Funding Directory

This NIHR Public Health Research funding call is seeking a single UK-based research consortium to explore how local climate change adaptation efforts affect health and health inequalities. With up to £2.5 million available over 3–5 years, the funded work will evaluate local government-led interventions (excluding health sector-specific actions) and generate evidence, best-practice recommendations, and real-world solutions. The goal is to support effective, inclusive climate adaptation that addresses the wider determinants of health and reduces health disparities.

The Nature Awards Healthspan Accelerator, in partnership with Voyager, helps researchers turn discoveries into real-world healthspan solutions. In 2025, it focuses on metabolism, senescent cells, neurodegeneration, and inflammation. Priorities include therapies, devices, and tools that improve ageing biomarkers, metabolic health, and cognition. Validated solutions are especially encouraged.

The NIHR is funding a multicentre cluster randomised trial (£1,996,829; Jan 2024–May 2027) to evaluate a primary care training and support programme for the secondary prevention of domestic violence and abuse. The study will assess the intervention’s effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, providing robust evidence to inform responses to serious violence.

PHR Call 2025/340 invites a single research consortium to conduct a 3–5 year programme evaluating the impact of local climate change adaptation on health and health inequalities. Backed by NIHR’s focus on climate, health, and sustainability, the research will assess how local and regional government actions to adapt to climate risks affect population health, particularly in vulnerable communities. The programme should generate real-world, scalable solutions and best-practice recommendations to support equitable local adaptation. Multidisciplinary UK-based consortia can apply for up to £2.5 million, with a two-stage application process via NIHR’s online system.

The NIHR Public Health Research (PHR) Rapid Funding Scheme supports urgent, small-scale baseline data collection or feasibility studies for non-NHS public health interventions. Aimed at time-sensitive opportunities like natural experiments, projects must demonstrate urgency, align with PHR goals, and lead to a full evaluation proposal with potential to inform public health policy.

The NIHR HTA Call 2025/375 invites proposals evaluating the clinical and cost-effectiveness of ambulance service led interventions, including those delivered by air ambulance teams. Interventions should be managed by professionals such as paramedics or urgent care clinicians, with applications encouraged across a wide range of urgent, emergency, and critical care settings.

The NIHR HTA Call 2025/375 invites proposals evaluating the clinical and cost-effectiveness of ambulance service led interventions. Areas of interest include pain management, falls, mental health, infection control, palliative care, maternity, and safe non-conveyance. Studies must focus on patient-centred outcomes, not service delivery or implementation issues.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) supports discrete, well-defined projects in any area of cancer research using the National Institutes of Health R03 small grant mechanism. The National Institutes of Health R03 small grant mechanism supports discrete, well-defined projects that realistically can be completed in two years and that require limited levels of funding. Examples of the types of projects that the R03 grant mechanism include, but are not limited to, the following:  Pilot or feasibility studies.Secondary analysis of existing data.Small, self-contained research projects.Development of research methodology.Development of new research technology.

This funding call is aimed at clinical health professionals who are seeking to undertake research to establish or develop a research career and who have the potential to be research leaders of the future. Research should increase understanding of the disease mechanisms underlying cancer pain, particularly leading to better understanding of prevention, treatment or management of cancer pain.

The funding is intended to support partnership proposals spanning arts, health, social care, nature, environment, and the third sectors. Eligible projects should address health challenges and priorities, encompassing areas such as nature, mental health, health inequalities, physical wellbeing, and staff wellbeing within healthcare and the arts sector.

Seed funding to support innovative, high-risk, high-reward research with the potential to transform outcomes for people affected by pancreatic cancer.

Funding for high-quality applied health and social care research to increase and improve the evidence base about early action and prevention with health and social care services. Improving the population's health, either by preventing illness or identifying the cause of ill health at an early stage, is a key focus to reducing health inequalities and is at the heart of the NHS Long Term Plan.

The NIHR Team Science Award is an annual development award for research teams who are looking to collaborate on a future application to other research programmes, expand their research network, and develop research capacity.

