This fellowship supports group leaders to further develop their own research programme and build their reputation as a world-leader in the cancer research field.
Applications are reviewed twice per year. Upcoming application deadline (outline): 2 October 2025
6 years, or part-time equivalent
Typically up to £1.75m
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. If you would like to enquire about a potential application, please submit a CV and an eligibility enquiry form.
Download our eligibility enquiry form (PDF, 79.5 KB)
Email fellowships@cancer.org.uk
You can apply for a Senior Cancer Research Fellowship if you’re a scientist or clinician who:
will be based at a UK university, medical school, hospital or research institution
has space and facilities to run an independent research group
has a PhD or MD and extensive post-doctoral research experience
can demonstrate that you meet the range of skills and experience outlined in the ‘Transition to scientific leadership’ section of our competency framework
All our fellows are hosted in UK universities, medical schools, hospitals or research institutes. Most UK university departments are eligible, but please contact us before applying to check your host institution is eligible. You can be hosted by one of our institutes if you don’t receive core funding from them already.
At the outline application stage, you will have to identify a location to hold your award. If you’re successful, we expect you to hold the status of an independent group leader (or equivalent) at that institution.
If you’re invited to submit a full application, the head of department at your chosen institution will need to submit a letter of support to confirm that you’ll have a full-time position at your host institution for the duration of the award.
You should be the sole lead applicant (principal investigator) on the application and should lead your work independently of other laboratories at your host institution. You’ll need to demonstrate your ability to direct a research team and programme of research. However, we expect you to develop collaborations with other researchers, both at your institution and externally.
We expect host institutions to:
provide you with appropriate academic status and benefits commensurate to academic staff of similar seniority
provide you with a practical working environment and associated staff, including required office or lab space as applicable
allow for expansion of your research group and access to specialist facilities, where required and possible
ensure a supportive research and training environment, including providing you and your staff with relevant training, mentoring and support in keeping with our continuing professional development (CPD) policy and the Researcher Development Concordat
ensure there is a clear process of onboarding and planning when you join, including workload expectations and clear communication about a formal review and/or promotion process with objective assessment criteria and expected timelines
contribute 50% of your total salary for the duration of the award, which can be tapered over the course of the fellowship; this should be clearly outlined in a letter of support from your Head of Department or equivalent as part of the full application
commit to a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling salaried position by award end or to carry out a formal process at least two years before then to discuss your future at the organisation with a clear indication of employment options available, including the possibility of a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling salaried position, together with criteria and timelines
Host institutions must also take responsibility for ensuring any funding application content they approve for submission is not in breach of our research integrity guidelines.
Explore the Researcher Development Concordat
Read our guidelines for research conduct
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 notify us and disclose this in your application under 'Other Funding'.
You can apply for a Senior Cancer Research Fellowship if you have previously held funding such as:
a postdoctoral fellowship
a Clinician Scientist Fellowship or an Advanced Clinician Scientist Fellowship
a Career Development Fellowship or Career Establishment Award (or equivalent)
a start-up grant
an institutional fellowship aimed at generating data for an external fellowship application (eg up to two to three years of funding and technical support)
You cannot apply for a Senior Cancer Research Fellowship if you:
have previously held another substantial multi-year fellowship or award as an independent principal investigator like a Senior Cancer Research Fellowship or Programme Foundation Award
already hold a position with a fully-funded salary (eg lecturer position, tenured/tenure track position)
hold a core-funded group leader position at one of our institutes (you may apply to hold a fellowship at one of our institutes provided that you are not in receipt of core funding concurrent to the fellowship)
You can reapply to the Research Careers Committee if you have been unsuccessful previously at the outline or full application stage. However, we do have a restriction on the number of applications we can accept, and the committee generally only considers two submissions per applicant per career stage as defined by our competency framework.
If you are applying for a second time, you must contact us before starting a new application.
We do not have a strict time limit between re-applications, but we ask that you re-consider your eligibility for your intended scheme in terms of career stage, considering our competency framework and how you have addressed any previous feedback from the Research Careers Committee. This should be included in your cover letter as part 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. For fellowships generally, we expect at least 0.5 FTE or 80% of working hours, which ever is greater, to be spent on academic research.
