This award funds long-term, integrated and potentially renewable programmes of exceptional science to drive forward a transformational change in how early cancers and pre-cancerous states are detected.
Applications are reviewed twice per year. Upcoming deadline: (outline applications) 11 September 2025
Up to 5 years
Up to £2.5m
Our core eligibility criteria are outlined below. Note that this scheme operates a closed round to ensure only eligible applications are submitted.
You must contact us for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal prior to submitting your application. We’ll advise on your eligibility and provide guidance on submitting your application.
Email early.detection@cancer.org.uk
You can apply to this award if you’re a scientist, clinician or healthcare worker based in a UK university, medical school, hospital or research institution.
You can hold this award if you’ve had funding from us before.
During the full duration of the award, you must be in a post that is fully funded by the relevant national Higher Education Funding Council, the National Health Service or equivalent.
We encourage applications from research teams, which can be located across different institutions in the UK. Supporting roles from international and commercial organisations may also be included as co-investigators and collaborators.
You must ensure that your host institution will provide sufficient space and access to resources to undertake the proposed research.
If you receive core funding from one of our institutes (including the Francis Crick Institute), you may apply as a joint lead applicant with a researcher based outside our institutes. However, you should explain why you require extra support in addition to the funding you receive from the institute and contact us before you apply.
You can submit applications for the same project to different funding bodies, including us. However, if successful, you may only accept one award. If applicable, please notify us and disclose this in your application under 'Other Funding'.
We may consider joint funding with other organisations. If you’re interested, please discuss this with us and the other potential funder before applying.
Career breaks (due to personal circumstances), part-time working and changes in discipline will be taken into consideration by our panels and committees to make appropriate adjustments when assessing your record of outputs, research achievements and career progression.
You can apply on a part-time or flexible working basis if this fits with the needs of your host institution and they approve your request.
If you’d like to apply on a part-time basis, please contact us before starting your application to discuss your proposed parameters for the award and how to include the part-time request in your application.
Our Early Detection and Diagnosis Programme Awards provide long-term support for broad, ambitious, multi-strand programmes where the various work streams coordinate and integrate to address a central theme, asking an interrelated set of questions. They aim to encourage the research community to think bigger.
Applications must demonstrate early detection/diagnosis relevance, consider a line-of-sight to clinical or population impact and clearly articulate the cancer-related question you’re focusing on.
The programme award will have defined objectives, but we don’t expect all questions to be conclusively answered within the tenure of the award. Parts of the programme may be a continuation of current activity; other elements should start new lines of enquiry.
Please ensure your proposal offers a well-structured programme of work deliverable within the time-frame. If building on previous work, the proposal must present how it develops, builds on and extends your previous research programme.
You can apply for a Programme Award in any number or combination of areas relevant to cancer early detection and diagnosis. The examples provided are not exhaustive:
the discovery and validation of signatures for the detection of early cancer/pre-cancer including the development of the technologies to enable this
development and validation of tests and other interventions to enable early detection and diagnosis
clinical trials of early detection and diagnosis technologies and approaches
early detection and diagnosis health systems
clinician behaviour and decision support
understanding and intervening in public behaviour to enhance early detection and diagnosis
health economics of early detection and diagnosis research
For more information on our strategic priorities, explore the following resources.
research focussing on late-stage disease and/or metastasis (except early detection of cancer recurrence)
research without line-of-sight to impact in early detection
infrastructure support to our clinical trials units or centres
Some programme concepts may straddle the remits of more than one funding committee.
If you are unsure which funding committee is most suited to your research proposal, please contact us and we can provide a recommendation. You can also search our funding schemes to explore other opportunities.
Applications are considered twice a year by the Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee, assisted by our Expert Review Panels and Patient and Public Review Panel.
The review process involves the following steps:
After contacting us for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal, you will receive access to the scheme and will be able to submit an outline application on Flexi-Grant.
After submitting an outline application on Flexi-Grant, your application will be considered by the Early Detection & Diagnosis Research Committee.
