This award supports new and pioneering research ideas and pilot studies of high scientific risk to stimulate and develop the early detection field.
Applications are reviewed twice per year. Upcoming application deadline: 18 September 2025
Up to one year
Up to £100k
Our core eligibility criteria are outlined below.
We recommend that you 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.
Email early.detection@cancer.org.uk
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.
To achieve our goal of developing the early detection and diagnosis field, we encourage applications from a broad range of fields, such as:
biomedicine
engineering
physics
statistics
mathematics
chemistry
informatics
computer and data sciences
You don’t have to have previous experience within cancer research, but a clear link between the proposed project, early detection or diagnosis of cancer and a vision towards future clinical implementation is required.
We welcome researchers from all career stages to apply. In cases where an early career researcher is lead or joint lead applicant, we would strongly recommend including at least one established researcher as co-applicant for mentorship.
We outline how we define career stages in our competency framework.
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.
Your host institution must approve your application before the submission deadline, so please ensure you are in contact with your institution’s administrative staff in advance. Host institutions must ensure they can provide sufficient space and resources for the proposed research.
If you receive core funding from one of our institutes (including the Francis Crick Institute), you may apply as a joint lead applicant with a researcher based outside the institute. However, you should explain why you require extra support in addition to the funding you receive from the institute.
You will need to distinguish your core funded research from the research in your proposal and demonstrate your ability to manage both programmes of work. If this applies to you, you must contact us before submitting your application.
You can submit applications for the same project to different funding bodies, including us. However, if successful, you may only accept one award. If applicable, please inform us and disclose this under the 'Other Funding' section of your application.
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.
If you’d like to apply on a part-time basis, 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.
Our Early Detection and Diagnosis Primer Award supports highly novel and innovative approaches to address early detection and diagnosis questions. It can also support the creation of new collaborations/consortia or the establishment and development of a researcher, with the clear aim of applying any skills and collaborations developed to the early detection field.
Applications must demonstrate early detection/diagnosis relevance, consider a line-of-sight to clinical or population impact and clearly articulate the cancer-related question you’re focusing on.
You don’t have to include extensive preliminary data to support your application, though any data you do have will be considered. Any data generated or collaborations established through this award should form the basis for a more extensive research project.
Examples of areas we will consider include:
applying an established technology to the early detection of cancer or cancer recurrence
developing or modifying technology to apply to the early detection of cancer
innovative and out-of-the-box lines of investigation within early detection
establishing new collaborations to tackle an early detection area of need
training and lab exchanges to improve the standing of a researcher in the early detection field
You can apply for a Primer Award in any number or combination of the areas relevant to cancer early detection and diagnosis. The examples provided are not exhaustive.
identification and validation of early detection markers and tests
identification of high-risk groups for early detection and diagnosis research and implementation
health systems and economics research for early detection and diagnosis
data/computation-driven approaches to early detection and diagnosis
development and use of appropriate preclinical model systems (eg cellular, organoid, xenograft, animal model)
early detection technology development – exploratory and translational research
research to understand and intervene in public or clinician behaviour to enhance early detection and diagnosis
For more information on our strategic priorities, explore the following resources.
research focussing on late-stage disease and/or metastasis (except early detection of cancer recurrence)
research without line-of-sight to impact in early detection
infrastructure support to our clinical trials units or centres
Some research concepts may straddle the remits of more than one funding committee. 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.
Applications are considered twice a year by the Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee.
Learn more about how we make funding decisions
The Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee will review your proposal based on relevance to our strategy, statement of intent and a set of standard criteria.
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 42%.
Learn more about the committee
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.
Applications due by: 18 September 2025
Applications due by: 26 March 2026
You can apply for up to £100k for funding through this award. Funding lasts up to 12 months and can be used to fund pilot experiments and associated running costs, including:
travel and meeting organisation between collaborators
training courses, workshops, lab visits or other knowledge exchange opportunities
For more information on what is covered by our awards, read our costs guidance.
These funds may also fund one investigator’s salary for the duration of the award.
If you are applying for a salary, please use the Skills and Experience template for your mandatory Research Experience upload. Postdoctoral researchers applying for a salary whilst under academic supervision must provide a letter of support from your supervisor.
For more information on salary eligibility for our awards, read our salary guidance.
