Covid-19: understanding the biological significance of SARS-CoV-2 variants
This scheme provides funding for multidisciplinary teams to help improve our understanding of the biological significance of SARS-CoV-2 variants. By the end of the award, successful applicants will have produced research to support national policy makers in preventing and controlling the Covid-19 pandemic.
This one-off call aims to support multidisciplinary teams to help improve our understanding of the biological significance of SARS-CoV-2 variants, focused on laboratory investigations in immunology, virology or structural biology.
This call is for research into the biological significance of SARS-CoV-2 variants, focused on laboratory investigations in immunology, virology or structural biology.
The goal is to produce research that is relevant and beneficial to low- and middle-income countries. The research must support national policymakers in preventing and controlling the Covid-19 pandemic and should strengthen capability in low- and middle-income countries for a research response to future infectious disease outbreaks.
Applicants should consider how to involve and respond to the needs and concerns of relevant public stakeholders and facilitate an open and transparent environment to ensure the research is trustworthy, acceptable to and supported by relevant communities.
About you
You can apply to this funding call if you can meet these eligibility criteria:
- You have received funding for SARS-CoV-2 research (your previous funding does not have to be from Wellcome) and your research outputs have been made available to support the Covid-19 pandemic response (for example, advisory roles, reports, preprints, publications).
- As the lead applicant for a team, you must be able to demonstrate you can drive and lead a substantial collaborative research programme.
- You must be able to contribute at least 20% of your research time to the programme.
- At the point of application, you should have a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract, or the guarantee of one. The contract should not be conditional on receiving this award.
- If you have less than three years remaining on your contract at the point of application, you must have secured your next position at an eligible organisation and provide a letter of support from them.
Project eligibility
You can apply to this funding call if your project can meet these eligibility criteria:
- You can carry out research using systematic approaches to improve our understanding of the biological significance of SARS-CoV-2 variants, focused on laboratory investigations in immunology, virology or structural biology.
- Your research will have benefit to and be of relevance to low- and middle-income countries.
- You can identify a pathway(s) to rapidly share your research outputs to influence national and/or global decision-making in and controlling the Covid-19 pandemic.
- You can describe how you will engage public stakeholders in the research to ensure it is trustworthy, acceptable to and supported by relevant communities.
- You can describe how your approach will strengthen local capability for a research response to future outbreaks of other pathogens.
- Applications must have a multidisciplinary approach.
- We are interested in approaches that connect laboratory characterisation with the detection of variants and genomic surveillance, as well as the clinical presentation.
Your team
- Teams may be based in the same or in different organisations.
- Team size will depend on the proposed research. It will usually range from two to eight applicants, including the lead applicant.
- Co-applicants can be at any career stage and based anywhere in the world, apart from mainland China.
- Each co-applicant must make a significant and essential contribution to the research proposal, for example designing the research, writing the application and/or managing the programme. They must be able to contribute at least 20% of their research time to the programme.
- Co-applicants do not need to have a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract. They may be employed on another grant or ask for their salary on this application. However, their employing host organisation must guarantee space and salary support (if they can’t get it from other sources) for the period of time that the co-applicant is working on the grant.
- They can be based in the same or in different organisations, and come from any discipline, but the added value of the team approach must be clear.
- We encourage lead applicants to put together diverse teams.
- Researchers can only submit one application to this funding call as a lead applicant and can be co-applicants on up to two further applications.
About your proposal
We will review your research proposal, its fit to scope, and your skills and experience, in particular:
- The vision and scope of your proposal, including the aims, methods and the impact your research is likely to have on understanding Covid-19 variants.
- The strength of your collaborative approach, including the track records of all team members, relative to their career stage, and in the context of the proposed work.
- The plans for sharing your research outputs with health policymakers to influence national decision-making in the Covid-19 response.
- The benefit and relevance of your research to low- and middle-income countries.
- How your proposal will increase in-country research and response capabilities in low- and middle-income countries and empower countries to carry out research and be leaders in outbreak response.
- The plans for engagement of relevant public and community stakeholders and the potential of these plans to bring about benefits and positive change and/or mitigate risks.
- How your proposed research environment supports the planned work.