If successful, the committee will invite you to submit a full application for consideration at their next meeting. You should contact us to discuss any feedback and confirm your submission date. You may also defer the submission of a full application to the subsequent round.
Your full application will be considered by the Expert Review Panel and the Patient and Public Review Panel. You will have the opportunity to present your proposal, respond to peer review comments at interview with one of the Expert Review Panels, and answer any questions they may have. Our Patient and Public Review Panel will review your application regardless of the level of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) within the proposal. The panel will mainly focus on your lay summary, PPI plan including associated costs and study population, if applicable, and the proposed clinical/population impact of your work.
A final decision will be made at a second meeting of the Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee.
Learn more about how we make funding decisions
The Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee and Expert Review Panel will review your proposal based on relevance to our strategy, statement of intent and a set of standard criteria.
Programme applications should also articulate multiple interrelated strands of research which address a central theme. The committee will consider the added value of integration of these strands as a programme.
You can find more information on the criteria by which applications are reviewed on our committee pages.
The five-year rolling success rate (financial year 2020-2025) from application to funding for this scheme is 19%.
Learn more about the committee
We offer early- to mid-career researchers the opportunity to observe panel and committee meetings across our funding remit and prioritise giving this opportunity to researchers from underrepresented groups.
Find out more about eligibility and how to apply
We will provide feedback on your application, but all funding decisions are final. Committee members cannot discuss their decisions with applicants, so please do not approach them directly. This allows our committee members to keep the Code of Practice for Funding Committees, which keeps our review process fair and protects applicants, committee members and external reviewers.
Our review process is extremely important to us, so we reserve the right to decline applications from anyone who compromises its integrity. We do not accept resubmissions, unless recommended by the committee.
We consider applications for this award twice a year. This scheme requires an initial outline submission followed by a full application.
If your outline application is shortlisted, your full application will be reviewed in the subsequent funding round (for instance, an outline application submitted in autumn, will be reviewed in full in the spring committee meeting).
Outline applications due by: 11 September 2025
Full applications due by: deadline past
Interviews in: September 2025
Outline applications due by: 26 September 2026
Full applications due by: 22 January 2026
Interviews in: March 2026
You can apply for up to £2.5m for funding through this award. Funding lasts up to five years and can be used to fund postdoctoral researchers and technical staff, with associated running costs. You can also request equipment costing up to £50k. If equipment exceeds this value, please contact us to discuss your requirements.
Programme Awards cannot be used to fund part of an applicant's salary.
For more information on what is covered by our awards, view our costs and salary guidance.
We will consider funding for creating and using human tissue banks as part of the programme award, under the following circumstances:
No comparable tissue collection already exists and a clear early detection research question drives the need for the tissue collection to be generated.
The proposal includes not only funding for the generation of the infrastructural human tissue/linked data resource, but also to conduct an early detection research project which will use the tissue.
The tissue collection will be of value to the early detection community and you can demonstrate how it will be shared.
Existing technical infrastructure (eg storage facilities, robots etc) is being used as appropriate.
You have considered longer-term sustainability (eg cost recovery model).
Applicants must commit to making the tissue resource visible through the UKCRC tissue directory.
All applicants need to submit an outline application. If you’re successful at the outline stage, we’ll invite you to submit a full application.
Outline applications are required for both new and follow on Programme Award applications.
You must contact us for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal for us to determine your eligibility and discuss funding options.
Please reach out at least one month before the submission deadline.
We also advise you inform your host institution. Institutional approval is not required to complete submission at outline stage, but they will need to approve your application online if you are invited to submit a full application.
Email early.detection@cancer.org.uk
We recommend you also read additional guidance such as our costs guidance, grant conditions, and other policies to understand any other requirements before applying.
Read our research policies and guidance
You can manage your application and if successful, your grant, through our online grants management system, Flexi-Grant.
For both outline and full applications, one primary investigator must assume the responsibility of named lead applicant on the application.