If you’d like to apply on a part-time basis, you should do so from the outline application stage. 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.
You can apply for a Senior Cancer Research Fellowship in any (or more than one) of the following research areas, as long as your research proposal is cancer-relevant and clearly articulates the cancer-related question you’re focusing on.
We’re particularly interested in proposals addressing areas of strategic priority for us including early detection and research in cancers of unmet need such as brain, lung, oesophageal, pancreatic, liver and stomach cancer.
For fellowship proposals that use samples from ongoing trials, please consider including details of patient recruitment, and contingency plans should the trial be paused for any reason, to support the feasibility of the proposed work.
This applies to any cancer-relevant area of basic biological research, including:
cancer cell metabolism or genetics
cell transformation and oncogenesis
genomic instability and cell cycle
inflammation
migration, invasion, metastasis and tumour dormancy
tumour immunology, biology, microenvironment, heterogeneity or evolution
Studies may include the use of model systems (eg yeast/fly/mouse/cell lines etc.) or primary tumour material. Please specify how the chosen model relates to the question being addressed.
Research that generates biological data for developing therapeutics, including:
identification and functional characterisation of biological targets in cell lines, primary tumour material or model systems
biological mechanisms of therapeutic interventions
mechanisms of resistance to therapies
biological investigation of exceptional responders or non-responders
discovery research to identify and/or provide biological insight regarding potential biomarkers utilising samples from defined patient cohorts (eg retrospective trial or cohort)
The following areas of imaging research:
whole-body preclinical studies
cellular imaging to address questions of tumour biology in animal models or through whole-body imaging
development of imaging or contrast agents and other imaging technologies
imaging research associated with surgery
Research to optimise radiotherapy, including:
radiotherapy physics eg improving treatment planning, reducing toxicity and increasing efficacy of treatment to improve patient outcomes
radiobiology eg mechanisms of radiotherapy resistance and drug interactions
imaging radiotherapy
Research across all EPS disciplines, including:
physics
engineering
mathematical and computational modelling
chemical and molecular sciences
materials science
molecular and/or tissue engineering and regenerative medicine
prevention – eg adherence to chemoprevention
epidemiology
population-based studies, including classical, clinical and molecular epidemiological approaches, to help understand risk and disease aetiology, and to test and validate strategies to improve the prevention and control of cancer in patients and the public
incidence rates of cancer, including changes over time and geographies
investigation into the changes in cancer survival, driven by risk factors or other relevant factors
methodological and statistical research relating to prevention and population sciences
population-level epidemiological studies of secondary physical effects of cancer treatment
risk stratification and associated cancer prevention studies, including identification of high-risk groups where preventative interventions would be beneficial and in which preventative intervention research could be conducted
exploratory and confirmatory clinical trials testing the efficacy and safety of chemo-preventive agents
development and evaluation of behavioural and lifestyle interventions to support prevention of cancer, including cancer recurrence, across a range of risk factors, which may include tobacco, alcohol, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, obesity and UV exposure (individual or population level)
screening as a form of prevention, including population-level trials of screening approaches
policy-focused research to help develop our policies and advocacy strategies concerning cancer prevention, including policy research on tobacco control
biological research underpinning early detection
epidemiology/risk stratification for early detection
data/computation-driven approaches to early detection
development of preclinical models to detect early cancer and precancerous conditions
proposals that focus on the development of future trials
pharmaceutical research focused on a single lead compound or on optimising an existing therapeutic approach via a standard drug development pathway
infrastructure support to our clinical trials units or centres
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 our Research Careers Committee, assisted by our Expert Review Panels. The review process involves three steps:
You submit an outline application to the Research Careers Committee.
The committee will shortlist the best outline applications. If successful, you’ll be invited to submit a full application and attend an interview with the Expert Review Panel focusing on in-depth scientific assessment.
The committee will make final funding decisions, considering the recommendation of the Expert Review Panel.
Learn more about how we make funding decisions
The Research Careers Committee and Expert Review Panel will review your proposal based on relevance to our research strategy and a set of key criteria. You can find more information on these criteria 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.
As a fellow, you’ll be offered the opportunity of a mid-term review, to help provide effective career support and mentoring.
