This page provides general guidance, and in some instances, the acceptability of costs may vary. Our grants typically only fund direct research costs.
When applying for funding, additional costs guidance may be provided in the application guidelines for the specific funding scheme you’re applying to. If you’re successful in your application, you will receive a grant award letter (GAL) outlining the awarded costs.
Contact us if you need any further guidance.
Email usWe will usually cover costs outlined below, other than where we’ve specified exceptions.
Salaries for researchers on fixed term contracts working specifically on the funded project are an allowable cost. This may include funded fellowships, research assistants, data managers and technicians.
When entering salary costs in grant applications, please be aware that we only pay increments in the first year of an award. If funded, we will apply a standard rate of indexation (which is currently 1.75% for FY 25/26) across salaries and running expenses to all subsequent years of an award. We expect host institutions to use this indexation allowance, alongside our flexible virement policy, to pay annual salary increments.
Find out more about admissible salary costs
Global Talent Visa (GTV) application fees and GTV-associated Immigration Health Surcharge Costs for fellowship holders or grant staff whose salaries are funded by us are allowable costs.
These costs will only be covered for posts funded by us if the host institution does not cover these costs as standard. We do not include the costs for partners or dependents.
Other types of visa application costs for our grant holders or funded posts are not covered by us.
Laboratory chemicals and materials (eg reagents, isotopes, peptides, enzymes, antibodies, gases, proteins, cell/tissue/bacterial culture, plastic ware and glassware) are allowable costs. This includes any associated charges for shipping, delivery and freight.
Please note that ‘bench fees’ will only be covered if they are for named researchers on the grant, and only if the host institution confirms that the bench fees do not include charges for unacceptable costs.
Gloves, branded lab coats, goggles and protective shoes are allowable costs.
Costs may include the purchase, lease, delivery and installation of scientific equipment where that equipment is specific to the grant. Our grant holders should always seek to procure sustainable versions of equipment, even if they are more expensive to purchase.
Alternatively, grant holders should purchase second-hand or refurbished equipment or conduct maintenance of existing equipment as an alternative to purchasing new equipment. Maintenance costs are allowable for equipment that has been purchased on a grant, where the warranty has expired.
Fees associated with repairing or updating hardware and software with more energy-efficient versions are allowable costs.
Access fees charged by usage or size of grant where the equipment has not been purchased (or leased if this is deemed more financially viable or for environmental sustainability reasons) on a Cancer Research UK grant are allowable costs.
Single or multi-study licences to access essential, large research databases (eg Clinical Practice Research Database) are allowable costs if fully justified, such as if the cost of multiple single licences would be more expensive.
Where justified, reasonable personal computing costs for named individuals engaged to work specifically on the grant are allowable. Specialised software specific to the funded research is also allowable.
Standard per-unit IT charges and generic office software are not eligible.
Animal purchase and transportation costs, maintenance (including food), Home Office Project Licences and experimentation costs are allowable.
Personal animal licences specifically for grant staff are eligible. However, animal handling training costs and facility licence costs are not eligible.
Costs to support the authentication of cell lines, for example, screening for contamination by mycoplasma, STR profiling for human cell lines, or DNA fingerprinting for non-human cells are allowable. We will also cover the purchase of cell lines from cell banks such as ATCC.
Archiving, repository fees, data storage costs and data management services costs are allowable. Data management and sharing costs must be reasonable and proportionate in the context of the overall grant.
Data sharing costs do not include open access publication fees.
Stipends, running expenses and fees for PhD students are allowable.
We do not part-fund studentships, so 100% of costs should be included. Under ‘running expenses’, up to £2k from the overall budget is ringfenced for researcher development activities to attend conferences, external training courses or workshops (registration, travel, etc.) over the four-year studentship.
For students already part way through their studentship, the available researcher development activities budget is on a pro-rata of time remaining on the studentship, according to the PhD expense rates. From 1 Jan 2021, students paying international fees also include EU and EEA nationals. We will only support fees at the set home/UK fee rate outlined above. Any shortfall between our standard fee allowance and the international fee rate must be covered by another source of funding by the institution and cannot be covered by the student themselves.