The lead applicant must be able to demonstrate that they can lead the proposal and team effectively, be engaged throughout the duration of the award, as well as meet their other research commitments. The lead applicant assumes the responsibility of completing and submitting the application on Flexi-Grant.
In addition, the applicant team can include:
Joint lead applicant(s), if any: essential contributors who dedicate equal time and intellectual input as the lead applicant. Joint lead applicants must be added as supporting roles once the application is opened. The lead applicant and joint lead applicant(s) will be recognised with equal status.
Co-investigators: specialists who provide major scientific contributions and may lead specific aspects of the project (excludes postdoctoral research assistants funded by the grant)
Named research staff, if any: any named research staff who will be involved in your research (including postdoctoral research assistants funded by the grant)
Collaborators: key contributors not involved with daily operations but who provide crucial support such as research materials, specialised expertise or patient access
One administrative support contact (optional): assists with the application submission and completes the sections on the Association of Medical Research Charities and Costs.
The lead applicant must invite the joint lead applicants, co-investigators and named research staff to join the application on Flexi-Grant and provide an up-to-date CV and five-year publication history. Administrative support contacts must be invited, but do not need to provide a CV.
Collaborators should not be invited as a participant in your application. Their role should be explained in the research proposal, justification appendix and in their letter of support. More information about this can be found in the outline and full application sections below.
When including publications, please include a full author list (where this is unmanageable, for example for large consortium papers, you may list the first 12 authors followed by ‘et al.’ provided you denote your place in the author list, eg [Bloggs J, 15th of 65 authors]). Please also include the publication title, journal, publication year, volume number and either page numbers or digital object identifier.
ORCID does not pull through the list of authors, so these should be entered manually if using ORCID to generate your publication list. Also be sure to list any notable and relevant research outputs from your work such as preprints, training delivered, contribution to consortia, patents, key datasets, software, novel assays and reagents etc.
To clearly distinguish between peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed material, you should list your publications and research outputs in separate sections. Research outputs must be clearly labelled and must be in a citable format (eg including a digital object identifier).
As part of your outline application, you will need to provide the following information:
applicant information, career overview and research abstract, to be completed following the guidance available in Flexi-Grant
research proposal and accompanying uploads/supporting information such as narrative CVs (full list under ‘Additional Information’), to be completed following the guidance provided below
There is no template for this scheme, so please structure your research proposal as outlined below.
As a general guide:
Number all pages and do not exceed 2,500 words (excluding figures, figure legends and references).
Use single-line spaced text, in Calibri font, pt 11, black.
The last name and initials of the lead applicant should be included in the header or footer of all pages.
Where available, you should include preliminary data, figures and any unpublished research findings or methodologies supporting your research proposal.
Figures should be included in the main body of text rather than adding them as an appendix.
Datasets and pre-prints should be in a citable format (eg including a digital object identifier).
Do not upload unpublished manuscripts, ethical approval letters or applications, patient information or preliminary data as they will be removed from your application before review.
You should incorporate any preliminary data into your proposal instead.
If your outline is for a follow-on programme award, we encourage you to submit a cover letter to accompany your proposal to briefly articulate the context and outputs of your current programme. This will not count towards your research proposal but must not exceed two pages.
Briefly state the objectives of the proposed research. Include details of how these fit into the current research landscape, the significance of the results that may be obtained and their relevance to the early detection and diagnosis of cancer.
Provide an overview of the key aims and how these aims interrelate to form a coherent programme of research.
The purpose of this section is to clearly articulate how you will address your research aims (ie scientific methods). Please provide enough information to demonstrate why you consider your approach to be successful.
You should also indicate why you are the correct person to carry out this work and that you are based in an appropriate research environment.
State the expected major outputs from the proposed research, including an explanation of why this is important to us. Also include a description of your vision for future research which may lead on from this work and the relationship with your other funding.
Give details of the proposed research team including brief descriptions of their roles and their expected contributions.
