This award provides long-term support for broad, multidisciplinary programmes with transformative potential in primary prevention and population research.
Applications are reviewed twice per year. Upcoming application deadline (outline): 11 September 2025
5 years
Up to £2.5m
Our core eligibility criteria are outlined. We strongly encourage you to 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 us at pprc@cancer.org.uk
You can apply for our Prevention and Population Programme Award if you are a scientist, clinician or healthcare worker based in a UK university, medical school, hospital or research institution.
You must have extensive postdoctoral experience, an internationally recognised track record and be able to successfully run an independent research group.
During the full duration of the award, you must be in a post that is fully funded by your host institution.
You can hold this award if you’ve had funding from us before or have previously received one of our fellowships. However, you cannot be an active fellow during a Programme Award. If you have an active award with us, please contact us to check if you can have additional funding at the same time.
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.
Please contact us to check your host institution is eligible. Your host institution must approve your full application before the submission deadline, so we advise contacting your institution’s administrative staff in advance.
You must ensure that your host institution will provide sufficient space and access to resources to undertake the proposed research.
If you receive core funding from one of our institutes (including the Francis Crick Institute), you may apply as a joint lead applicant with a researcher based outside our institutes. However, you should explain why you require extra support in addition to the funding you receive from the institute and contact us before you apply.
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'.
We may consider joint funding with other organisations. If you’re interested, please discuss this with us and the other potential funder before applying.
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 funding covers several research areas so long as your application is cancer-relevant, considers a line-of-sight to clinical or population impact and clearly articulates the cancer-related question you’re focusing on.
Please ensure your proposal offers a well-structured programme of work deliverable within the time-frame. If building on previous work, the proposal must present how it develops, builds on and extends your previous research programme.
We will fund several research areas so long as your application considers a line-of-sight to clinical or population impact, clearly articulates the cancer-related question you’re focusing on and, where applicable, has clear relevance to cancer prevention as outlined in our prevention research strategy. We also welcome prevention intervention studies in outline applications.
Examples of areas we will consider include:
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
translational research seeking to harness mechanistic, biological insights in order to: develop novel cancer prevention targets, agents and strategies, apply understanding of cancer risk/aetiology to reduce risk or better target preventive strategies, work towards precision prevention (through pharmacological, immunological, behavioural or other means), including areas of priority highlighted in our prevention research strategy such as application of immunology, infection, metabolism, ageing and accumulation of somatic mutations
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 for whom preventative interventions would be beneficial and in which preventative intervention research could be conducted
exploratory and confirmatory clinical trials seeking to test the efficacy and safety of chemopreventive agents
development and evaluation of behavioural and lifestyle interventions to support prevention of cancer, including cancer recurrence, across a range of risk factors, for example, tobacco, alcohol, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, obesity and UV exposure at the 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 regarding cancer prevention, including policy research on tobacco control
If you’d like to apply for funding for a clinical trial, please liaise with a clinical trials unit when writing your proposal.
Your programme will have clearly defined objectives, but we don’t expect all questions to be fully answered within the award’s duration. This is why we offer the opportunity to renew funding. Some aspects of the programme may build on ongoing work, while others should explore new lines of enquiry.
We strongly welcome the inclusion of PhD studentships as part of the capacity-building element of your application.
For more information on our strategic priorities, read our prevention research strategy and overarching research strategy.
We don’t provide infrastructure support to our clinical trials units, tissue banks or our centres or institutes through this award. We also don’t support research focusing on prevention of relapse/recurrence, or projects that will audit or evaluate existing clinical pathways.
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 Prevention and Population Research Committee, assisted by our Expert Review Panels and Patient and Public Review Panel. The review process involves the following steps:
After contacting us for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal, you can start your outline application on Flexi-Grant.
After submitting an outline application on Flexi-Grant, your application will be considered by the Prevention and Population Research Committee.
If successful, the committee will invite you to submit a full application for consideration at their next meeting. You should contact us to discuss any feedback and confirm your submission date. You may also defer the submission of a full application to the subsequent round.
Your full application will be considered by the Expert Review Panel and the Patient and Public Review Panel. You will have the opportunity to present your proposal, respond to peer review comments at interview with one of the Expert Review Panels, and answer any questions they may have. Our Patient and Public Review Panel will review your application regardless of the level of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) within the proposal. The panel will mainly focus on your lay summary, PPI plan including associated costs and study population, if applicable, and the proposed clinical/population impact of your work.
A final decision will be made at a second meeting of the Prevention and Population Research Committee.
Learn more about how we make funding decisions
The Prevention and Population Research Committee and Expert Review Panel will review your proposal based on relevance to our strategy, statement of intent and a set of standard criteria.
