This scheme provides long-term support for established researchers to pursue an ambitious and creative programme of work addressing key questions in the cancer field. Proposals should be centred on a core overarching vision, explored via a set of connected aims. We encourage collaborative teams and multidisciplinary approaches.
Applications are reviewed twice per year. Upcoming application deadline (outline): 29 September 2025
Up to 5 years
Up to £2.5m
Our core eligibility criteria are outlined below. Note that this scheme operates with closed rounds to ensure only eligible applications are submitted.
You must contact us for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal prior to submitting your application. We’ll advise on your eligibility and provide guidance on submitting your application.
You can apply to this award if you’re a scientist, clinician or healthcare worker based in a UK university, medical school, hospital or research institution.
You can hold this award if you’ve had funding from us before, but prior funding is not a requirement.
During the full duration of the award, you must be in a post that is fully funded by the relevant national Higher Education Funding Council, the National Health Service or equivalent. Please note that Programme Awards cannot be used to fund part of an applicant's salary.
We encourage applications from research teams, which can be located across different institutions in the UK. Supporting roles from international and commercial organisations may also be included as co-investigators and collaborators.
For any international collaborations involving in vivo studies, additional peer review steps will be required to ensure our funding is used only for animal studies carried out to UK ethical standards.
For commercial collaborations, all partners must ensure they can align with our funding conditions. Agreements will need to be put in place and approved by us.
You must ensure that your host institution will provide sufficient space and access to resources to undertake the proposed research.
If you receive core funding from one of our institutes (including the Francis Crick Institute), you may not apply as a lead applicant; however, you can be a co-investigator or collaborator.
Career breaks (due to personal circumstances), part-time working and changes in discipline will be taken into consideration by our panels and committees to make appropriate adjustments when assessing your record of outputs, research achievements and career progression.
You can apply on a part-time or flexible working basis if this fits with the needs of your host institution and they approve your request.
Please contact us before starting your application to discuss your proposed parameters for the award and how to include the part-time request in your application.
Learn about our flexible research career support
You can submit applications for the same research question to different funding bodies, including us. However, if successful, you may only accept one award. If applicable, please notify us and disclose this in your application under 'Other Funding'.
We may consider joint funding with other organisations. If you’re interested, please discuss this with us and the other potential funder before applying.
Our Discovery Programme Awards provide long-term support for outstanding established scientists in basic or early-stage translational research fields. The funding will facilitate you to address an overarching question fundamental to cancer biology, through an interrelated set of smaller questions.
Please ensure your proposal offers a well-structured programme of work deliverable within the timeframe. If building on previous work, the proposal must present how it develops, builds on and extends your previous research programme.
Our Discovery Research Committee has a broad remit and supports research that spans different levels of biological organisation from molecular mechanisms to cellular behaviour and cancer at the whole-body scale. We support multidisciplinary research that aims to create or apply novel technologies and methodologies, including for imaging and radiotherapy, to address previously intractable questions in cancer.
In addition to research into the basic biology of cancer, disease specific research and preclinical studies generating biological data to underpin therapeutic development.
For more information on our strategic priorities, read our research strategy and statement of intent.
Some programme concepts may straddle the remits of more than one funding committee or be more suitable for a different one.
If you are unsure which funding committee is most suited to your research proposal, please contact us and we can provide a recommendation. You can also search our funding schemes to explore other opportunities.
Under this committee we will not consider applications which would sit under our other response mode committees or funding provided by Cancer Research Horizons. These include clinical trials, translational work immediately aligned to a clinical trial such as biomarker validation, applications with drug discovery as the sole function of the award, and approaches in the early detection of primary tumours or cancer prevention.
Additionally, we do not support pure technology development that does not aim to improve our understanding of cancer.
Applications are considered twice a year by the Discovery Research Committee, assisted by our Expert Review Panels.
The review process involves the following steps:
Express your interest by contacting us. If your research proposal is deemed eligible you will be able to submit an outline application.
After submitting an outline application on our online grants management system, Flexi-Grant, your application will be considered by the Committee. Following this review, you will be provided with written feedback. You may contact us to discuss any feedback and confirm your submission date.
If successful, the Committee will invite you to submit a full application. You may also defer the submission of a full application to the subsequent round.
