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
There are currently no RFPs for Climate and Health.
Discovery Research RFPs
There are currently no RFPs for Discovery Research.
Infectious Disease RFPs
There are currently no RFPs for Infectious Disease.
Mental Health RFPs
Wellcome is commissioning a focused piece of analysis to assess and where possible quantify the extent to which scientific and non-scientific challenges create barriers (for example, gaps, blockages and hurdles) to the development through to approval and initial uptake of mental health interventions currently in the pipeline.
Through this piece we aim to understand:
- the decision-making process that developers of mental health interventions follow across the mental health R&D ecosystem from development and funding, approval/accreditation, entry to market and initial uptake
- the critical points where the current ecosystem is not serving to support innovative and inclusive/equitable intervention development for mental health
- identify the push/pull factors that exist from regulators, policymakers, investors, end users and advocacy groups and other key stakeholders which influence the mental health R&D Landscape throughout the lifecycle
- assess how such hurdles can be overcome (or not) and/or identify what solutions are available for these barriers or bottlenecks.
Initial Response Deadline: 12th October 2022
Submission of RFP Deadline: 23rd November 2022
Wellcome is seeking an external supplier to explore and unpack potential ethical considerations and, articulate possible approaches to mitigate issues arising from collecting, using and/or merging Mental Health related data sets. The project will explicitly consider and engage with persons with lived experience to ensure that the findings are consistent with the understandings, day to day realities and knowledge of persons from a variety of geographies with lived experience. The purpose of this project is to identify potential ethical issues and mitigation strategies of data collection (using a variety of technologies and including novel and linked data sets) that could have a significant impact on the understanding of the aetiology of anxiety, depression and psychosis in a diverse range of contexts. It is intended to ensure that any future investment in [a] mental health data resource/s are firmly guided by ethical considerations and clear mitigations strategies.
Eligibility: Open to all, including individuals or teams. We are seeking a supplier with a proven track record of working in mental health research/research ethics with a strong understanding of ethical issues arising from sensitive data collection particularly as pertains to mental health.
Proposal/Quote deadline: 30th September 2022
As part of Wellcome’s mission to improve understanding of the aetiology of mental health problems, we wish to commission a Supplier to review — and provide a very high-level summary of — the most influential clinically relevant biological, psychological, and social mechanisms that have been proposed to explain mental health problems in the 20th and 21st centuries. This will enable us to contextualise current research efforts, to reconsider areas that might have been prematurely dismissed, and to inform our knowledge of theories that are being revisited by the research field.
Eligibility: Open to all
Response Deadline: 21st October 2022
Other RFPs
Wellcome is looking to appoint an agency to manage digital marketing activity for both Wellcome Trust and Wellcome Collection. There is scope for this to be a long-term/ongoing relationship where the right partner becomes an extension of Wellcome’s in-house team and develops a deep understanding of our organisation. We are looking for support with all aspects of digital marketing, including:
- campaign planning and account management
- testing, reporting and evaluation
- technical consultancy
- audience development
- training.
Eligibility – open to all
Initial response deadline
EOI – 21st September 2022
Full proposal – 10th October 2022
Please download full RFP [PDF 225KB].
Please download the Q&As here.
Wellcome’s Public Engagement team is looking for a supplier to:
- conduct an assessment of where public and community engagement priorities are positioned within large-scale funders of global health and multilateral agencies with a health focus, to inform partnership building and alignment
- develop a framework and set of tools that Wellcome can use for context mapping in different countries and geographies to increase our contextual understanding of places, so that we can design and develop more effective and appropriate public engagement and participation programmes.
Eligibility: Open to all
Initial response deadline: 21 September 2022
Submission of RFP Deadline: 14th October 2022
We aim to make our contract opportunities 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.
Diversity and inclusion are central to our strategy. We want to make sure everything we do – and everyone who works with us – upholds these principles. Our intention is to work with kindness and consideration and to value the wellbeing of everyone involved in the collaboration. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the application process, please let us know.
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.
Please do not use this address to submit expressions of interest or proposals. Please refer to the email address provided in the relevant contract opportunity document as to where these should be sent.
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.
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
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
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
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.