Disability-related support for grantholders

We will supplement your grant for costs to help you carry out your project. You can ask for these costs if any of the following people working on your grant is disabled or has a long-term health condition:

• grantholder
• coapplicants and coinvestigators
• staff employed on your grant
• students who are fully funded by a Wellcome grant.

Costs you can ask for

Costs can include, but are not limited to:

• assistive technology to help use computers, research equipment or materials – for example, text to audio software
• additional costs for staff to help with day-to-day activities related to the project
• care costs for assistance animals if you need to travel.

We will not pay for capital or building costs, such as access ramps.

You can ask for these costs if your government and/or employer:

• does not cover any of the costs
• only covers some of the costs (if they do, we will only meet the shortfall).

The costs we provide must not replace the support you may get from the government or your organisation, who are responsible for providing these costs.

How to ask for these costs

You must complete and submit an Adjustment support form.

The form must only be completed by the person with the disability or long-term condition.

The form will ask you to provide:

• your grant reference number
• the cost of the item(s) or support you need
• details of any support you get from other sources, such as the government or your employing organisation
• a brief explanation for the amount you’re asking for.

If you need help to complete the form, email grantsinfodesk@wellcome.org or call +44 (0)20 7611 5757.

When you submit the form, we will send you an acknowledgement. We will then consider your request and let you know the decision.

How we handle 'special category personal data'

We will need your consent to store and use the health data you provide in the form, so that we can process your request for adjustment support.

Health data is ‘special category personal data’. We will:

• Treat your information confidentially and in accordance with data protection law requirements. If we make a payment, we will need to tell your employing organisation that we have paid this in relation to you having a disability/long-term condition, but we will not give them any details about your health.
• Keep your data in a secure, restricted-access location, with access limited to a restricted set of people at Wellcome, including your Grants Adviser, who need it to process your request.
• Delete the information if you ask us to. However, if we have already made a payment, we will need to keep some details that link you to the payment we've made, to explain why we’ve used our funds in this way.

Read our Grants Privacy and Confidentiality Statement for more information on how we collect, store and use personal information.

We can provide support to:

• complete progress reports and end-of-grant reports, for example by paying for a support worker
• report your research outcomes on Researchfish.

We can support you to attend meetings at Wellcome, for example by paying for a British Sign Language interpreter.

If you live in England, Scotland or Wales, you may be eligible for:

• Access to Work support

or

• Disabled Students’ Allowance if you’re a student.

Your employing organisation should make reasonable adjustments to accommodate your needs. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has more information about workplace adjustments.

If you’re employed outside the UK, your organisation may also offer support.  

Disabled: we use the Equality Act (2010) definition that defines disability as a ‘physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term negative effect on a person’s ability to do normal daily activities’.

A disability may or may not be obvious. There are many hidden disabilities, such as mental health conditions like depression, and physical disabilities that may not need mobility aids, like some autoimmune disorders.

Long-term health condition: is any medical condition that cannot currently be cured but can be managed with medication and/or other therapies. Examples include diabetes, osteoporosis and dementia.

These are different to acute conditions which usually have a finite duration.

• Flexible working – read about the opportunities we offer our researchers.
• Sick leave – find out what costs we’ll cover if you need to take sick leave.