Writing your proposal
You should set out how you meet the eligibility criteria in the proposal section of the application form. In particular, please provide the following information under these subheadings (maximum word count 3000):
Research aims, objectives and key deliverables, including:
- Description of your research aims and objectives, including how your research will improve understanding of the immunology, virology and/or structural biology of SARS-CoV-2 variants. If applicable, describe how this builds upon your previous and ongoing SARS-CoV-2 research.
- The approaches you will use and what tools and technologies will be employed.
- How the research will have benefit to and be of relevance to low- and middle-income countries.
- Indicate the timelines that will be followed and provide a description of the key deliverables.
- Identified risks and mitigation steps that will be taken.
Public health impact and policy uptake, including:
- What evidence gap in public health policy and decision-making could be filled by this research?
- How do you plan to share the results of your proposed research with health policymakers (include a description of your links to relevant decision-making groups and policymakers e.g. public health bodies, health ministries, government scientific advisory boards)? Please include thoughts on suitable formats and any key moments.
Collaborative approach, including:
- Which locations the proposed work will take place in and why.
- Description of your multidisciplinary approach and how the different work packages benefit and complement each other. The role of each collaborator in the proposed work should be described in the “collaborations” section of the application form.
- Outline of the governance structure that will support decision making and the management of the research project.
- How you considered equitable benefit sharing and partnerships.
Strengthening preparedness
- How your research will strengthen capability in low- and middle-income countries for a research response to future infectious disease outbreaks (e.g. through training of researchers, developing partnerships, enhancing laboratory capability).
Public engagement, including:
- Description of the key target public/community audiences or participants, why these stakeholders have been chosen, and how they will be reached.
- Description of the outcomes and purpose of the engagement activities/work and how it supports the research. If applicable, describe the risks associated with not undertaking public engagement work.
- The skills and experience of the key team members (the individual leading the engagement project can be listed as Co-I in the Applicants section) and the role of any partners and/or collaborators.
- The format of the core engagement activities to take place and the reasons for selecting these formats.
- Whether/how your proposed work will build public engagement capability (skills, experience and infrastructure) through training and resources, and nurture an environment in which good quality public engagement can continue/develop in the future.
- Indicate the timelines and provide a description of key deliverables.
Applicants must demonstrate an understanding of who the key public stakeholder groups are, outcomes for engaging them and a strong plan for doing so OR a strong rationale for not engaging public stakeholders. Definitions of public and community engagement vary, and we do not give a set definition, but aims for public engagement activities we expect to see might include:
- Enable the research to better involve and respond to the needs and concerns of relevant communities.
- Gather and use insights from the public and provide new perspectives on the research (e.g. through stimulating debate and dialogue on social and cultural contexts or implications of the research).
- Share research findings to raise public awareness and support for the research.
- Facilitate an open, trustworthy and transparent environment to encourage the public to ask questions and to challenge the research.
- Create opportunities to co-create communications content and resources for sharing with communities or policy communications for wider stakeholders.
- Build public engagement capability (skills, experience and infrastructure) through training and resources, and to nurture and environment in which good quality public engagement can continue/develop in the future.
For additional information and resources on planning and delivering public and community engagement, visit Mesh.
Who can't apply
We will not consider proposals:
- That address the detection of variants, genomic surveillance of variants, epidemiology of variants, or social and public health measures in response to variants.
- On the evaluation of medical counter-measures or on clinical research unless linked to the core research topics of the call (immunology, virology and structural biology).
- Where findings are only applicable to, or informed by, a single SARS-CoV-2 variant, or proposals exclusively focussing on antibody screens.
- That fail to consider the engagement of public stakeholders. If engagement with public stakeholders is not included in the plans, this must be well justified.
You can’t apply to carry out activities that involve the transfer of grant funds into mainland China.
What's expected of your host organisation
All lead applicants and co-applicants must be based at an eligible organisation that can sign up to our standard grant conditions and requirement to share research findings and data relevant to the Covid-19 outbreak as rapidly and widely as possible. For more details on sharing Covid-19 research data, please see Wellcome’s statement on Sharing Research Data and Findings Relevant to the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) Outbreak.