You should contact us for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal for us to determine your eligibility and discuss funding options.
Please reach out at least one month before the submission deadline. You must also inform your host institution that you intend to apply, as they will need to approve your application online before you submit it to us.
Email early.detection@cancer.org.uk
We recommend you 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.
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 post-doctoral research assistants funded by the award)
Named research staff, if any: any named research staff that 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.
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, volume number and either page numbers or digital object identifier.
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 application, you will need to provide the following information:
applicant and joint lead applicant information and research abstract, to be completed following the guidance available in Flexi-Grant
research proposal, following the template provided in Flexi-Grant
accompanying uploads/supporting information, to be completed following the guidance provided below under ‘Additional Information’
The research proposal is where you describe your idea, its novelty and how it will contribute to the early detection field including its clinical and translational potential. You should also address the strengths of your team to achieve the endpoints of your proposal.
Please use the template provided in Flexi-Grant to complete your research proposal, following the guidance below:
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.
State briefly the challenge or hypothesis the proposed project looks to address. Include details of the current state of the art, and how the project or collaboration will drive progress in the early detection of cancer.
Please provide information on the composition of the team of applicants and collaborators including:
whether this is a new or existing collaboration
whether the team or members of the team have published together previously (this is not a requirement)
individual time contributions of those working on the project where possible, stating briefly the added value of the collaboration compared to each principal investigator working independently
Explain clearly how you will address the early detection challenge you have identified. Please provide enough information on how you plan to develop your ideas and build a platform for future research, highlighting the key milestones necessary to achieve this.
Complete this section if the proposal concerns a research question. You should include:
the research question
any experimental methods, techniques and analyses that you’ll use to test your hypothesis, referring to your own published work where you’ve used these methods before, or indicating the availability of appropriate expertise and justifying your experimental design including sample size calculations as appropriate
any available unpublished research findings or methodologies supporting your research proposal (please include these in the text, not as an appendix)
Complete this section if establishing a new collaboration or focusing on researcher development.
You should state the expected outputs of developing this collaboration or undertaking relevant training, including an explanation of why this should be important to us. Also include a description of your vision for future research proposals which may lead on from this work.
As part of your application, you will be required to provide additional information and supplementary uploads as follows.
Required for application | |
|---|---|
Generative AI tools | X |
Justification appendix | X |
Narrative CV or skills and experience form | X |
Declaration of competing interests | X |
Letters of support | X |
Research declarations | X |
Data sharing plan | X |
Costs | X |
Other funding declaration | X |
Association of Medical Research Charities full economic costing | X |
Registered reports pilot programme opt-in | Optional |
Patient and public involvement plan | Optional |
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
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
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.
Read our guidance on narrative CVs
Only complete this form if you are a lead applicant, joint lead applicant or co-investigator eligible to request your salary, or you are an early career researcher (regardless of your salary arrangements). Refer to our salary guidance section for more information on this.
You can use the template provided in Flexi-Grant to complete this section. Your form shouldn’t exceed 4 pages.
Please refer to our competency framework that outlines the range of skills, experiences and types of examples to include in your application.
We need to make sure activities with commercial organisations do not compromise the scientific integrity, delivery or potential health impact of our funded research, and that potential conflicts of interest are identified and managed.
Please use the template provided in Flexi-Grant to complete this section. All lead and joint lead applicants must provide this information.
Read our conflicts of interest policy
Please upload statements of support on headed paper from:
the host institution of 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 work (not exceeding two pages each)
additional letters of support from appropriate advisory bodies
Early-career researchers will also need letters of support from their group leader or the head of their lab.
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.
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 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
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.
We aim to foster collaboration through the Early Detection and Diagnosis Primer Award. You may therefore apply for funding towards collaborative travel and the cost of training courses or costs associated with visiting a lab to learn a technique. This is in addition to funds relating to experimental work at your host institution.
You can allocate funding to support knowledge exchange between labs and hosting meetings/workshops to support collaborative working. We also encourage teams to host networking meetings or workshops with the wider research community to share the learnings and outputs from the team, if appropriate. These meetings should be meaningful and add value to the proposal.
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 the principal investigator, 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 fellowship 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.