Please note that only joint lead applicants should be invited and agree to participate in the application at Outline stage.
List the number and type of staff posts that will be requested, and the approximate annual cost. Please provide a ballpark figure for general and project specific running expenses and likely equipment requirements for the purposes of the outline application.
Information on eligible costs is available in our costs guidance.
This is not included in your word count.
Please reference your proposal appropriately, including authors, publication year, title, journal name, volume and page numbers. We don’t accept shortened references or the use of ‘et al.’
Number your references according to the order they appear in the text and list them in the Vancouver style, as detailed by the US National Library of Medicine.
If your proposal involves studies using people affected by cancer or members of the public, their samples or data, we encourage you to consider where this may add value to your research proposal and include a PPI plan.
At full application stage, you will either need to include a PPI plan or justify why you haven’t. More information on what to include as part of a PPI plan can be found under the full application guidance below.
You will be provided with a link to apply for your full application once you have completed the outline application and received an invitation from the committee to proceed.
Full applications must be approved online by your host institution.
As part of your full application, you will need to provide the following information:
applicant information, career overview and research abstract, to be completed following the guidance available in Flexi-Grant
research proposal and accompanying uploads/supporting information such as narrative CVs (full list under ‘Additional Information’), to be completed following the guidance provided below
As part of your research abstract, you’ll need to include a lay summary. Guidance for how to write this is also included below under ‘Additional Information’.
There is no template for this scheme, so please structure your research proposal as outlined below. As a general guide:
Do not exceed 7,000 words.
Word count excludes figures, figure legends, time charts, risk and mitigations plans, and references.
Use single-line spaced text, in Calibri font, pt 11, black.
Number all pages.
Include the last name and initials of the lead applicant in the header or footer of all pages.
If you have already received funding from us (a Programme Award, Programme Foundation Award or a Senior Cancer Research Fellowship), then you need to complete parts A, B and C of the proposal.
If you are a new applicant, you should only complete part C of the proposal.
Using up to 2,500 words, describe the major achievements of your current award with us.
Identify your research outputs, including all publications from your group during your current award, such as papers, datasets, software and codes, preprints and book chapters or reviews.
List your citations in chronological order, clearly highlighting which outputs result from work led by staff we fund compared with those arising from other collaborations.
Make sure to list all authors avoiding use of ‘et al’, bolding names of staff we’ve funded (past or present). Write ‘(CRUK/A###, or PRCNPG/XXXXX/XXXXXX) after citations for publications that have arisen with our support.
Clearly outline the hypothesis, objectives, and scope of your proposed work, including:
the scientific and clinical need for the proposed work and why it is necessary to test this hypothesis
the significance of your expected results, in particular, the relevance of your expected results to detection of cancer, for example potential future clinical applications or impact on policy and practice
Summarise relevant ongoing and published work related to your research proposal, including key achievements over the past five years. Where applicable, cite your relevant preprints or datasets, for example, using a unique digital object identifier.
Describe how you will use your knowledge and experience to address the goals and hypothesis of the proposed research project.
Please provide an overview of the key research themes to be addressed in the proposal.
We suggest you divide your research plan into objectives/workstreams. For each of these, please include:
the research question
experimental methods, techniques and analyses that you will use to test your hypothesis; refer to your own published work or indicate the availability of appropriate expertise for these methods - methodology should be described in sufficient detail for assessment by expert reviewers, including sample size calculations as appropriate
manuscripts in press or preprints to support your proposal, if applicable
Briefly describe the expected major achievements of your research.
Please provide information on the composition of the team of applicants and collaborators including:
whether this is a new or existing collaboration
each team member’s expertise and role in advancing specific aspects of the proposed programme
Please describe efforts to support and embed equality, diversity, and inclusion in the research environment.