The organisation can be a:
- higher education institution
- research institute
- non-academic healthcare organisation
- not-for-profit organisation
If your host organisation is a core-funded research organisation, this Award should not replace or lead to a reduction in existing or planned core support.
A Covid-19: understanding the biological significance of SARS-CoV-2 variants award provides a maximum of £3 million to cover research expenses, including salaries where required. You should ask for a level and duration of funding that’s justifiable for your proposed research and associated activity (for example, public engagement). You must justify all costs within the costs section of your application.
The award can last up to 36 months.
The award includes:
Lead applicant
If you are based in the UK or Republic of Ireland, you cannot ask for your salary.
If you are based in a low- or middle-income country, you can ask for a contribution to your salary if you hold a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract that states that you have to get your salary from external grant funding.
The amount we pay will be proportionate to the time you contribute to the award, for example if you contribute 30% of your time to the award we will fund 30% of your salary.
You will have to contribute at least 20% of your research time to this award.
If your host organisation is in a low- or middle-income country and you will be working in a high-income country for four weeks or more, you should be paid at an appropriate rate for that country, according to your age and experience.
Your host organisation must confirm:
- that your employment contract states you must get salary recovery from external grant funding
- that they will underwrite the salary and post for the period of time that you will be working on the grant.
Co-applicants
If any co-applicant employed on your grant holds a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract that states that they have to get their salary from external grant funding, you can ask us for a contribution to their salary in your application.
The amount we pay will be proportionate to the time they contribute to the award, for example if they contribute 30% of their time to the award we will fund 30% of their salary.
They will have to contribute at least 20% of their research time to this programme.
Your host organisation must confirm:
- that the co-applicant’s employment contract states they must get salary recovery from external grant funding
- that they will underwrite the salary and post for the period of time that the person will be working on the grant.
Staff working on your programme
We will cover the salary costs of all staff, full or part-time, who will work on your grant.
Staff members may include:
- research assistants or technicians employed on your grant
- specialist service staff, for example data analysis, fieldwork and clinical studies
- project manager, if you have multiple applicants on your programme
- support if you or a member of staff employed on your grant is disabled or has a long-term health condition – see 'Disability-related adjustment support'.
Teaching buyout
If you’re a humanities and social science researcher, you can ask for funds for research or teaching replacement to cover the cost of a temporary replacement lecturer. You must retain at least a 10% commitment to teaching.
Costs:
- can cover up to 33% FTE of your contracted time
- are usually for a person at a more junior level than the postholder
- can be spread across the full period of the grant.
If you already get buyout costs from another grant (funded by Wellcome or elsewhere), you can ask us for this cost, but only for the period of time on your Discovery Award when you won't receive buyout costs from another grant.
You must provide a letter from your employing organisation, confirming that your contract includes a teaching commitment. You should include this in your grant application.
PhD fees
We do not provide studentships on this award. But if applicants employ a research assistant on the grant, they can ask for the costs to cover their PhD fees. Each applicant can ask for PhD fees for one research assistant at a time on the grant.
We will only pay the international student fee rate for low- and middle-income nationals who are registered to study for a PhD in a high-income country. In all other situations, we will pay home student fees.
Staff salaries should be appropriate to skills, responsibilities and expertise. You should ask your host organisation to use their salary scales to calculate these costs, which should include:
- basic salary
- employer’s contributions, including any statutory obligations (for example, National Insurance contributions if you’re based in the UK) and pension scheme costs
- Apprentice Levy charges for UK-based salaries
- any incremental progression up the salary scale
- locally recognised allowances such as London allowance.
You should allow for salary pay awards during Year 1. These should be based on pay awards already agreed: if you don’t know what the pay award is yet then use our inflation rate.
From Year 2 onwards, you should use your organisation’s current pay rates. We’ll provide a separate inflation allowance for salary inflation costs.
Read about the responsibilities of grantholders and host organisations for people working on a Wellcome grant.
