Contract opportunities
Find out about contract opportunities to support Wellcome's mission to improve human health – including an overview of each project, who can apply and how.
At Wellcome, we invite organisations to apply for contract opportunities that support our mission to fund discovery research and find solutions to three worldwide health challenges: mental health, infectious disease and climate.
We spend millions each year across a range of goods and services, including professional services, media commissions, landscape reports, research reports, equipment, software and outsourced service providers.
Here, you can find all our requests for proposals (RFPs) – including an overview of each project, who can apply and how.
Expand below to view the details of each project.
Climate and Health RFPs
The Strategic Partnerships team is seeking an individual consultant to provide dedicated expertise on Climate and Health partnerships work as well as support Wellcome’s wider Strategic Partnerships function.
Eligibility: Individual consultant with partnerships expertise and strong understanding of the climate and health research ecosystem
Initial Response Deadline: 7 July 2022
Discovery Research RFPs
There are currently no RFPs for Discovery Research.
Infectious Disease RFPs
Wellcome is seeking a supplier to determine how human infection study data can be best utilised within the vaccine regulatory licensure pathway – building on previously commissioned research – to accelerate development of vaccines for people in areas that are disproportionately affected and most vulnerable to future threats from infectious diseases that are already on the rise and those with the potential to become future outbreaks.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Initial Response Deadline: 24 June 2022
Wellcome would like to partner with BIOVAC to commission a report, based on a literature review/landscape analysis, on how to build an enabling environment for the African continent to increase its end-to-end manufacture of vaccines. We are interested in understanding what the barriers to vaccine development and manufacturing on the African continent are and what strategies and actions can be taken to increase the manufacture of vaccines.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Initial Response Deadline: 27 June 2022
Mental Health RFPs
We're looking to commission a supplier to conduct some scoping research to identify resources that currently exist to support young people and young adults to work with funders and researchers in mental health. The supplier will also work with key stakeholders in these groups to determine what resources are required for effective collaboration in the future.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Initial response deadline: 1 July 2022
We're looking to commission a programme of living (for example, regularly updated) mental health evidence synthesis from a Supplier. This will inform both our own work and the wider field of mental health science. It will focus on the strategic areas of priority we have identified: the discovery of personalised and effective new pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for individuals experiencing early-stage anxiety, depression, or psychosis.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Initial response deadline:15 July 2022
Download the full RFP [PDF 430KB]
Watch a recording of our webinar to find out more
A transcript of the webinar is available here [PDF 122KB]
Other RFPs
Wellcome are looking for a supplier to help landscape the vast field of machine learning for drug development. Suppliers are expected to research how machine learning has been utilised, is currently being used, and how it could be used, to accelerate the drug development pipeline.
We are looking for suppliers with expertise in machine learning and/or drug development to help Wellcome find opportunities for future funding aligning with our mental health and infectious disease strategies.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Response deadline: 1 July 2022
Full Proposal deadline: 19 August 2022
Wellcome is seeking a supplier to determine how human infection study data can be best utilised within the vaccine regulatory licensure pathway – building on previously commissioned research – to accelerate development of vaccines for people in areas that are disproportionately affected and most vulnerable to future threats from infectious diseases that are already on the rise and those with the potential to become future outbreaks.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Initial Response Deadline: 24 June 2022
We aim to make our RFPs open to all organisations, however there will be instances where we provide eligibility criteria based on the specific nature of what we are looking to procure. Please see each opportunity for specific eligibility criteria.
Please send in your proposals electronically and refer to the individual RFP documents above for specific timelines and response requirements.
Grants: When funding someone to do something where Wellcome expects to receive nothing in return (except acknowledgement and progress reports), this will normally be through a grant.