Give details of the leadership structure and governance for the proposed work, including:
details of individuals and groups (ie leads and Steering Boards) and their roles and responsibilities, showcasing their capabilities, track record and expertise, leadership and international collaboration
decision-making processes and role of the governance structure in ensuring effective oversight and decision-making; include an organogram or schematic to illustrate
the proposed mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the programme progress
Please provide a table to indicate clear and well-defined milestones/deliverables at various points across the five years, against which progress can be evaluated, considering evaluation for annual reports. Please include a schematic to outline timescales of the research plan.
List potential logistic or scientific problems and suggest mitigations, solutions or alternative plans to overcome them.
State the expected research outputs of this proposal, including an explanation of why this is important to us and to patient/public health.
Include:
a description of your vision for future research proposals which may lead on from this work
a description of how the proposed work will leave a legacy beyond its research outputs, eg creation of findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable data sets, novel data tools, trained data scientists, cohorts of existing scientists newly engaged with cancer research or other resources/approaches that will benefit the wider international data-driven cancer research landscape
any processes for making the outputs including knowledge and expertise accessible to the scientific community and the public (this may form part of your data sharing plan, which is covered below)
Describe how the team will build sustainability into the award and if appropriate, the team itself, once the funding period ends (if further funding is not awarded).
Please reference your proposal appropriately, including authors, publication year, title, journal name, volume and page numbers. We don’t accept shortened references or the use of ‘et al.’
Number your references according to the order they appear in the text and list them in the Vancouver style, as detailed by the US National Library of Medicine.
As part of your application, you will be required to provide additional information and supplementary uploads as follows. We’ve highlighted where applicable to both outline and full, or just the full application in each section.
Outline application | Full application | |
|---|---|---|
Generative AI tools | X | X |
Early Detection and Diagnosis of Cancer Roadmap relevance | X | X |
Narrative CV | X | X |
Declaration of competing interests | X | X |
Reviewers | X | X |
Justification appendix | X | |
Letters of support | X | |
Patient and public involvement plan | X | |
Data sharing plan | X | |
Research declarations | X | |
Costs | X | |
Other funding | X | |
Association of Medical Research Charities full economic costing | X |
You will be directly asked to declare whether you have used any generative AI tools when completing the application form. If you have, you’ll then be asked to confirm compliance with our requirements on their use.
Read our policy on the use of generative AI tools
Our joint Early Detection and Diagnosis of Cancer roadmap aims to unite fragmented efforts across the UK to drive progress in early detection and diagnosis. If your proposal aligns with this roadmap, you’ll be asked to briefly explain how.
A narrative CV allows you to highlight your research achievements and contributions relevant to your application. You should also include your research outputs, such as preprints, training delivered, contribution to consortia, community outreach, patents, key datasets, software, novel assays and reagents.
Guidance on the types of activities you may include are provided below each question in the form template, but this is not exhaustive. You do not necessarily need to provide an example for every activity.
All lead and joint lead applicants named on the application will need to complete and upload their own narrative CV labelled with their name in the header or footer. Additionally, co-investigators requesting salary will also have to complete and upload a narrative CV.
Read our guidance on narrative CVs
Please use the template provided in Flexi-Grant and complete by following the instructions outlined in the document. This must be completed by all lead and joint lead applicants.
Read our conflicts of interest policy
You may nominate up to 10 reviewers who would be qualified to assess your application critically. You should not nominate individuals if you have had a close collaboration with them, or if you have published with them in the last three years.
You can also nominate referees to exclude from the review process, but please provide justification for the exclusion. We will decide on the final selection of reviewers and nominations must comply with our conflicts of interest policy.
Read our conflicts of interest policy
We encourage collaboration between academia and industry through our awards. Most UK host institutions will already have a technology transfer agreement in place with our commercial arm, Cancer Research Horizons. If not, our standard funding terms and conditions would apply. If you are working with a commercial collaborator, please contact the Cancer Research Horizons team before applying for a confidential discussion around intellectual property and technology transfer.