As part of this process, you will be asked to submit a progress report to us for review by the Research Careers Committee. You’ll also be asked to set up an informal meeting with a committee member with the aim to:
assess the progress made during your fellowship
identify any potential problems
discuss your future plans and career structure
You’ll receive detailed guidance and support ahead of time from us to make sure this is a useful and insightful meeting.
The committee member who meets with you will be asked to discuss your progress report and the outcomes of your meeting in the next committee meeting. If any issues are raised, a decision will be made by the committee on whether any action should be taken by us or the committee. This may include additional support.
Please note that fellowships are awarded on a full duration basis, and subsequent funding is not contingent on this review.
We consider applications for this award twice a year.
This scheme requires an initial outline submission followed by a full application. If your outline application is shortlisted, your full application will be reviewed in the subsequent funding round.
Outline applications due by: deadline past
Full applications due by: 11 September 2025
Interview in: November 2025
Outline applications due by: 2 October 2025
Full applications due by: February 2026
Interviews in: May 2026
Funding for this fellowship does not typically exceed £1.75m and lasts for six years (non-renewable) if you’re applying on a full-time basis. We expect you to take advantage of the full six years of support in planning your research programme.
The award money can be used to fund:
50% of your salary - an annual salary enhancement of £10,500 is paid each year of the funding period, calculated pro-rata according to our salary contribution (not applicable to clinicians who have obtained their certificate of completion of training)
salaries for two postdoctoral researchers, a technical staff member (ie a technician, graduate research assistant or scientific officer) and a PhD student; you’ll need to outline their roles fully and justify the requested posts in your application, highlighting your ability to supervise and lead your team
associated running costs
equipment costs up to £50k total
up to £1k for relocation costs (if appropriately justified) to cover relocation costs for yourself (and if applicable, your family) if you wish to take up your fellowship at a new host institution, but not if you move during the term of your fellowship
The award money doesn’t cover relocation costs for grant staff, course or examination fees, or other general disallowed costs.
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.
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 1 month before the submission deadline including your CV and an eligibility enquiry form.
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.
Download our eligibility enquiry form (PDF, 79.5 KB)
Email fellowships@cancer.org.uk
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.
The proposed start date you include in your fellowship application depends on the timing of the funding committee meeting where full applications are reviewed. Please ensure it is on the first of the month and at least two full months after the relevant committee meeting, as indicated by the table below.
Outline application committee review | Full application committee review | Earliest start date |
|---|---|---|
December | May | 1 August |
June | November | 1 February |
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 DOI.
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, skills and experience, research abstract and statistical analysis plan if using clinical data or transcriptomic, sequencing, metabolomic or proteomic technique, to be completed following the guidance available in Flexi-Grant
research proposal and accompanying uploads/supporting information, to be completed following the guidance provided below under ‘Additional Information’
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 2,000 words (excluding figures, figure legends and references).
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 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.
Summarise your current and other published work relating to your research proposal.
Clearly describe the hypothesis for your proposed programme, describing the scientific need for your proposed work and why it is necessary to test this hypothesis. Also, clearly state the key aims and objectives of your research proposal using bullet points.
Describe the significance of the results you plan to obtain. You should also indicate how the results you hope to achieve will change the way we understand, prevent, diagnose or treat cancer – for example, any future clinical application or impact on policy and practice.
Divide your research plan into objectives and for each objective state:
the research question
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 (eg collaborators)
any available unpublished research findings, pre-prints, as well as datasets, software and protocols supporting your research proposal, following the guidance above
brief description of what the major achievements of your research will be if the programme is successful
This is not included in the word count.
Please reference your proposal appropriately following the guidance provided above under ‘Publications and Research Outputs’. You should include authors, publication year, title, journal name, volume and page numbers.
Number your references according to the order they appear in the text and list them in the Vancouver style, as detailed by the US National Library of Medicine.
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.
As part of your outline application, you will need to provide the following information:
applicant information, career overview, skills and experience and research abstract, to be completed following the guidance available in Flexi-Grant
research proposal and accompanying uploads/supporting information, to be completed following the guidance provided below under ‘Additional Information’
There is no template for this scheme, so please structure your research proposal as outlined below.
As a general guide:
Do not exceed 5,000 words (excluding figures, figure legends, time charts, risk and mitigations plans, and references).
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.