If a host institution chooses to provide a stipend above our standard studentship rate to align with internal policies or other funding sources, they may do so. However, any top-up to the stipend must not be funded from our awards. These additional costs must be covered by the host institution.
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. You can view our PhD expense rates below.
For patient involvement representatives sitting on steering groups or advisory boards specifically relating to the funded research, reasonable travel and subsistence costs, as well as fees or honoraria where applicable, are allowable.
Fees or honoraria should be no greater than:
£80 per day (where more than four hours is contributed)
£50 per half day (where between two to four hours is contributed)
£30 for up to two hours, or
Where the patient involvement representative is sitting on a committee that includes other professional experts who are offered an honorarium, they should be given an amount equal to the honorarium offered to those other professional experts.
Reasonable recruitment for research participants in population and behavioural studies is an allowable cost. This includes using external agencies where required to improve underrepresentation of marginalised groups or to ensure efficient delivery of the research.
Nominal participant incentives for healthy volunteers participating in population and behavioural studies are allowable, provided the voucher is for their expense, time and inconvenience and is not at a level that would induce people to take part in studies against their better judgement.
Typically, incentives should aim to improve participation of marginalised groups in line with our equality, diversity and inclusion in research aims.
Incentives can only be offered in vouchers (no cash, tobacco or alcohol retail vouchers) and as follows:
per research participant interaction, costs must not exceed more than:
£10 for surveys or cohort studies
£60 for qualitative interviews
total incentive costs must not exceed more than 10% of the grant award total.
In exceptional circumstances, please contact us to discuss any requests that exceed this before applying.
Incentives must be fully justified in ‘running expenses’ in a grant application, listing the number of participants and the cost of incentive per participant.
Reasonable travel and refreshment costs for research participants in population and behavioural studies are acceptable.
Aligned with our equality, diversity and inclusion in research aims, for grant applications submitted after April 2025, costs for patient/participant travel may be requested up to the level of £200 per patient/participant if required, to cover patient/participant travel to sites for the purpose of the research study. These costs can only be used to cover both patient/participant and/or carer travel and cannot be vired to other budget allocations. Applicants may request over this amount if sufficient justification is given.
We would not expect these costs to exceed more than 10% of the grant award total. In exceptional circumstances, please contact us to discuss any requests that exceed this before applying.
Participant travel must be fully justified in ‘running expenses’ in a grant application, listing the number of patient/participants for which travel is being costed and cost of travel per patient/participant.
For existing awards, underspend may be able to be used for this purpose if sufficient approval is obtained.
Consultancy costs for a specific piece of work where appropriately justified are allowable. This may include paying an individual who is not a co-investigator or ongoing contributor to perform technical services such as processing samples or data handling.
Where appropriately justified these costs may be paid to individuals based outside the UK.
We may, in certain circumstances, cover costs outlined below, expect for exceptions we’ve specified.
If relating to recruiting patients or participants on a clinical trial or other studies involving human participants recruitments costs are acceptable.
Lead applicants on fellowships can ask for up to £1k personal moving costs if moving to start the fellowship at a new institution. This is only if justified in the application and where the host institution does not pay relocation costs.
This cost is not acceptable if relating to recruitment of posts to a grant.
As per our environmental sustainability in research policy, we expect research teams to undertake only essential travel for research activities, using a virtual or digital alternative where possible. Where travel is necessary for the research, lower carbon transport options should be considered, even if this comes at a higher price.
Costs associated with a longer journey when taking a more sustainable form of transport, such as internet connection, subsistence and overnight accommodation are permitted.
Costs associated with travel for research collaboration purposes directly related to the activity funded on the grant are eligible to be included in a grant application (eg research staff spending time in another institution or for essential travel for a multi-institutional grant where face-to-face meetings are required).