A formal agreement between academic and industrial partners is not needed to apply, but a letter of support from a relevant individual at the industrial partner organisation is. This letter should describe the nature of the collaboration and the industrial partner’s contribution, including funding and/or in-kind support such as data, samples, reagents, technology or expertise. If the grant is awarded, you will need to share an outline of the agreement between academic and industrial partners with our Cancer Research Horizons Team to receive funding.
Contact the Cancer Research Horizons team
If your application includes elements of AI or machine learning, you should ensure appropriate justification and detail is given.
Include a size and power analysis where possible or describe how these will be assessed after data collection.
Provide the list of features used for model training and outline a feature reduction strategy, if applicable.
Identify and address potential data biases where possible.
Describe any independent validation set you plan to use or provide a justification if one will not be used.
If using artificial neural networks, discuss their rationale and architecture; if not, outline alternative methods being considered and the criteria for their selection.
Describe how you split data for training and validation, and address any potential data imbalances, if applicable.
Outline your plans to assess and correct overfitting or underfitting, and define the metrics and criteria for evaluating performance.
For this award, you will need to submit a justification appendix. For details on how to complete this, please see the link below.
View our justification appendix guidance
Please upload statements of support on headed paper from:
the host institution of any joint lead applicants or co-investigators based at a different institution to the lead applicant
collaborator letters of support, outlining what specific expertise and skills they will contribute to the programme (should be a maximum of two pages each)
A separate text field is provided for you to describe a patient and public involvement (PPI) plan to explain how these add value to your proposal. If you are not including a PPI plan in your application, you must explain why and justify why it would not add value to your research.
Clearly outline your proposed PPI plan, its rationale and how it will add value to your research proposal. This could include how you’ll involve patients in the development of research questions, research planning and design, or evaluation and/or sharing of research findings. The approach you use should be relevant for the type of study and the research field, and you should explain your reasoning for the proposed approach (including who and how).
Be sure to include:
detail on specific methods to involve patients and the public, in all aspects of the project, such as focus groups, advisory boards or community forums
outline recruitment plans to engage diverse communities which define the specific roles of the individuals involved in your planned activities
how you are offering support, guidance and development opportunities where appropriate for those involved in your research
a detailed budget breakdown for planned PPI costs, ensuring they align with the level of involvement
Where it would add value, also consider involving key patient/public members as part of the study co-investigators and/or steering group.
There are differences between what we mean by participation, engagement and involvement. Please ensure you are using the correct term, relevant for your proposed study. Our PPI toolkit for researchers can help you implement PPI plans, including guidance around how to choose the right method, budgeting, recruiting, delivering and evaluating your activity.
Learn more about our PPI in research and access the toolkit
All applicants must provide a clear lay summary. This should not simply be an adaptation of the research abstract.
It should be written in clear and concise language that is understandable for the average UK reading age (9-11 years old).
As part of your lay summary you should include:
the study background, assuming the reader has no prior knowledge of the topic
the study aims and its importance
the scale of the current problem
an overview of how the study would be conducted
how the study will make a difference and what the expected immediate study outcomes are, including why the findings will enable change that provides longer term benefits for people affected by cancer
If relevant, also include:
the study population
how the study reduces health inequalities or inequities
how people affected by cancer and members of the public are involved in the delivery of the study
Where possible, involve patient/public members in drafting and reviewing the lay summary. Your host institution may provide support with writing lay summaries.
View our guidance on writing in plain English
View NIHR guidance on writing in plain English
Input from people affected by cancer and members of the public should be meaningful not tokenistic. And where possible, the people you plan to involve should have personal experience (including caring) that is relevant to your study question.
Please consider the number of people involved and their time commitment, ensuring that involvement does not burden them, especially patients who may be undergoing treatment.
You should consider the breadth and relevance of insight obtained, especially if your project is focused on a particular target population. Try to gather a diverse, wider view, and to address health inequalities where possible.
There may be barriers in identifying representatives from certain target populations, due to health or personal reasons. But you should try and find ways to mitigate or minimise these kinds of barriers to involvement to ensure your research is applicable to as broad a population as possible.