Upon submission of a full-stage application, an interview is arranged where you will meet the Expert Review Panel. This panel will review the scientific quality of your application.
A final decision will be made by the Discovery Research Committee, taking into consideration any recommendations made by the Expert Review Panels.
Learn more about how we make funding decisions
The Discovery Research Committee and Expert Review Panel will review your proposal based on scientific excellence, innovation and relevance to cancer research, considering alignment to our research strategy.
You can find more information on the criteria by which applications are reviewed on our committee pages.
The 5 year rolling success rate (financial year 2020-2025) from application to funding for this scheme is 36%.
Learn more about the committee
We offer early- to mid-career researchers the opportunity to observe panel and committee meetings across our funding remit and prioritise giving this opportunity to researchers from underrepresented groups.
Find out more about eligibility and how to apply
We will provide feedback on your application, but all funding decisions are final. Committee members cannot discuss their decisions with applicants, so please do not approach them directly.
This allows our committee members to keep the Code of Practice for Funding Committees, which keeps our review process fair and protects applicants, committee members and external reviewers.
Our review process is extremely important to us, so we reserve the right to decline applications from anyone who compromises its integrity. We do not accept resubmissions, unless recommended by the committee.
We consider applications for this award twice a year. This scheme requires an initial outline submission followed by a full application, so the entire process for one proposal spreads over at least two rounds (minimum 9 months).
If your outline application is shortlisted, your full application will be reviewed in the subsequent funding round unless you defer. For instance, an outline application submitted in autumn will be reviewed in full in the spring committee meeting.
Outline applications due by: deadline past
Full applications due by: deadline past
Interviews in: September to October
Outline applications due by: 29 September 2025
Full applications due by: to be announced
Interviews in: March to April
You can apply for up to £2.5m of funding through this award. Funding lasts up to five years and can be used to fund postdoctoral researchers, technical staff and PhD students (stipend and fees), with associated running costs and any essential equipment.
Programme Awards cannot be used to provide support for full time clinical fellows or infrastructure support that would otherwise be provided through clinical trials units, tissue banks or our centres.
For more information on what is covered by our awards, view our costs and salary guidance.
All applicants need to submit an outline application. If you’re successful at the outline stage, we’ll invite you to submit a full application.
Outline applications are required for both new and follow on Programme Award applications.
This is a closed scheme and all applicants will need to contact us with an expression of interest before applying.
Please reach out at least one month before the submission deadline. When contacting us, please include:
a short CV, including key research outputs, past and current funding (title and value of award)
a one-two page (max) summary of your proposed research including main aims and hypotheses, experimental approaches, any specific models, expected outputs, novelty and cancer relevance, and estimate of total cost
a short description of why you’re applying for this particular award and how you meet the expected skills and experience
it may be helpful to include key collaborations, any dependencies (such as clinical trials that will provide key samples), and to mention any parallel funding applications
We also advise you inform your host institution. Institutional approval is not required to complete submission at outline stage, but they will need to approve your application online if you are invited to submit a full application.
We recommend you also read additional guidance such as our costs guidance, grant conditions, and other policies to understand any other requirements before applying.
Read our research policies and guidance
You can manage your application and if successful, your grant, through our online grants management system, Flexi-Grant.
For both outline and full applications, one primary investigator must assume the responsibility of named lead applicant on the application.
The lead applicant must be able to demonstrate that they can lead the proposal and team effectively, be engaged throughout the duration of the award, as well as meet their other research commitments. The lead applicant assumes the responsibility of completing and submitting the application on Flexi-Grant.
In addition, the applicant team can include:
Joint lead applicant(s), if any: essential contributors who dedicate equal time and intellectual input as the lead applicant. Joint lead applicants must be added as supporting roles once the application is opened. The lead applicant and joint lead applicant(s) will be recognised with equal status.
Co-investigators: specialists who provide major scientific contributions and may lead specific aspects of the project (excludes postdoctoral research assistants funded by the grant).
Named research staff, if any: any named research staff who will be involved in your research (including postdoctoral research assistants funded by the grant).
Collaborators: key contributors not involved with daily operations but who provide crucial support such as research materials, specialised expertise or patient access.