Contracts: When funding someone to do something where Wellcome expects to receive something in return (such as goods, services, rights or other benefits), this will normally be through a contract.
| Grant | Contract | |
|---|---|---|
| Our rights | When we award a grant, we have no right to receive anything back – except acknowledgment of our funding and reports as detailed in the grant conditions. We can require that the grant is spent on the agreed activities, but we can’t direct how those activities are carried out. We can demand repayment if grant money is spent on something else, but not if we simply don’t like the outputs. We can terminate a grant, cancelling any future payments, at any time and for any reason in line with the grant conditions. |
When we award a contract, we have the right to receive what we are paying for as specified in the legally binding agreement. Depending on the exact terms, we will be able to require a certain level of quality and punctuality. If the supplier falls short, we may be able to make them do the work again or refund the money; we might also be able to sue for compensation. A contract can be terminated only in accordance with its provisions, which may require us to give a specific notice period or make payments even after termination. |
| Tax |
We generally won’t need to pay VAT on a grant. |
VAT is added to all UK invoices. Overseas taxes are charged as applicable. |
| Process |
Grants are usually awarded as a result of an application process, with appropriate types of review and approval. Most of our grants are awarded under our funding schemes. |
Contracts are usually awarded as a result of a procurement exercise. |
We don’t want your proposal to be limited in scope and ambition. However, there may be cases where a set budget is necessary and if so, we do expect you to submit a proposal that is within that.
This is a contract and not a grant. It should be costed as part of the supplier's budget in order to complete the activity on time and in full.
We can pay in various currencies please ensure this is clear on your proposal.
The main VAT requirement is to account for reverse charge VAT at 20% on any B2B (business to business) services received from overseas. This is to provide a level playing field for all businesses, that is UK VAT is payable on services regardless of where the supplier is based. In the case of a UK supplier, the supplier will charge UK VAT at 20% on its services. Where the supplier is based abroad, no VAT is charged by the supplier but the responsibility to account for VAT is shifted to the recipient, who then accounts for the VAT as if the supply was made in the UK.
We always endeavour to provide feedback to suppliers who make it through to the interview stage. Some panels may also provide feedback at earlier stages, but this is at their discretion.
Unless specified on the RFP all contract opportunities are open to all organisations including individuals.
If the lead organisation is working with a sub-processor (collaborator), that sub-processor does not have to complete the Third-Party Risk Assessment form.
The lead organisation must however tell Wellcome who is their sub-processor and send us their independent security certificate and/or security audit report for review as required in the Third-Party Risk Assessment form.
We cannot contract to any countries on the HSBC sanctions list.
If you would like to stay up to date with contract opportunities, then please register your details here.
By completing this form you consent to be added to our contact database and be contacted via email when new requests for proposals are uploaded to Wellcome's website. There may also be occasions when we contact you about contract opportunities that are not listed on the website.
The Procurement team supports Wellcome on all matters relating to procurement. We operate as business partners who provide guidance and run procurement exercises with our stakeholders.
Here, you can find some of our previous RFPs that have now expired, including an overview of each project, to enable suppliers to understand the format and structure.
We’re looking for a strategically focused agency to help us develop Wellcome Global Monitor – the world’s largest study into how people around the world think and feel about science and major health challenges – into a vehicle for improving awareness, understanding, and support for Wellcome’s vision and strategy.
Eligibility: Open to all
Initial response deadline: 27th May 2022
We are looking to collaborate with a supplier to co-develop and co-design a set of inclusive research design and practice principles, guidelines, and case studies that will be used internally to help us achieve our goal to fund more research that is inclusive in design and practice.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Initial response deadline: 10 May 2022
Wellcome and Fondation Botnar are partnering on an RFP to deliver a landscape analysis on mental health in 22 countries. We hope this analysis will help us to understand the status of mental health science, policy and practice around the world, which both Wellcome and Fondation Botnar will use to shape our respective strategies.
Mental health problems are holding people back in all parts of the world, with these conditions set to become the largest burden of disease by 2030. To address this challenge, we need to speed up research to understand mental health better, as well as develop prevention and treatment approaches that are more effective and personalised.