Grant underspend may be used to cover reasonable subsistence, childcare and conference costs (where not eligible) associated with travel if the person travelling is funded by the grant and the purpose of travel relates to the grant.
Confirmation that the above criteria have been met must be obtained from us before underspend is used in this way.
First class travel and meetings organised or hosted by us where attendee costs are reimbursed directly should not be charged to grants.
Read our environmental sustainability in research policy
Fellowship applicants and early-to-mid-career investigators requesting salary (according to our investigator salary policy) aligned to the career stage headings of develop independence or establish independence of our competency framework; may apply for reasonable costs associated with attending scientific conferences, including registration fees, travel and visa expenses, up to the cost of £2,000 per year.
Costs must be appropriately justified and are intended to support early-career investigators in building their professional networks and raising their research profiles.
Costs for investigators whose salaries are not funded by the grant, such as established researchers and Named Research Staff will not be covered.
Read our investigator salary policy
These costs are not eligible on grant applications but may come from grant underspend if for collaborative meetings relating to the grant and not excessive in cost.
These costs are not allowed if used for quinquennial reviews or reasons unrelated to research (eg staff parties).
Costs of project-specific skills training needed to complete the science proposed in the grant application are eligible.
The majority of careers-based skills training is not eligible except where a funded researcher’s development needs cannot be met by organisational provision and costs are fully justified.
Other general HR or IT training costs are not allowed.
These costs are acceptable if posting scientific materials (including, if relevant, research survey responses). General postage costs are not allowed.
Page charges, cost of colour printing and reprints may be paid from grant underspend but are not eligible at application stage.
Publication costs are unacceptable in grant application budgets.
Our funded researchers at UK universities eligible for our open access block grant should recover article processing charges (APCs) from their institution’s open access block grant. If your institution is not eligible for an open access block grant, or if the institution’s annual block grant has been exhausted, grant underspend may be used to fund APCs incurred during the grant.
APCs should not be included in application budgets.
Read our policy on open access
This cost is acceptable if appropriately justified and relevant to the success of the grant activities.
This cost is acceptable if in lieu of travel expenses for attending a meeting. It’s also acceptable if incurred whilst gathering data as part of the grant activities (eg telephone interview costs for subjects in behavioural studies). Infrastructure costs remain the responsibility of host institution.
These costs are only acceptable if outlined in the GAL.
These costs are only acceptable for grants supporting systematic reviews.
These costs are only acceptable for trials and centres, grants supporting studies with human participants where surveys and similar materials are required, or if outlined on the GAL.
These costs are only acceptable for trials and centres or if outlined on the GAL.
These costs are only acceptable for research nurses on trials, staff undertaking field work or telephone interviews of human subjects in population studies.
These costs are only acceptable for our clinical trials units, centres, experimental cancer medicine centres or if outlined on the GAL.
general estate costs
furniture
health and safety including first aid kits and hazard signs
utility costs
standard telephone and internet costs
standard per-unit IT costs
phone and computer accessories beyond the ‘Personal Computing Costs’ set out above
fees to professional organisations including journal subscriptions and professional memberships
misc such as paper wipes, laundry, reference books and similar costs
departmental support staff including secretarial support, librarians, or general lab support staff
HR costs and taxes such as eye tests, CRB checks, redundancy, apprenticeship levies, and visa application costs other than Global Talent Visa application costs set out above
shared catering including coffee, milk, water, vending machines and maintenance
insurance for laptops, travel, etc
gifts for instance vouchers for trial participants
insufficiently evidenced costs meaning no copy of invoice or receipt available
Please note we have increased the baseline stipend by 5.3% from the previous year. As of 1st October 2025 host institutions will now also have the flexibility to top-up stipends for existing Cancer Research UK-funded PhD students. This is to ensure parity for Cancer Research UK PhD students at the same host organisation.