We require a data sharing plan for all funding applications to ensure that the data generated through our funding will be put to maximum use by the cancer research community and, whenever possible, be translated to deliver patient benefit.
Your plan should include how data resulting from this project will be made available as widely and freely as possible to the academic scientific community at the earliest opportunity, and to additional potential commercial partners through a controlled access mechanism, considering patient privacy, intellectual property rights and other applicable laws.
Detail the steps that will be taken to ensure that the data resulting from this project will adopt the FAIR principles of findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable data.
Provide details for when data collected and generated by the project will be made available: 1) how and when after generation will raw data be made available for research purposes; 2) how and when after analysis will processed data be made available for research purposes; 3) how and when after journal publication will analysed data and methods be made available for secondary research
Broadly describe the proposed ethics and patient consent statement (if relevant) for sharing and release (and withdrawal) of (de-identified) data that will align with the FAIR principles, including the potential future sharing for commercial use.
Describe how sharing of the data collected or generated under this project with commercial entities will be approached.
Define the planned process for enabling international data sharing (both within the investigator team, if relevant, and external to the team) and list the necessary contractual agreements that will need to be executed to deliver the proposed data sharing platform.
Describe the data standards and definitions that the investigator team plan to use for the project including how these align with existing data standards in the research community and how the investigator team will ensure that the standards are consistent to facilitate ease of sharing.
Describe the data governance and data architecture model (including diagrams as relevant).
Describe the future ambitions and processes for granting access to the data beyond the initial research team and research questions proposed in this application. Include how infrastructure will be created during the project to enable these ambitions and what the anticipated timeline is for broader access.
Learn more about the FAIR principles
In this section, you will be asked a series of questions about your proposed research, including whether you plan to conduct animal, human or human stem cell research and whether the appropriate approval has been granted. In addition, whether you anticipate that the proposed work will result in any output which can be translated to cancer patient benefit or otherwise commercialised.
If you plan to involve patients, patient tissue or patient information in your research, you’ll need to get ethical approval. You and your host institution are responsible for ensuring you comply with all legal requirements and ethics approval.
If you need to confirm funding arrangements before you can get ethical approval, we can make you a provisional offer of funding. However, funds may not be released until you’ve sent us written confirmation of ethical approval. Please bear this in mind when you propose a start date for your award.
If you need any other regulatory approval (eg sponsorship, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency approval, Clinical Trial Authorisation approval, insurance or indemnity arrangements, data protection registration, or honorary contracts with NHS Trusts and Trust R&D approval for sites that research is conducted), we may also need written confirmation before we release funding.
We will review this on a case-by-case basis.
You should provide the costs that you’re requesting from us as part of your award. Add these costs under the relevant headings and justify them in your justification appendix.
Note that we will apply indexation to your application costs according to our policy. In addition, any ineligible costs will be removed. If this is relevant, we will contact you. As a result, the final costs awarded through an official grant award letter may differ from those of the original costs requested.
In this section, you should list all non-Cancer Research UK current and pending research applications or awards held or jointly held by yourself.
Please include title, start and end dates, funding amount, funding body, type of award and whether it is current or pending. Also include a brief explanation of how this application will fit in with any current awards from us or other organisations that you hold. This helps the committee to understand the time commitment and scientific overlap with your other award(s) and the feasibility of holding our fellowship alongside.
You are permitted to submit parallel funding applications but must highlight this in your application.
As a member of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC), we monitor the full economic costs of the research we support. This means, you will need to complete an AMRC full economic costing information form as part of your application package.
full economics cost: please enter the total cost of your proposed research
charity contribution: please enter the total amount you’re requesting from us
Note that this information will not be reviewed as part of your final application.
Please contact us if you have questions about your eligibility, application or active award.
Dr Emily Friar, Research Grants Manager
Reasonable adjustments can be made throughout the grant application process. We do not require a formal diagnosis to access support.
Find out about our disability and accessibility support
Explore the resources, policies and other support we offer to help you understand how to apply for and manage your funding.
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