If you have named people on your grant whose salaries will be funded by Wellcome, you can ask for visa or work permit costs to help them take up their posts at the host organisation. You can also ask for:
- visa costs for the person's partner and dependent children
- essential associated costs, such as travel to attend appointments at a visa application centre or embassy if you can justify these
- Immigration Health Surcharge costs for the person, their partner and dependent children if they will be in the UK for six months or more.
If you or a member of staff working on your grant is disabled or has a long-term health condition, you can ask for adjustment support to help you carry out your project.
Costs can include, but are not limited to:
- additional costs for staff to help with day-to-day activities related to your project
- assistive technology to help use computers, research equipment or materials – for example, text to audio software
- 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.
If you don't know what these costs are now, you can ask for them after we've awarded your grant.
You can ask for costs to cover the following types of training.
Continuing professional development and professional skills training
You can ask for a contribution towards these costs.
Types of training can include:
- research leadership, professional and people management skills
- career development support
- responsible conduct of research
- diversity and inclusion
- promotion of a healthy research culture.
We expect your host organisation to provide and fund this training. However, if these types of training are not available, or the quality is inadequate, you can ask for up to £500 a year for you and each member of staff employed on your grant who will be:
- in post for 12 months or more, and
- working on the grant for at least 50% of their time.
- You will need to justify these costs in your application.
Research skills training
You can ask for costs to cover training for the technical and research skills you need to deliver your proposed research.
You can ask for whatever research skills training you need for you, and each member of staff employed on your grant, who will be:
- in post for 12 months or more, and
- working on the grant for at least 50% of their time.
You will need to justify these costs in your application.
We will pay for the materials and consumables you need to carry out your project, including:
- laboratory chemicals and materials (for example reagents, isotopes, peptides, enzymes, antibodies, gases, proteins, cell/tissue/bacterial culture, plasticware and glassware)
- project-specific personal protective equipment (PPE) that is above the standard expected for the setting
- printing associated with fieldwork and empirical research
- associated charges for shipping, delivery and freight.
You can ask for funds to buy animals if they are essential to your project. We will also fund the charge-out rates for animal house facilities if your organisation uses full economic costing methodology. These costs include:
- running costs (including animal maintenance, any experimental procedures, licences and relevant staff training)
- appropriate estates costs
- cage and equipment depreciation costs, but not building depreciation costs.
We may not pay the full charge-out rate for an animal house facility if we've provided significant funding towards the infrastructure and/or core support of the facility.
If your organisation does not use full economic costing methodology to establish charge-out rates for animal house facilities, you can ask for funds to cover:
- the cost of buying animals
- running costs (including animal maintenance, any experimental procedures, licences and relevant staff training)
- staff costs, for example, contributions towards the salaries of animal house technicians.
We will not provide estates or depreciation costs.
Equipment purchase
You can ask for basic items of equipment that are essential to your research project.
Costs may include purchase, delivery, installation, maintenance and training, where necessary.
We will cover VAT and import duties if:
- the usual UK exemptions on equipment used for medical research don’t apply
- you’re applying from a non-UK organisation, and you can show these costs can’t be recovered.
You can also ask for specialised equipment if:
- it is essential to the success of the proposed research project
- it is not available at your host organisation or through collaboration, and
- you’ll be the main user and have priority access to the equipment.
If a complete piece of specialised equipment costs £100,000 or more, we expect a contribution of at least 25% of the total costs, including maintenance, from the host organisation or another source. In some cases, we may expect a larger contribution. We’ll discuss this with you after we’ve assessed your application. Contributions can include benefits in kind, such as refurbishment or the underwriting of a key support post.
Multi-component items must not be broken down into component parts to avoid this contribution.
Equipment maintenance
We will cover maintenance costs for equipment if:
- you are requesting it in your application
- it is existing equipment that is:
- funded by us or another source
- essential to the proposed research project
- cost effective and environmentally sustainable to keep maintaining it.
We won’t cover maintenance costs for equipment if there is a mechanism in place to recoup these costs through access charges.
Computer equipment
We will cover the cost of one personal computer or laptop per person up to £1,500.
We won't pay for:
- more expensive items, unless you can justify them
- installation or training costs.
You can ask for the cost of access to shared equipment, facilities or services if they’re essential to your project.