The Dame Josephine Barnes Bursary from POGP supports educational and research efforts in pelvic, obstetric, and gynaecological physiotherapy. It can fund courses, international travel to promote women’s health, or serve as seed funding for Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) in research. Open to UK-based applicants and international initiatives.

Friends for an Earlier Breast Cancer Test (Earlier.org) is a US-based non-profit organisation, established in 1995, that is dedicated exclusively to funding research focused on developing innovative methods for the earlier detection of breast cancer. Its mission is to support the creation of a biological test capable of identifying breast cancer at its earliest stages, potentially even before a tumour has formed. Earlier.org provides funding to support pilot projects that explore new techniques for early breast cancer detection. Grants are intended to provide preliminary data that can lead to more substantial peer-reviewed funding.

Funding to establish challenge-led MRC Centres of Research Excellence (CoRE) to tackle complex and interdisciplinary health challenges and train the next generation of researchers and technologists.

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) invites mechanistic research that aims to understand how and why expectancy effects occur in a cancer context, elucidate their role in cancer symptom management, and identify patients, symptoms, cancer sites and contexts in which expectancy effects can be leveraged to improve cancer outcomes. Expectancies are defined in this context as beliefs about future outcomes, including one's response to cancer or cancer treatment. Expectancies can be evoked by social, psychological, environmental and systemic factors. Expectancy effects are the cognitive, behavioural and biological outcomes caused by expectancies. Expectancy effects can be generated by expectancies held by patients, clinicians, family members, caregivers and/or dyadic/social networks.

Wellcome's Doctoral Programmes for Healthcare Professionals initiative funds doctoral programmes to deliver outstanding training in discovery research to registered healthcare professionals in the UK.

Breast Cancer UK is offering funding for projects exploring the relationship between all environmental contaminants that and breast cancer risk. Two avenues of award are available: Career Development Awards (fka Foundation Awards) will support early career researchers (ECRs) working in breast cancer prevention. Applications should focus on environmental contaminants (known or suspected) and breast cancer risk. Alongside the proposed funding for research, Breast Cancer UK will also offer an optional career coaching programme for the duration of the grant. Seed Grants are focused on chemicals and breast cancer risk. Funding can be applied flexibly and can be utilised as a top-up for a project close to completion, to obtain a specific piece of equipment, or to fund a pilot project focused on chemicals and breast cancer risk.

Funding to support projects led by practitioners in local authorities, care providers and community/voluntary organisations. Practitioners will partner with researchers to carry out evaluative projects that test new approaches, frameworks and ideas in their organisations.

The Small Research Grant (R03) programme will support meritorious projects to provide needed scientific insight to improve the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and/or care for individuals with Alzheimer's disease and Alzheimer's disease-related dementias (AD/ADRD).

The Oxford–Harrington Rare Disease Scholar Award supports UK-based researchers advancing rare disease discoveries towards clinical impact. Scholars receive £100,000, tailored drug development expertise, and project support. Offered by the Oxford–Harrington Rare Disease Centre, the award also provides access to further funding while allowing researchers to retain full intellectual property rights.

This opportunity is provided by the Oxford-Harrington Rare Disease Centre (OHC), a partnership between the University of Oxford and Harrington Discovery Institute to advance promising discoveries from academic labs to move them into clinical practice. The award combines funding and expert therapeutics development support to help researchers in the UK, US, or Canada to accelerate preclinical projects towards treatments for patients.

The NIHR Work and Health Research Awards support large-scale, ambitious projects addressing key priorities in work and occupational health. Up to £2 million over three years is available for transdisciplinary teams. Applicants should consult the NIHR Work and Health Logic Model to align proposals with the initiative’s short- and long-term aims.

Funding to generate critical preliminary data to build confidence in the development strategy for a new medicine, repurposed medicine, medical device, diagnostic test or other medical intervention development. This fund will provide small scale funding to generate critical data needed prior to seeking more substantive funding.