View AMRC’s position on funding universities
When applying, you will be invited to join to our multi-journal pilot project on registered reports. If you opt-in to this pilot and your grant application is successful, you will have the opportunity to submit registered reports to your choice of participating journals for peer review. By receiving peer review feedback before you start your research project, you’ll have the chance to refine your methods. This can help reduce publication bias and improve reproducibility of your research. Once the research project concludes, you can then submit a second publication with results and discussion.
We’ll provide more details about this process once you receive an award.
Your decision to take part in this pilot, and any anonymised data collected will not influence our decision-making process and will only be used for this pilot programme and its evaluation. We will store your information securely in accordance with UK law and our Privacy Policy.
Learn more about our registered reports pilot
We don’t mandate that you include specific patient and public involvement activities as part of your application.
However, if your proposal involves studies using people affected by cancer or members of the public, their samples or data, we strongly encourage you to consider including a patient and public involvement (PPI) plan.
If you do include a PPI plan, provide a clear outline including its rationale and how it will add value to your research proposal. This could include how you’ll involve patients in the development of research questions, research planning and design, or evaluation and/or sharing of research findings. The approach you use should be relevant for the type of study and the research field, and you should explain your reasoning for the proposed approach (including who and how).
Be sure to include:
detail on specific methods to involve patients and the public, in all aspects of the project, such as focus groups, advisory boards or community forums
outline recruitment plans to engage diverse communities which define the specific roles of the individuals involved in your planned activities
how you are offering support, guidance and development opportunities where appropriate for those involved in your research
a detailed budget breakdown for planned PPI costs, ensuring they align with the level of involvement
Where it would add value, also consider involving key patient/public members as part of the study co-investigators and/or steering group.
There are differences between what we mean by participation, engagement and involvement. Please ensure you are using the correct term, relevant for your proposed study.
Our PPI toolkit for researchers can help you implement PPI plans, including guidance around how to choose the right method, budgeting, recruiting, delivering and evaluating your activity.
Learn more about our PPI in research and access the toolkit
As part of your PPI plan, you should include a clear lay summary. This should not simply be an adaptation of the research abstract.
It should be written in clear and concise language that is understandable for the average UK reading age (9-11 years old).
As part of your lay summary you should include:
the study background, assuming the reader has no prior knowledge of the topic
the study aims and its importance
the scale of the current problem
an overview of how the study would be conducted
how the study will make a difference and what the expected immediate study outcomes are, including why the findings will enable change that provides longer term benefits for people affected by cancer
If relevant, also include:
the study population
how the study reduces health inequalities or inequities
how people affected by cancer and members of the public are involved in the delivery of the study
Where possible, involve patient/public members in drafting and reviewing the lay summary. Your host institution may provide support with writing lay summaries.
View our guidance on writing in plain English
View NIHR guidance on writing in plain English
Input from people affected by cancer and members of the public should be meaningful not tokenistic. And where possible, the people you plan to involve should have personal experience (including caring) that is relevant to your study question.
Please consider the number of people involved and their time commitment, ensuring that involvement does not burden them, especially patients who may be undergoing treatment.
You should consider the breadth and relevance of insight obtained, especially if your project is focused on a particular target population. Try to gather a diverse, wider view, and to address health inequalities where possible.
There may be barriers in identifying representatives from certain target populations, due to health or personal reasons. But you should try and find ways to mitigate or minimise these kinds of barriers to involvement to ensure your research is applicable to as broad a population as possible.
If your application includes elements of AI or machine learning, you should ensure appropriate justification and detail is given.
Include a size and power analysis where possible or describe how these will be assessed after data collection.
Provide the list of features used for model training and outline a feature reduction strategy, if applicable.
Identify and address potential data biases where possible.
Describe any independent validation set you plan to use or provide a justification if one will not be used.
If using artificial neural networks, discuss their rationale and architecture; if not, outline alternative methods being considered and the criteria for their selection.
Describe how you split data for training and validation, and address any potential data imbalances, if applicable.
Outline your plans to assess and correct overfitting or underfitting and define the metrics and criteria for evaluating performance.
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.
Please contact us if you have questions about your eligibility, application or active award.
Dr Emily Friar, 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.
We develop outstanding cancer researchers through funding, mentoring and coaching, training and networking opportunities.