These may include materials and consumables, plus a proportion of:
- maintenance and service contracts
- staff time costs for dedicated technical staff employed to operate the equipment or facility.
We don’t cover the costs of:
- estates and utilities
- depreciation or insurance
- other staff, for example, contributions towards departmental technical, administrative and management staff time.
We do cover these costs if related to animal housing facilities.
If the facilities or equipment were paid for by a Wellcome grant, you can only ask for access charges if:
- the grant has ended
- any support for running costs and maintenance contracts has ended.
You can ask for overheads if your grant will be based at a:
- university outside the UK or Republic of Ireland
- research organisation that does not receive core funding for overheads
- charitable or not-for-profit organisation
- small or medium-sized commercial organisation.
You can also ask for overheads on any part of your grant that is sub-contracted to any of the organisations listed above.
If you’re based at a UK university, you can’t ask for overheads for sub-contracted activity if your university will include the sub-contracted funding in its annual report to the UK Charity Research Support Fund.
Overheads can include:
- estates, for example building and premises
- non-project dedicated administrative and support staff
- administration, for example finance, library and room hire.
The total cost for overheads should not be more than:
- 20% of the direct research costs if you’re based in a low- or middle-income country
- 15% of the direct research costs if you’re based anywhere else.
These costs must directly support the activity funded by the grant.
How to apply for these costs
In your grant application you must:
- give a full breakdown of costs (you can't ask for a percentage of the research costs)
- explain why these costs are necessary for your research
- include a letter from the finance director of your host organisation, or the sub-contracted organisation, confirming that the breakdown is a true representation of the costs incurred.
Research should be designed to minimise travel. You can ask for the cost of essential travel. The mode of transport should be low carbon, even if it is more expensive (for example travelling by train instead of flying).
We will not pay for business class flights.
Conference attendance
You can ask for a contribution towards the costs of attending scientific and academic meetings and conferences, including registration fees. The limits are:
- Grantholder – £2,000 a year
- Research and technical staff on your grant – £1,000 each a year
We provide costs to cover caring responsibilities if you or any staff employed on your grant attend a conference. This includes childcare and any other caring responsibility you have. We will pay these if:
- Wellcome is providing the salary
- the conference is directly related to the research
- the caring costs are over and above what they'd normally pay for care
- the conference organiser and their employing organisation are unable to cover the costs.
You can ask for up to £1,000 per person for each conference.
Collaborative travel
You can ask for travel and subsistence costs for collaborative visits for you and any staff employed on your grant. You’ll need to justify each visit and its duration.
Other travel
We will pay for other essential visits, for example to facilities, for sample collection and for fieldwork. You can include subsistence costs. You’ll need to justify each visit and its duration.
Carbon offset costs
This applies to all types of travel costs Wellcome provides.
You can ask for:
- the cost of a low carbon mode of transport, even if it is more expensive (for example travelling by train instead of flying)
- project-related resources or activities that provide an alternative to travel, such as video conferencing, communication and file-sharing software
- costs to offset the carbon emissions generated by the essential travel. If carbon offsetting for travel is not part of your organisational sustainability strategy, you can ask us for a similar level of support for other sustainability initiatives. Your organisation must get our approval before submitting an application.
We won't pay for the core infrastructure that your host organisation should provide, unless you're eligible to ask for these costs under our overheads policy. Examples of these costs include:
- organisation-wide video conferencing packages
- high-speed broadband
- HD screens.
See our environmental sustainability policy for what you and your organisation can do.
Subsistence costs
If you’re away for up to one month you can ask for subsistence costs. These include accommodation, meals and incidentals (for example, refreshments or newspapers).
If your administering organisation has a subsistence policy, use their rates.
If your administering organisation doesn’t have a subsistence policy, please use the HMRC rates.
If you’re away for more than one month and up to 12 months, we will pay reasonable rental costs only, including aparthotels. You should discuss appropriate rates with your administering and host organisations, or Wellcome, as appropriate. We expect you to choose the most economical options, booked in advance where possible.
If you’re from a low- or middle- income country and will be working in a high-income country for more than one month and up to 12 months, you can also ask for up to £10 a day to cover extra costs, such as transport and incidentals.
