are under control in the communities most affected.
Mental health
Our vision is a world in which no one is held back by mental health problems.
How we're doing it
We’re spending £16 billion by 2032 on projects across a range of academic disciplines – including physical and social sciences, and the humanities – to ensure researchers have what they need to be ambitious, creative, and make new discoveries.
As a global charitable foundation, we want researchers worldwide to engage with us, partner with us, and apply for funding for pioneering projects that will help to solve the most pressing health challenges facing humanity.
We use the evidence from research we fund to persuade policy makers – as well as commercial, charitable, and non-governmental organisations around the world – to keep human health at the heart of key decisions.
Policy and advocacy
We bring together people and resources from across society to get the most out of research.
Health research should be open to anyone with a great idea, so we’re actively working to remove barriers people may face, and to support a diverse and inclusive research environment.
Research environment: people, culture and openness
Research to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone depends on thriving research environments that are open, engaged, equitable, ethical and efficient.
Diversity and inclusion: helping more ideas thrive
We want to make sure that in everything we do, the broadest possible range of people contribute to, and benefit from, science's potential to change the world.
We also make it easier and more equitable for data scientists globally to innovate with health data.
Our work so far
We want researchers worldwide to apply for funding for pioneering projects that will help to solve the most pressing health challenges facing humanity. Activities we have supported include:
Supported the formation of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations
CEPI helps fill critical gaps in vaccine funding and research, which was essential to the quick and effective rollout of Covid-19 vaccines globally.
Supported the discovery of single cell sequencing
Led to the creation of the Human Cell Atlas (HCA) - an international consortium that charts the cell types in a healthy body from development, through adulthood, to old age.
Funded Cambridge study on same sex parenting
The evidence generated by the Centre of Family Research project was used to campaign for same-sex marriage in the United States.