One administrative support contact (optional): assists with the application submission and completes the sections on the Association of Medical Research Charities and Costs.
The lead applicant must invite the joint lead applicants, co-investigators and named research staff to join the application on Flexi-Grant and provide an up-to-date CV and five-year publication history. Administrative support contacts must be invited, but do not need to provide a CV.
Collaborators should not be invited as a participant in your application. Their role should be explained in the research proposal, justification appendix and in their letter of support. More information about this can be found in the outline and full application sections below.
We are a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration On Research Assessment (DORA) and recognise a full range of research outputs throughout our review processes.
You can include peer-reviewed publications as background and evidence of previous productivity, but you may also include other outputs, especially to evidence your research environment/network and efforts towards future patient impacts.
When including publications, please include a full author list (where this is unmanageable, for example for large consortium papers, you may list the first 12 authors followed by ‘et al.’ provided you denote your place in the author list, eg [Bloggs J, 15th of 65 authors]). Please also include the publication title, journal, publication year, and either volume number and page numbers, or digital object identifier. You may include up to 20 of your most recent publications.
ORCID does not pull through the list of authors, so these should be entered manually if using ORCID to generate your publication list.
Also be sure to list any notable and relevant research outputs from your work such as preprints, training delivered, contribution to consortia, patents, key datasets, software, novel assays and reagents etc.
To clearly distinguish between peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed material, you should list your publications and research outputs in separate sections. Research outputs must be clearly labelled and must be in a citable format (eg including a digital object identifier).
As part of your outline application, you will need to provide the following information:
applicant information, career overview and research abstract, to be completed following the guidance available in Flexi-Grant
research proposal and accompanying uploads/supporting information such as narrative CVs (full list under ‘Additional Information’), to be completed following the guidance provided below
There is no template for this scheme, so please structure your research proposal as outlined below.
As a general guide:
Number all pages and do not exceed 2,500 words (excluding figures and figure legends).
Use single-line spaced text, in Calibri font, pt 11, black.
The last name and initials of the lead applicant should be included in the header or footer of all pages.
Where available, you should include preliminary data, figures and any unpublished research findings or methodologies supporting your research proposal.
Figures should be included in the main body of text rather than adding them as an appendix.
Datasets and pre-prints should be in a citable format (eg including a digital object identifier).
Do not upload separate files, such as unpublished manuscripts, ethical approval letters or applications, patient information or preliminary data, as they will be removed from your application before review.
You should incorporate any preliminary data into your proposal instead.
Briefly state the objectives of the proposed research. Include details of how these fit into the current research landscape, the significance of the results that may be obtained and their relevance to cancer. At outline application stage, you should ensure that this context is pitched for experts in any cancer discipline.
Provide an overview of the key aims and how these aims interrelate to form a coherent programme of research.
Briefly outline, with references as appropriate, any prior work conducted by yourself or others which supports your application. If this work was your own, please indicate how it was funded.
The purpose of this section is to clearly articulate how you will address your research aims (ie scientific methods). Please provide enough information to demonstrate why you consider your approach to be successful.
You should also indicate why you are the correct person to carry out this work and that you are based in an appropriate research environment.
State the expected major outputs from the proposed research, including an explanation of why this is important to us. Also include a description of your vision for future research which may lead on from this work and the relationship with your other funding.
For proposals in the early-stage translation space, please share your expected route to patient impact. This is not expected for all proposals.
Give details of the proposed research team (including any collaborators) providing brief descriptions of any roles and their expected contributions. Please note, your research team do not need to be added in the ‘Participants’ section on Flexi-Grant at this stage.
Include the proposed level of support you’d request in a full application, if successful at this outline stage.
List the number and type of staff posts that will be requested, and the approximate annual cost. Please provide a ballpark figure for general and project specific running expenses and likely equipment requirements for the purposes of the Outline application.
You don’t need to submit detailed finances or the Association of Medical Research Charities’ full economic costing details in your outline application. However, you must ensure that your preliminary costs are a reasonably accurate indication of the funding you’ll be requesting in a full proposal.
Information on eligible costs is available in our costs guidance.
You will be provided with a link to apply for your full application once you have completed the outline application and received an invitation from the committee to proceed.