If you’re away for more than 12 months, we will pay the costs of your housing. You should discuss your needs with your administering and host organisations.
The allowance we provide will be based on family and business need. We will set the maximum allowance we pay for each location. This will be based on current market data or, where data is unavailable, in consultation with your administering organisation, using equivalent market rates. Please contact us if you need help calculating the costs.
We will cover the direct expenses you have to pay to find and rent a home. We will not cover the cost of utilities or any refurbishment.
Overseas research
If you or any research staff employed on your grant will be doing research away from your home laboratory, we'll help with the additional costs of working on the project overseas. Please see the 'Overseas allowances' section for details.
If you or any staff employed on your grant will be spending time in another country, we’ll help you with the additional costs of working on the project overseas.
Our overseas allowances are:
- a contribution towards the personal cost of carrying out research overseas, to ensure that you are not disadvantaged
- provided on the assumption that you’ll be paying income tax, either in your home country, or the country you will be working in (your personal tax is your responsibility).
- provided on the understanding that you or your partner will not receive equivalent allowances from elsewhere
- determined by the amount of time you will spend away from your home country.
Carbon offset costs
We expect the people we fund to choose travel that has a lower carbon impact, where practical, even if it’s more expensive (for example travelling by train instead of flying).
You can ask for costs to offset the carbon generated by the travel, as part of your overseas allowances. If carbon offsetting for travel is not part of your organisational sustainability strategy, you can ask us for a similar level of support for other sustainability initiatives. Your organisation must get our approval for other sustainability initiatives to be included in applications.
See our carbon offset policy for travel for information on what you and your organisation need to do.
If you will be away more than 12 months, we will provide overseas allowances for your partner and any dependants if they are travelling with you.
If you will be away for 12 months or less and can justify why your partner and dependants must travel with you, we may provide overseas allowances for them.
We define your partner as the person:
- you’re married to
- you’re not married to but with whom you’ve been in a relationship for at least a year
and
- you live with at the same permanent address and share some form of joint financial commitment with, such as a mortgage.
See a list of low- and middle-income countries, as defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
You can ask for the following allowances. You need to provide estimated costs as accurately as possible.
We will pay your travel costs at the beginning and end of your overseas work. Costs can be for air, ferry, train or coach fares.
All fares should be:
- in line with our carbon offset policy
- booked in advance where possible.
If you are away for up to 12 months, you can ask for up to 80kg of additional baggage or unaccompanied airline freight for your outward and return journeys.
If you are away for more than 12 months, you can ask for the costs of shipping your personal items at the beginning and end of your overseas work.
We will pay the full cost of transporting:
- half a standard shipping container if you’re travelling alone
- a whole standard shipping container (20ft) if you’re travelling with a partner and/or dependants.
We will pay the cost of your medical insurance and travel insurance.
If you will be working in a low- or middle-income country we will also cover the cost of emergency evacuation cover.
We won’t pay for medical insurance if you will be based in the UK or Republic of Ireland.
We will pay the costs of visas, vaccinations and anti-malaria treatment.
You can ask for this if you’ll be based in a low- or middle-income country and it is necessary.
Costs can include guards, panic buttons and alarms. You should ask your employing organisation for advice on the level of security you need.
If you’re away for up to one month you can ask for subsistence costs. These include accommodation, meals and incidentals (for example, refreshments or newspapers).
If your administering organisation has a subsistence policy, use their rates.
If your administering organisation doesn’t have a subsistence policy, please use the HMRC rates.
If you’re away for more than one month and up to 12 months, we will pay reasonable rental costs only, including aparthotels. You should discuss appropriate rates with your administering and host organisations, or Wellcome, as appropriate. We expect you to choose the most economical options, booked in advance where possible.
If you’re from a low- or middle- income country and will be working in a high-income country for more than one month and up to 12 months, you can also ask for up to £10 a day to cover extra costs, such as transport and incidentals.
If you’re away for more than 12 months, we will pay the costs of your housing. You should discuss your needs with your administering and host organisations.
The allowance we provide will be based on family and business need. We will set the maximum allowance we pay for each location. This will be based on current market data or, where data is unavailable, in consultation with your administering organisation, using equivalent market rates. If you need help calculating the costs please contact us.