We’re especially interested in suppliers who have experience working on mental health and conducting landscape reviews. To support successful solutions we need to appreciate that mental health can be very contextual. Therefore, having a clear picture of the mental health landscape in different countries will be vital to ensure our approach is relevant to the setting we’re working in.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Initial response deadlines:
Expression of interest – 10 May 2022
Proposal submission – 3 June 2022
The Data for Science and Health team aims to ensure trustworthy data science transforms how science solves the urgent health challenges facing everyone. To achieve this, we support projects that produce innovative tools using health data, motivate and equip data scientists, and build trust into how data science is funded, governed and practiced. For example, we recently announced an open call for researchers and software developers to build and contribute open-source software tools that can further Wellcome’s cross-cutting vision to address the escalating burden of infectious disease due to climate change.
The call is awarding funding to researchers to develop modelling tools for Climate Sensitive Infectious Diseases (CSID). This RFP complements the CSID call by building a wider community of practice (CoP) around CSID methods. We are looking to appoint a ‘convenor’ that can build this CoP for CSID modelling.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Initial response deadline: 23 May 2022
Download the full RFP [PDF 169KB]
*Please note that the EOI assessment criteria weighting for this RFP has changed (see page 7).
Wellcome’s Discovery Research team aims to design new funding activities to reduce barriers that are slowing down and/or blocking progress in the field of Bioimaging. Wellcome has a history of supporting innovation in bioimaging and our current portfolio of investments has supported work that ranges from new tools and technologies to infrastructure and data repositories. We want to progress our work even further and identify new key areas where Wellcome investments in bioimaging methodologies, equipment, tools and technology development (across the scales of life, from atoms to humans) will afford field-opening, filed-shaping and field-advancing opportunities.
The purpose of the RFP is to commission a delivery partner to provide critical insights on the following fundamental questions:
- What are the nascent technologies/methodologies in the field of bioimaging that will enable researchers to formulate new hypotheses and address new fundamental questions for life, health, and wellbeing?
- What are specific barriers (in terms of technology, methodology, hardware, software, and access) that are limiting progress in the field of bioimaging in both High-Income Countries (HICs) and Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)?
- Who are the key leaders on an international level that are driving development in the field of bioimaging?
Wellcome is intending for this piece of work to equally cover both, the UK/HIC and LMIC landscape, addressing the different needs in both settings.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Response deadlines:
Expressions of Interest – 20 May 2022
Full proposals – 6 June 2022
The impact of climate change on health is a core focus of Wellcome's new strategy. As such, it is crucial we stride towards an environmentally sustainable world in all aspects of our work.
As a global funder, Wellcome has the ability to move health research in an environmentally sustainable direction, but we currently lack the expertise to incorporate sustainability fully into our work.
This programme of work will help us along our journey to shift the health research landscape towards a more sustainable path by answering two key questions:
- What tools and methods are critical to improving the environmental sustainability of health research and how could they be used?
- How might we go about integrating environmental sustainability into our decision making?
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Response deadlines:
Expressions of Interest – 12 May 2022
Full proposals – 6 June 2022
Wellcome sees longitudinal datasets as a critical resource to help researchers advance to understanding how brain, body and environment interact in the trajectory and resolution of each of these conditions: anxiety, depression and psychosis.
Wellcome believes that such understanding is a vital step to finding new and improved ways to predict, identify and intervene as early as possible in these conditions, in ways that reflect the priorities and needs of those who experience them. Thus, we want to identify the most promising large-scale longitudinal datasets across the globe that can be used for research in this field.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Initial response deadline: 19 May 2022
We’re looking to appoint a bold and creative agency/consultant to determine how we can best use photography to advance our brand and strategy. As well as reviewing the effectiveness of Wellcome Photography Prize as a vehicle for our brand, we need to better understand how our audiences respond to photography and how to ensure the imagery we use reflects our commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Initial response deadline: Closed
We’re looking to commission a team to identify and evaluate the properties, strengths, and weaknesses of selected measures for depression, anxiety and psychosis and to produce a toolkit for their use by researchers, funders and journals. The team will also produce an implementation plan to encourage the uptake of common metrics by key stakeholder groups.
Eligibility: Open to all countries
Initial response deadline: 5 May 2022
Download the full RFP [PDF 573KB]
Watch a recording of our webinar from 11 April 2022 to find out more.