Full applications must be approved online by your host institution.
As part of your full application, you will need to provide the following information:
applicant and joint lead applicant information, career overview and research abstract, to be completed following the guidance available in Flexi-Grant
research proposal and accompanying uploads/supporting information such as narrative CVs (full list under ‘Additional Information’), to be completed following the guidance provided below
There is no template for this scheme, so please structure your research proposal as outlined below.
As a general guide:
Do not exceed any word limits provided.
Use single-line spaced text, in Calibri font, pt 11, black.
Number all pages.
Include the last name and initials of the lead applicant in the header or footer of all pages.
Where available, you should include preliminary data, figures and any unpublished research findings or methodologies supporting your research proposal.
Figures should be included in the main body of text rather than adding them as an appendix.
Datasets and pre-prints should be in a citable format (eg including a digital object identifier).
Do not upload unpublished manuscripts, ethical approval letters or applications, patient information or preliminary data as they will be removed from your application before review. You should incorporate any preliminary data into your proposal instead.
Your research summary should be up to 2,500 words describing the major achievements leading to this application. Please state if these result from previous funding from us.
This section should include a list of all publications and research outputs (eg datasets and preprints) from your group resulting from your funding from us, with separate sections for papers, book chapters, reviews, preprints and datasets.
Please use the following guidance for your citations:
List them in chronological order.
Show clearly which have resulted from work led by staff funded by us, and which have arisen from collaboration with staff not funded by us.
List up to 12 authors (above this use et al, provide the total number of authors and denote your placement within the author list).
Indicate staff funded by us (both current and past) in bold.
Write ‘CRUK/A###’ (where A### is our grant number) after citations for publications that have arisen from our support.
Please also provide lists of:
any patents that have resulted from the work funded by us
any reagents that have been commercialised
any collaborative projects (with industry or other appropriate bodies)
membership of expert groups, societies, etc
any other achievements over the past 5 years as a result of our funding (eg numbers of PhDs and medical doctorates)
Your research proposal should be up to 7,000 words, excluding figures, figure legends and references. There is no template, but use the following structure as guidance.
Clearly outline the hypothesis, objectives, and scope of your proposed work, including:
the scientific and clinical need for the proposed work and why it is necessary to test this hypothesis
the significance of your expected results, in particular, the relevance of your expected results to cancer, for example potential future clinical applications or impact on policy and practice
Summarise relevant ongoing and published work related to your research proposal, including key achievements over the past five years. Where applicable, cite your relevant preprints or datasets, for example, using a unique digital object identifier.
When you complete part A, you can incorporate your published work and research outputs in that section. You can provide additional background in this section, but don’t duplicate information you’ve already included in Part A.
We suggest you divide your research plan into work packages. For each of these, please include:
the research question
experimental methods, techniques and analyses that you will use to test your hypothesis; refer to your own published work or indicate the availability of appropriate expertise for these methods
any available unpublished research findings or methodologies supporting your research proposal (please include these in the text, not as an appendix)
the staff members associated with delivering the different work packages
Briefly describe the expected major achievements of your research if the programme is successful.
Please provide a table to indicate clear and well-defined milestones. You should include a schematic to outline timescales of the research plan.
Also list potential logistic or scientific problems and suggest solutions or alternative plans to mitigate these.
As part of your application, you will be required to provide additional information and supplementary uploads as follows. We’ve highlighted where applicable to both outline and full, or just the full application in each section.
Outline application | Full application | |
|---|---|---|
Generative AI tools | X | X |
Narrative CV | X | X |
Declaration of competing interests | X | X |
Cover letter | X | |
Reviewers | X | X |
Justification appendix | X | |
Experimental design assistant report | Required where relevant | |
Letters of support | X | |
Data sharing plan | X | |
Research declarations | X | |
Costs | X | |
Other funding | X | |
Association of Medical Research Charities full economic costing | X |
You will be directly asked to declare whether you have used any generative AI tools when completing the application form. If you have, you’ll then be asked to confirm compliance with our requirements on their use.
Read our policy on the use of generative AI tools
A narrative CV allows you to highlight your research achievements and contributions relevant to your application. You should also include your research outputs, such as preprints, training delivered, contribution to consortia, community outreach, patents, key datasets, software, novel assays and reagents.