We will cover the direct expenses you have to pay to find and rent a home. We will not cover the cost of utilities or any refurbishment.
If you’re away for more than 12 months we will pay:
Local nursery or school fees
You can ask for these costs if you are in a location where there isn’t free local education of the same standard as in your home country.
Costs include:
- local nursery school fees up to a maximum of 30 hours a week for 3 to 4 year olds
- local junior or secondary school fees, up to the end of secondary school education.
Local international school fees
You can ask for these costs if local schools do not provide the same standard of education as in your home country. We will only pay the published termly school fees.
We will not cover the costs of:
- extracurricular activities, including field trips
- other extras including, but not limited to, uniforms, sports kit and equipment, transport, meals, books and electronic equipment.
Boarding school fees
We will consider paying the cost of boarding school fees in your home country if:
- a local international school is not available
- both parents, guardians or the sole care giver live outside the home country.
The allowance covers:
- up to a maximum of £30,000 a year for each child for the published termly fees only
- the cost of return airfares at the start and end of each school term, in line with our carbon offset policy for travel.
We will not cover the costs of:
- additional annual leave airfares
- extracurricular activities, including field trips
- other extras including, but not limited to, uniforms, sports kit and equipment, transport, meals, books and electronic equipment.
We will cover the cost of providing special needs education as far as possible. Please contact us to discuss your needs.
We would not usually expect to provide an education allowance if you will be working in a high-income country.
If you will be away for more than 12 months, we’ll pay for you to travel back to your home country for annual leave. This is in addition to your outward and return travel costs and depends on how long you will be away:
- 12-24 months – 1 annual leave trip
- 25-36 months – 2 annual leave trips
All fares should be:
- in line with our carbon offset policy
- booked in advance where possible.
If you will be away for more than 12 months, you can ask for up to 100 hours of lessons in the local language for you and/or your partner during the first 12 months of your visit.
We will cover 100% of the costs for local language school classes or up to 50% of the costs of individual tuition.
We will not cover the cost of examinations or personal learning materials such as DVDs and books.
We cover fieldwork costs if they’re essential and you can justify them. Costs can include:
- survey and data collection, including communication and data collection services and any associated costs such as essential field materials, travel costs and language translation services
- the purchase, hire and running costs of vehicles dedicated to your project
- expenses for subjects and volunteers, including the recruitment of participants, their participatory fees and travel costs
- statistical analysis.
You can ask for other fieldwork costs that aren’t listed here, but you’ll need to justify them.
We will add an inflation allowance to your award.
How we calculate your inflation allowance
Your inflation allowance is based on your total eligible costs and the duration of the award. You'll receive the following allowance if the costs in your application are in pounds sterling, euros or US dollars.
| AWARD DURATION (IN MONTHS) | INFLATION ALLOWANCE |
|---|---|
| 0-12 | 0.0% |
| 13-24 | 1.0% |
| 25-36 | 2.0% |
These rates are calculated using compound inflation at 2.0% a year from Year 2 onwards.
If your costs are in any other currency, we will use an inflation allowance that reflects the inflation rate of the country where the host organisation is based.
What to include in your application
The costs in your application must be based on current known costs, excluding inflation.
You should allow for salary pay awards during Year 1. These should be based on pay awards already agreed; if you don’t know what the pay award is yet then use our inflation rate.
If your organisation receives open access block grant funding, you can ask them to cover your open access article processing charges.
If you're at an organisation that does not receive block grant funding, we’ll supplement your grant when your paper has been accepted for publication.
You cannot ask for these charges in your grant application.
If you need to carry out clinical research using NHS patients or facilities, we will cover some of the research costs.
Annex A of the guidelines for attributing the costs of health and social care research and development (AcoRD) sets out the costs we cover, and which costs should be funded through the Department of Health and Social Care in England, or its equivalent in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. If you're based in the Republic of Ireland, we would expect you to adhere to the spirit of these principles.
Read more information on our clinical trials policy.
If your proposal involves clinical research using NHS resources, check if you need to upload a SoECAT form with your full application.