Summarise your current and other published work relating to your research proposal.
Clearly describe the hypothesis for your proposed programme, describing the scientific need for your proposed work and why it is necessary to test this hypothesis. Also, clearly state the key aims and objectives of your research proposal using bullet points.
Describe the significance of the results you plan to obtain. You should also indicate how the results you hope to achieve will change the way we understand, prevent, diagnose or treat cancer – for example, any future clinical application or impact on policy and practice.
Divide your research plan into objectives and for each objective state:
the research question
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 (eg collaborators)
any available unpublished research findings, pre-prints, as well as datasets, software and protocols supporting your research proposal, following the guidance above
brief description of what the major achievements of your research will be if the programme is successful
This is not included in the word count. Please provide a table to indicate clear and well-defined milestones/deliverables for each part of the plan. You should list any potential logistic or scientific problems and suggest solutions or alternative plans.
This is not included in the word count.
Please reference your proposal appropriately following the guidance provided above under ‘Publications and Research Outputs’. You should include authors, publication year, title, journal name, volume and page numbers.
Number your references according to the order they appear in the text and list them in the Vancouver style, as detailed by the US National Library of Medicine.
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.
For supporting roles where a letter of support is required, letters should be signed and on headed paper. You may add the same person as two different supporting roles where appropriate (eg the head of department could also be providing an academic referee letter of support).
Outline application | Full application | |
|---|---|---|
Generative AI tools declaration | X | X |
Reviewers | X | X |
Academic reference | X | X |
Cover letter | X | X |
Declaration of competing interests | X | X |
Outputs from current Cancer Research UK funding | X | X |
Collaborators, including letters of support as required | X | X |
Data sharing plan | X | X |
Justification appendix | X | |
Mentor letters of support | X | |
Academic head of department letter of support | X | |
Research declarations | X | |
Costs | X | |
Other funding declaration | 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
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
Academic references should come from someone who’ll provide a letter stating your suitability for the fellowship.
We allow a maximum of two letters of support from academic references.
Your cover letter should include a short description of why you’re applying for this fellowship, why you believe the scheme is right for you and what you hope to achieve during your fellowship. Also briefly describe your academic achievements to date and your long-term career ambitions.
Cover letters should be on headed paper and should not exceed two pages.
If you have previously applied to the Research Careers Committee (or previously to the former New Investigator or Clinical Careers Committees) you must include how your revised application differs from your previous submission within your cover letter. In this instance, you may submit a cover letter up to three pages maximum.
Please include in the full application cover letter how you have addressed the committee feedback from the outline application stage. The Full Application will be reviewed by the Expert Review Panel which includes external panel members who will not have reviewed your outline submission, as well as the members of the Research Careers Committee.
Please use the template provided in Flexi-Grant and complete by following the instructions outlined in the document.
Read our conflicts of interest policy
If you currently hold, or have previously held, a Career Development Fellowship or Career Establishment Award with us, please complete the template document provided.
A collaborators is someone who’ll supply research materials, specific expertise or patient access, but won’t be involved in the day-to-day running of your research.
Provide details of any collaborators that will support you with this fellowship, including their name, their host institute and a brief description of the role that they will have in the project. When adding collaborator names, please include their title (eg Dr, Professor) and their institution.
We do not require letters of support from collaborators at outline application stage, but you must complete the collaborator table under ‘Supporting Information’.
For full applications, you will need to include details of all your collaborators plus any letters of support in the ‘Supporting Roles’ section of the justification appendix.
You only need a letter of support when a particular resource is being provided by a collaborator eg access to a resource, facility or samples.
For all other collaborators, a letter of support is optional, but recommended, particularly where the justification appendix indicates that they will be providing significant input that is essential to the success of the proposal.
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 re-usable 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
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
These roles are in addition to any already mentioned within this guidance.
When you invite external supporting roles, make it clear what role each participant will have in your application.
These individual roles may be given specific editing access to certain pages of your application or will require you to upload supporting documents on their behalf.
You must invite a mentor to participate in your application. This will be a senior academic who’ll provide you with independent support and advice for the duration of your fellowship.
You will need to upload a signed letter of support from the mentor in the ‘Supporting Information’ section of your application.