Guidance on the types of activities you may include are provided below each question in the form template, but this is not exhaustive. You do not necessarily need to provide an example for every activity.
All lead and joint lead applicants named on the application will need to complete and upload their own narrative CV labelled with their name in the header or footer. Additionally, co-investigators requesting salary will also have to complete and upload a narrative CV.
Read our guidance on narrative CVs
Please use the template provided in Flexi-Grant and complete by following the instructions outlined in the document. This must be completed by all lead and joint lead applicants.
Read our conflicts of interest policy
Your cover letter should include a short description of why you’re applying for this award and should not exceed one page.
Note that you only need to include a cover letter as part of the outline application.
You may nominate up to 10 reviewers who would be qualified to assess your application critically. You should not nominate individuals if you have had a close collaboration with them, or if you have published with them in the last three years.
You can also nominate referees to exclude from the review process, but please provide justification for the exclusion. We will decide on the final selection of reviewers and nominations must comply with our conflicts of interest policy.
Read our conflicts of interest policy
We encourage collaboration between academia and industry through our awards. Most UK host institutions will already have a technology transfer agreement in place with our commercial arm, Cancer Research Horizons. If not, our standard funding terms and conditions would apply.
If you are working with a commercial collaborator, please contact the Cancer Research Horizons team before applying for a confidential discussion around intellectual property and technology transfer.
A formal agreement between academic and industrial partners is not needed to apply, but a letter of support from a relevant individual at the industrial partner organisation is. This letter should describe the nature of the collaboration and the industrial partner’s contribution, including funding and/or in-kind support such as data, samples, reagents, technology or expertise.
If the grant is awarded, you will need to share an outline of the agreement between academic and industrial partners with our Cancer Research Horizons Team to receive funding.
Contact the Cancer Research Horizons team
We require male and female sexes to be used in the design of experiments described in all funding applications to us that involve animals, human and animal tissues, and cells. However, exceptions to permit single sex experiments may be granted, particularly if you have a strong scientifically-based justification.
We encourage you to use the NC3Rs Experimental Design Assistant (EDA), a free online tool to help optimise experimental design. You should submit the EDA report as an upload in the justification appendix.
Learn more about our sex in experimental design requirement
Learn more about the EDA and other NC3Rs resources
For this award, you will need to submit a justification appendix. For details on how to complete this, please see the link below.
View our justification appendix guidance
Please upload statements of support on headed paper from:
the host institution of any joint lead applicants or co-investigators based at a different institution to the lead applicant
collaborator letters of support, outlining what specific expertise and skills they will contribute to the programme (should be a maximum of two pages each)
We require a data sharing plan for all funding applications to ensure that the data generated through our funding will be put to maximum use by the cancer research community and, whenever possible, be translated to deliver patient benefit.
Your plan should include how data resulting from this project will be made available as widely and freely as possible to the academic scientific community at the earliest opportunity, and to additional potential commercial partners through a controlled access mechanism, considering patient privacy, intellectual property rights and other applicable laws.
Detail the steps that will be taken to ensure that the data resulting from this project will adopt the FAIR principles of findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable data.
Provide details for when data collected and generated by the project will be made available: 1) how and when after generation will raw data be made available for research purposes; 2) how and when after analysis will processed data be made available for research purposes; 3) how and when after journal publication will analysed data and methods be made available for secondary research.
Broadly describe the proposed ethics and patient consent statement (if relevant) for sharing and release (and withdrawal) of (de-identified) data that will align with the FAIR principles, including the potential future sharing for commercial use.
Describe how sharing of the data collected or generated under this project with commercial entities will be approached.
Define the planned process for enabling international data sharing (both within the investigator team, if relevant, and external to the team) and list the necessary contractual agreements that will need to be executed to deliver the proposed data sharing platform.
Describe the data standards and definitions that the investigator team plan to use for the project including how these align with existing data standards in the research community and how the investigator team will ensure that the standards are consistent to facilitate ease of sharing.
Describe the data governance and data architecture model (including diagrams as relevant).