You can ask for any costs that are essential to delivery of your public engagement plans, as outlined in the proposal.
Allowed costs
You may ask for the following costs (you will have to justify them in your application):
- fieldwork costs, including survey and data collection and statistical analysis
- specialist publications that are relevant to the research and not available in institutional libraries
- consultancy fees
- reasonable research-associated costs related to the feedback of health-related findings but not any healthcare-associated costs
- costs associated with developing an outputs management plan
- questionnaires, recruitment material, newsletters etc for clinical, epidemiological and qualitative research studies
- public engagement materials where dissemination (including printing and publishing) is a key activity of the project
- recruitment, advertising and interviewee travel costs for staff to be employed on the grant
- purchase, hire and running costs of project-dedicated vehicles
- project-specific personal protective equipment (PPE) that is above the standard expected for the setting
- costs to host/a contribution towards the cost of hosting:
- a session within a conference
- a symposium
- a seminar series
- advisory board meetings, if appropriate.
The meeting should either be:
- for research purposes, for example data gathering
- to disseminate your research findings, for example to policy makers.
Costs can include:
- travel and accommodation for keynote speakers
- external room hire and catering
- event publicity and conference materials
- childcare and other caring responsibility costs for delegates
- any costs related to accessibility and inclusion.
Disallowed costs
We will not pay for:
- estates costs – such as building and premises costs, basic services and utilities. This also includes phone, postage, photocopying and stationery, unless you can justify these within a clinical or epidemiological study.*
- page charges and the cost of colour prints
- research, technical and administrative staff whose time is shared across several projects and isn’t supported by an audit record*
- PhD stipends
- charge-out costs for major facilities* – departmental technical and administrative services, and use of existing equipment
- cleaning, waste and other disposal costs*
*We will fund these costs in the case of animal-related research.
- indirect costs – this includes general administration costs such as personnel, finance, library, room hire and some departmental services
- office furniture, such as chairs, desks and filing cabinets
- clothing such as lab coats and shoes
- non-research related activities such as catering, room and venue hire for staff parties, team-building events and social activities
- indemnity insurance (insurance cover against claims made by subjects or patients associated with a research programme)
- ethics reviews, unless you are in a low- or middle-income country
- radiation protection costs
- contingency funds
- organisation insurance
- clinical examination or course fees
- working capital costs of commercial organisations.
What we don't offer
See 'Other costs' for the costs we will and will not provide.
1. Before you apply
Make sure you read everything on this page.
Get some tips to help you write your grant application.
You do not need to contact us before you write and submit your application.
2. Submit your application to your host organisation for approval
Complete your application form on Grant Tracker.
View the sample application form [PDF 249KB].
Submit it to the 'authorised organisational approver' at your host organisation for approval. Make sure you leave enough time for the approver to review and submit your application before the deadline. The approver may ask you to make changes to your application.
Get some guidance on using Grant Tracker.
3. Host organisation reviews your application and submits it to us
Your application must be submitted by 17:00 (GMT/BST) on the deadline day.
4. Shortlisting
At the shortlisting stage, Wellcome staff will review your application to ensure alignment to the call specifications, as described above under 'Eligibility and suitability'. If shortlisted, your application will be reviewed by Wellcome’s Epidemics Technical Advisory Panel.
5. Expert review and funding decisions
Wellcome’s Epidemics Technical Advisory Panel members will assess the proposals and make funding recommendations to Wellcome.
6. Feedback
We don't provide specific written feedback to unsuccessful applicants.
Disabled applicants
If you are disabled or have a long-term health condition, we can support you with the application process.
Log in to our online grants system (Grant Tracker). You can save your application and return to it any time.
You must submit your application by 17:00 (GMT/BST) on the deadline day. We don’t accept late applications.
If you have a question about how to complete the application form using Wellcome Trust Grant Tracker, please contact our Grant Information Advisers.
If you have a question about eligibility, what we offer or our funding remit, contact us at epidemics@wellcome.org.
We do not answer questions on the scope or competitiveness of proposals.
Up to £3 million for research expenses, including salaries where required.
Up to 3 years. Level and duration of funding will vary depending on proposed research and associated activity.