The NIHR Work and Health Research Awards fund large, cross-disciplinary projects tackling key issues like long-term conditions, disability, sickness absence, COVID-19 impact, workforce mental health, and health inequalities. Aimed at improving employment and health outcomes, proposals should involve cross-sector teams, support implementation in systems like ICSs, and deliver public benefit.

The NIHR Decarbonising the Health and Social Care System funding opportunity will run annually for a period of five years (2024 to 2028), with total funding of £25 million. The aim is to fund research into decarbonising the health and social care system as part of NIHR's climate health and sustainability commitments to help reduce carbon emissions and achieve net zero.

Wellcome's Genomics in Context Awards - Collaborative Research at the Intersection of Genomics, Humanities, Social Sciences and Bioethics scheme will fund transdisciplinary teams to drive research breakthroughs at the crossroads of genomics, humanities, social sciences and bioethics. Supported projects will receive dedicated time and resources to shape fresh research directions and experiment with novel approaches to collaboration. This scheme is expected to open in November 2025.

FSHI's Research Grant Development Awards provide pump-priming funds for the development of high-quality, innovative research in areas of the sociology of health and illness. Grants are intended to support groups to produce substantive outputs in the form of a full grant application to a major national or international funding body and, where appropriate, publications in peer-reviewed journals.

This initiative encourages applications from organisations operating in Wales that have the potential to increase and sustain co-operation with important international regions. This may include relevant bi-lateral agreements or a relevant and specific Welsh Government strategy.

This NIHR Public Health Research call invites proposals evaluating public mental health interventions to promote wellbeing or prevent mental ill-health in men. It emphasises a life‑course approach, targets health inequalities, encourages community‑level initiatives, and demands economic evaluation and involvement of people with lived experience.

This NIHR funding supports research into community-based interventions to improve veterans’ mental and physical health. It should address challenges of transition, stigma, and access through population-level approaches such as housing, employment, and coordinated care. Robust outcomes, economic evaluation, and stakeholder engagement are essential to inform policy and enhance holistic care.

The Foundation's Conference Awards for Ageing Research support allied health professionals, nurses and pharmacists who are actively involved in ageing-related research and wish to disseminate their findings at national or international conferences. The aim is to support early career researchers who do not have access to conference funds through existing grants or fellowships.

The NIAAA invites applications for research projects focused on closing the treatment gap for alcohol use disorder (AUD). Priorities include improving access, appeal, and implementation of treatments, analysing cost and insurance systems, and addressing health disparities. Projects may span multiple disciplines, with up to five years’ funding.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) intends to stimulate research in discovery and development of novel, small molecules for cancer. Molecules discovered may be used to probe cancer biology, to validate cancer targets or as the basis for optimised drugs.

This funding opportunity supports developing data and metadata standards for wearable technology to improve mental health research. Recipients will collaborate with manufacturers, researchers, and ethics experts to enable data integration, like DICOM for imaging. Funding depends on NIH budgets; projects may last up to four years with no budget cap.

Through this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is inviting research projects that implement early phase (Phase 0, I and II) investigator-initiated clinical trials focused on cancer-targeted diagnostic and therapeutic interventions of direct relevance to the research mission of NCI's Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD) and Office of HIV and AIDS Malignancies (OHAM).  The proposed project must involve at least one clinical trial related to the scientific interests of one or more of the following research programs: Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program, Cancer Imaging Program, Cancer Diagnosis Program, Radiation Research Program, Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program, and/or the HIV and AIDS Malignancies Research Programs. 

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) encourages grant applications from investigators interested in conducting basic research studies into the biological/genetic causes and mechanisms of cancer health disparities. The overall goal of this NOFO is to identify cancer risks and risk reduction strategies, to identify factors that cause cancer in humans, and to discover and develop mechanisms for cancer prevention and preventive interventions in humans.

This funding opportunity supports clinical trials of orphan products (phases 1–3) for rare diseases with unmet medical needs. It aims to evaluate safety and/or efficacy to support new indications or labeling changes, ultimately increasing approved treatments and advancing innovative, collaborative approaches in rare disease drug development.