Describe the future ambitions and processes for granting access to the data beyond the initial research team and research questions proposed in this application. Include how infrastructure will be created during the project to enable these ambitions and what the anticipated timeline is for broader access.
Learn more about the FAIR principles
In this section, you will be asked a series of questions about your proposed research, including whether you plan to conduct animal, human or human stem cell research and whether the appropriate approval has been granted. In addition, whether you anticipate that the proposed work will result in any output which can be translated to cancer patient benefit or otherwise commercialised.
For any international collaborations involving in vivo studies, additional peer review steps will be required to ensure our funding is used only for animal studies carried out to UK ethical standards.
If you plan to involve patients, patient tissue or patient information in your research, you’ll need to get ethical approval. You and your host institution are responsible for ensuring you comply with all legal requirements and ethics approval.
If you need to confirm funding arrangements before you can get ethical approval, we can make you a provisional offer of funding. However, funds may not be released until you’ve sent us written confirmation of ethical approval. Please bear this in mind when you propose a start date for your award.
If you need any other regulatory approval (eg sponsorship, Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency approval, Clinical Trial Authorisation approval, insurance or indemnity arrangements, data protection registration, or honorary contracts with NHS Trusts and Trust R&D approval for sites that research is conducted), we may also need written confirmation before we release funding.
We will review this on a case-by-case basis.
You should provide the costs that you’re requesting from us as part of your award. Add these costs under the relevant headings and justify them in your justification appendix. Note that we will apply indexation to your application costs according to our policy. In addition, any ineligible costs will be removed. If this is relevant, we will contact you. As a result, the final costs awarded through an official grant award letter may differ from those of the original costs requested.
Our costs guidance details our allowance for PhD students. This is a fixed sum for all Cancer Research UK-funded PhD students. Requests for any other funding amounts will not be accepted.
We don’t pay overseas fees or part-fund studentships, so any PhD student funded through the award must be fully funded for four years which must fall within the duration of the award. This means that for a standard-length Discovery Programme Award (60 months), you’ll need to recruit any proposed PhD students in the first or second year of the award.
If you’re requesting funding for a PhD student, you’ll need to list this as a running expense in the first year of the award as opposed to a staff post. Include as one total cost under the ‘Running Expenses’ category in year one of the award (even if recruitment is planned for the second year of the programme).
You do not need to break down the request in terms of stipend and consumables. We’ll give you this funding in one instalment in the first year of the award. You will find the correct amount to request for a studentship in our costs guidance.
Please refer to our costs guidance for information about eligible staff costs, and justify your costs in your justification appendix.
Please list all equipment costs you’re requesting for the full duration of your award. If there’s equipment you’ll only need in the later years (year two to five), note this in the costs summary and provide details in the justification appendix.
Please discuss any major equipment requests with us before applying.
For all requested equipment:
The ‘claim year’ is the year that your expense item will be purchased and first used.
Include any equipment costs <£5k as a running expense.
Describe each item in its equipment category
Any further equipment requests that aren’t in the initial application won’t be considered in subsequent years of the award.
In this section, you should list all non-Cancer Research UK current and pending research applications or awards held or jointly held by yourself.
Please include title, start and end dates, funding amount, funding body, type of award and whether it is current or pending. Also include a brief explanation of how this application will fit in with any current awards from us or other organisations that you hold.
This helps the committee to understand the time commitment and scientific overlap with your other award(s) and the feasibility of holding our award alongside. You are permitted to submit parallel funding applications but must highlight this in your application.
As a member of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC), we monitor the full economic costs of the research we support. This means, you will need to complete an AMRC full economic costing information form as part of your application package.
full economics cost: please enter the total cost of your proposed research
charity contribution: please enter the total amount you’re requesting from us
Note that this information will not be reviewed as part of your final application.
Please contact us if you have questions about your eligibility, application or active award.
Dr Federica Rizzi PhD, Research Grants Manager
Dr Hannah Reeves PhD, Research Grants Manager
Dr Sowmiya Palani PhD, Research Grants Manager
Reasonable adjustments can be made throughout the grant application process. We do not require a formal diagnosis to access support.
Find out about our disability and accessibility support
Explore the resources, policies and other support we offer to help you understand how to apply for and manage your funding.
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