Scope
You can apply for academically led translational projects that aim to undertake a focused package of work that will bridge the gap between the inception of a new idea and substantive funding through schemes such as the MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme (DPFS) to:
- help prevent disease
- help improve speed and accuracy of diagnosis of disease
- develop new treatments for disease
- help to improve outcome monitoring of patients receiving treatment
- help to improve the management of diseases and conditions
All human diseases and medical interventions are eligible for support, both in the context of UK healthcare and addressing global health issues.
Your project should have already explored a new concept and generated some data in support of the approach. Your application should clearly articulate:
- the core concept of the project
- the critical gap that needs to be addressed
- an explanation of how the proposed plan will address this critical gap
- the challenges and issues involved in onward development
This fund will provide small scale funding to generate critical data needed prior to seeking more substantive funding. A non-exhaustive list of examples of the types of projects that could be supported include:
- elements of therapeutic discovery, quantification, and validation
- development of an initial prototype
- early prototype testing
- initial biomarker validation
- vector identification or optimisation
- hit expansion medicinal chemistry
In exceptional circumstances, you can submit follow on applications where you can justify the need for continued support. However, in most cases a positive outcome of the proposed work should be sufficient to allow submission of a longer and larger application, potentially to DPFS.
For more information on the background of this funding opportunity, go to the ‘Additional information’ section.
Applications from research organisations who are not recipients of an MRC Impact Accelerator Account (IAA) award may use this funding opportunity to apply for more preliminary studies. The scale and scope of the request should reflect a project more in line with earlier stages of research.
Applicants should highlight within the application that they are applying for an IAA-like project and that their research organisation does not provide this opportunity.
Activities we support
You can apply for funding for work on novel:
- new small molecule medicines
- vaccines for infectious or non-infectious disease
- biologics (antibodies, peptides, proteins)
- advanced therapeutics (for example, gene therapy, cell therapy, RNA therapy, nucleic acid therapy and T-cell therapy)
- complex medicines for example PROTACs, molecular glues and antibody-drug conjugates
- regenerative medicine approaches
- repurposing clinical studies or using existing therapies for new indications
- medical devices
- digital healthcare, app development or artificial intelligence
- diagnostics (including biomarker validation)
- medical imaging technology
- surgical techniques or tools
- behavioural and psychological interventions
- radiotherapy and radiation protocols
Activities we do not support
This funding opportunity will not support:
- fundamental or investigative research that is not linked to a product development plan (supported by the MRC science areas)
- clinical studies where the main aim is to investigate disease mechanism (supported by the MRC Experimental Medicine Panel)
- generation of preliminary concept data (supported by the MRC Impact Accelerator Accounts)
- pre-clinical safety and toxicology studies (supported by the MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme)
- early-phase clinical trials (supported by the MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme); note that clinical feasibility studies within the cost limits of the gap fund may be considered for gap funding. Contact the gap fund mailbox prior to submission)
- late-phase clinical trials (supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation and NIHR Health Technology Assessment programmes)
- interventions aiming to improve NHS service delivery (supported by NIHR)
- late-phase global health trials (supported by applied global health research board)
- same or similar applications that have previously been rejected by other MRC funding panels in the last 12 months
Duration
The duration of this award is between six and 18 months. Justification of the timescale and resources needed in the context of the proposed work needs to be provided and duration of request should reflect this.
Projects should start one to six months after the funding decision date.
Funding available
The full economic cost (FEC) of your project can be between £50,000 and £300,000.
We will provide funding at 80% of the FEC. If this limit is exceeded, your application will be rejected by the MRC during the initial checks stage.
What we will fund
You can request funding for costs such as:
- a contribution to the salary of the project lead and co-leads
- support for other posts such as research and technical staff
- research consumables
- equipment
- travel costs (conference attendance costs are not acceptable for this award)
- data preservation, data sharing and dissemination costs
- estates and indirect costs
You can also request costs for work to be undertaken at international organisations by international project co-leads. We will fund 100% of the FEC.
The total of such costs requested for international applicants from developed countries (those not on the OECD DAC List of ODA Recipients), India and China must not exceed 30% of the total resources requested.
There is no cap on costs requested for international applicants from DAC list countries.
For more information on international costs and what we will and will not fund see costs we fund-overseas and the Collaborate with Researchers in Norway guidance.
What we will not fund
We will not fund:
- costs for PhD studentships
- publication costs
- funding to use as a ‘bridge’ between grants
- costs associated with applying for IP protection, for example, patent filing
- conference costs
Team project partner
You may include team project partners that will support your research project through cash or in-kind contributions, such as:
- staff time
- access to equipment
- sites or facilities
- the provision of data
- software or materials
- recruitment of people as research participants
- providing samples, such as human tissue, for the project
Each project partner must provide a statement of support. If your application involves industry partners, they must provide additional information if the team project partner falls within the industry collaboration framework.
Find out more about subcontractors and dual roles.
Who cannot be included as a team project partner
Any individual included in your application with a core team role cannot also be a project partner.
Any organisation that employs a member of the application core team cannot be a project partner organisation; this includes other departments within the same organisation.
If you are collaborating with someone in your organisation, consider including them in the core team as project co-lead, or specialist. They cannot be a project partner.
Supporting skills and talent
We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.
Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I)
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is committed in ensuring that effective international collaboration in research and innovation takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks. Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I) is a UKRI work programme designed to help protect all those working in our thriving and collaborative international sector by enabling partnerships to be as open as possible, and as secure as necessary. Our TR&I Principles set out UKRI’s expectations of organisations funded by UKRI in relation to due diligence for international collaboration.
As such, applicants for UKRI funding may be asked to demonstrate how their proposed projects will comply with our approach and expectation towards TR&I, identifying potential risks and the relevant controls you will put in place to help proportionately reduce these risks.
Further guidance and information about TR&I, including where applicants can find additional support, can be found on UKRI’s website.