Indexation | Total (four years) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Stipend | Outside London | £22,113 | 1.75%* | £90,801 |
Inside London | £24,219 | 1.75%* | £99,495 | |
Running expenses | Years 1-3 | £13,500 | 1.75% | £48,323 |
Year 4 | £7,200 | 1.75% | ||
Fees | Years 1-4 | £4,662 | 1.75% | £19,143 |
Oxbridge college fee uplift | Cambridge - Years 1-3 | £2,812 | 0% | £8,436 |
Oxford - Years 1-3 | £2,258 | 0% | £6,774 | |
Overall 4-year total | Outside London | £158,267 | ||
Inside London | £166,915 | |||
Outside London - Cambridge | £166,703 | |||
Outside London - Oxford | £165,041 | |||
*Indexation will now be applied to the baseline stipend for subsequent years.
Under ‘Running expenses’, up to £2k from the overall budget is ringfenced for researcher development activities to attend conferences, external training courses or workshops (registration, travel, etc) over the 4 year studentship. For students already part way through their studentship, the available researcher development activities budget is on a pro-rata of time remaining on the studentship (funding permitting).
From 1 Jan 2021, students paying international fees also includes EU and EEA nationals. We will only support fees at our set home/UK fees rate outlined above. Any shortfall between our standard fee allowance and the international fee rate must be covered by another source of funding by the institution and cannot be covered by the student themselves.
Indexation | Total (four years) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Stipend | Outside London | £21,000 | 0% | £84,000 |
Inside London | £23,000 | 0% | £92,000 | |
Running expenses | Years 1-3 | £13,500 | 1.75% | £48,323 |
Year 4 | £7,200 | 1.75% | ||
Fees | Years 1-4 | £4,662 | 1.75% | £19,143 |
Oxbridge college fee uplift | Cambridge - Years 1-3 | £2,812 | 0% | £8,436 |
Oxford - Years 1-3 | £2,258 | 0% | £6,774 | |
Overall 4-year total | Outside London | £151,467 | ||
Inside London | £159,647 | |||
Outside London - Cambridge | £159,903 | |||
Outside London - Oxford | £158,241 | |||
Under ‘Running expenses’, up to £2k from the overall budget is ringfenced for researcher development activities to attend conferences, external training courses or workshops (registration, travel, etc) over the four-year studentship. For students already part way through their studentship, the available researcher development activities budget is on a pro-rata of time remaining on the studentship (funding permitting).
From 1 Jan 2021, students paying international fees also includes EU and EEA nationals. We will only support fees at the rate we have set for home/UK fees rate outlined above. Any shortfall between our standard fee allowance and the international fee rate must be covered by another source of funding by the institution and cannot be covered by the student themselves.
Indexation | Total (4 years) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Stipend | Outside London | £21,000 | 0% | £84,000 |
Inside London | £23,000 | 0% | £92,000 | |
Running expenses | Years 1-3 | £13,500 | 1.75%* | £48,753 |
Year 4 | £7,200 | 1.75% | ||
Fees | Years 1-4 | £4,407 | 1.75%* | £18,264 |
Oxbridge college fee uplift | Cambridge - Years 1-3 | £2,812 | 0% | £8,436 |
Oxford - Years 1-3 | £2,258 | 0% | £6,774 | |
Overall 4-year total | Outside London | £151,017 | ||
Inside London | £159,017 | |||
Outside London - Cambridge | £159,453 | |||
Outside London - Oxford | £157,791 | |||
*one off uplift to 3% indexation at the end of year 1
Under ‘Running expenses’, up to £2k from the overall budget is ringfenced for researcher development activities to attend conferences, external training courses or workshops (registration, travel, etc) over the four-year studentship. For students already part way through their studentship, the available researcher development activities budget is on a pro-rata of time remaining on the studentship (funding permitting).
From 1 Jan 2021, students paying international fees also includes EU and EEA nationals. We will only support fees at our set home/UK fees rate outlined above. Any shortfall between our standard fee allowance and the international fee rate must be covered by another source of funding by the institution and cannot be covered by the student themselves.