Please only select one individual to act as your official mentor. The mentor should be based outside of the host institution where you plan on holding your award and should not be a collaborator.
You must invite an academic head of department to support your application. This is the head of the department where most of your research will take place.
The designated individual will need to submit their letter of support for your research, including a guarantee that any necessary resources and lab or office space that are required for the duration of your award would be supported.
The letter should also include a commitment to contribute 50% of your total salary for the duration of the award and explain clearly how the host institution will provide longer term support for you at the end of your award.
The letter should be on headed paper and should not exceed a single page.
These are optional roles and should include any named research staff that will be involved in your research.
They will need to provide an up-to-date CV to support the application.
This is an optional role for someone who’ll support you with administrative support.
An administrative support contact can be invited to assist with the Costs and Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) sections of your application.
If you are a clinician undertaking clinical commitments throughout the duration of this award, you must also submit a letter of support from your clinical head of department.
This should include confirmation that your balance of clinical and research commitments will be supported, including the number of Programmed Activities you are proposing.
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.
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 the 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.
For full details of what we cover for salaries and staff posts, view our salary guidance.
Under this heading, please provide the following details for your salary costings.
If you are a clinician, provide details of your salary for up to a total of 11 Programmed Activities (10 Programmed Activities + 1 Additional Programmed Activity)
Ensure the salary cost for year one of the award is correct at the time that the fellowship is due to begin. Please do not apply indexation to the salary costs over the subsequent years of the award. Once we have established the amount of to be paid in the first year, a fixed indexation rate will be applied to all subsequent years of the award.
Use the appropriate host institution/NHS pay scale (and relevant to the actual starting date of the fellowship).
Provide details of Grade/Spine Point and % FTE (if appropriate) in the justification appendix.
We provide an additional fellowship supplement of £10.5k annually to support your salary on your award. This is not applicable to clinicians who have obtained their certificate of completion of training.
This supplement is not subject to indexation and will be incorporated into an official grant award letter under the ‘Running Expense’ category. This supplement is intended to be used to support the Fellows salary and to meet any potential shortfall that may arise due to our indexation rate.
Please note, in addition to the annual fellowship supplement, our virement policy allows for any further shortfall in salary to be met from unspent running expenses.
You can apply for up to four posts on your award to span the full duration of the fellowship (technician, postdoctoral researcher and/or non-clinical PhD student).
If you are requesting a non-clinical PhD student, it will be for a standard four-year duration, so you may request another research post for the remainder of that full time post (ie up to two years). All posts need to be fully justified and should not amount to more than two x six years FTE while remaining within the available funding. This means you can have two FTE, over four posts, who between them will cover the full six years.
Under this heading, please list the costs for any research staff that you’d like to request on your award. Ensure you follow the same requirements as listed under the section above ‘Salaries for Fellows’.
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.
PhD studentships funded through a Senior Cancer Research Fellowship must be guaranteed support for four years, which must fall within the duration of the award.
For a standard-length Senior Cancer Research Fellowship (72 months), you’ll need to recruit any proposed PhD students in the first or second year of the award.
We don’t part-fund studentships, so any PhD student funded through the Senior Cancer Research Fellowship must be fully funded through 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 fellowship).
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.
Please refer to our costs guidance for information about eligible staff costs, and justify your costs in the justification appendix.
Please list all general running expenses for your proposed research. Where possible, please group all costs associated with a particular item across all work packages, (rather than listing individual items for each work package). This includes microscopy costs, massively-parallel sequencing costs, etc.
Include all animal costs under ‘animal-related costs’, with animal purchase, animal maintenance and experimental animal costs under separate subheadings and fully justify any animal research in your research proposal.
Justify any eligible running expenses costs in your research proposal appendix.
Under this heading, please list all equipment costs you are requesting for your award, including:
all requested equipment for the duration of the award in year one
any equipment costs under £5k, as a running expense
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 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.
Please contact us if you have any questions about your eligibility, application or active award.
Dr Catherine Cremona, Research Grants Manager
Dr Elisabetta Gamen, Research Grants Manager
Dr Fran Smith, Research Grants Manager
Please contact Dr Alison Walters, Research Programme Manager, if you would like to hear more about the support we offer eg fellow meetings, activities and training, and to share any potential challenges you might face.
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.