Programme applications should also consider strategic issues relating to the long-term nature of the award, such as capacity building and succession planning, as well as the usual scientific considerations. You can find more information on our standard criteria on our committee pages.
The five-year rolling success rate (financial year 2020-2025) from application to funding for this scheme is 60%.
Learn more about the committee
We offer early- to mid-career researchers the opportunity to observe panel and committee meetings across our funding remit and prioritise giving this opportunity to researchers from underrepresented groups.
Find out more about eligibility and how to apply
We will provide feedback on your application, but all funding decisions are final. Committee members cannot discuss their decisions with applicants, so please do not approach them directly. This allows our committee members to keep the Code of Practice for Funding Committees, which keeps our review process fair and protects applicants, committee members and external reviewers.
Our review process is extremely important to us, so we reserve the right to decline applications from anyone who compromises its integrity. We do not accept resubmissions, unless recommended by the committee.
We consider applications for this award twice a year. This scheme requires an initial outline submission followed by a full application.
If your outline application is shortlisted, your full application will be reviewed in the subsequent funding round (for instance, an outline application submitted in autumn, will be reviewed in full in the spring committee meeting).
Outline applications due by: 11 September 2025
Full applications due by: deadline past
Interviews in: September 2025
Outline applications due by: 26 March 2026
Full applications due by: 22 January 2026
Interviews in: March 2026
You can apply for up to £2.5m funding through this award. Funding lasts up to five years, subject to an annual scientific milestone report review. It can be used to fund postdoctoral researchers, PhD students (stipend and fees) and technical staff, with associated running costs.
The award can be used to fund one co-investigator or other senior researcher as named research staff but cannot be used to fund your own salary or the salaries of collaborators. In these cases, researchers will spend the majority of their time on the proposed research.
You can also request equipment costing up to £50k. If equipment exceeds this value, please contact us to discuss your requirements.
For more information on what is covered by our awards, view our costs and salary guidance.
All applicants need to submit an outline application. If you’re successful at the outline stage, we’ll invite you to submit a full application.
Outline applications are required for both new and follow on Programme Award applications.
We strongly recommend you contact us for an informal and confidential discussion for us to determine your eligibility and discuss funding options.
Please reach out at least 1 month before the submission deadline. We also advise you inform your host institution that you intend to apply. Institutional approval is not required to complete submission at outline stage, but they will need to approve your application online if you are invited to submit a full application.
We recommend you also read additional guidance such as our costs guidance, grant conditions, and other policies to understand any other requirements before applying.
Read our research policies and guidance
You can manage your application and if successful, your grant, through our online grants management system, Flexi-Grant.
For both outline and full applications, one primary investigator must assume the responsibility of named lead applicant on the application.
The lead applicant must be able to demonstrate that they can lead the proposal and team effectively, be engaged throughout the duration of the award, as well as meet their other research commitments. The lead applicant assumes the responsibility of completing and submitting the application on Flexi-Grant. In addition, the applicant team can include:
Joint lead applicant(s), if any: essential contributors who dedicate equal time and intellectual input as the lead applicant. joint lead applicants must be added as supporting roles once the application is opened. The lead applicant and joint lead applicant(s) will be recognised with equal status.
Co-investigators: specialists who provide major scientific contributions and may lead specific aspects of the project (excludes postdoctoral research assistants funded by the grant) .
Named research staff, if any: any named research staff who will be involved in your research (including postdoctoral research assistants funded by the grant).
Collaborators: key contributors not involved with daily operations but who provide crucial support such as research materials, specialised expertise or patient access .
One administrative support contact (optional): assists with the application submission and completes the sections on the Association of Medical Research Charities and Costs.
The lead applicant must invite the joint lead applicants, co-investigators and named research staff to join the application on Flexi-Grant and provide an up-to-date CV and five-year publication history. Administrative support contacts must be invited, but do not need to provide a CV.
If a joint lead or co-investigator is from a different host institution from the lead applicant, please ensure they provide a letter of support.
Collaborators should not be invited as a participant in your application. Their role should be explained in the research proposal, justification appendix and in their letter of support. More information about this can be found in the outline and full application sections below.
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 outline application, you will need to provide the following information:
applicant information, career overview and research abstract, to be completed following the guidance available in Flexi-Grant
research proposal and accompanying uploads/supporting information such as narrative CVs (full list under ‘Additional Information’), to be completed following the guidance provided below
There is no template for this scheme, so please structure your research proposal as outlined below.
Throughout the proposal, please:
Number all pages and do not exceed 2,500 words.
Word count excludes figures, figure legends, financial information, timescales and references.
Use single-line spaced text, in Calibri font, pt 11, black.
Include the last name and initials of the lead applicant in the header or footer of all pages.
If your outline is for a programme renewal, we encourage you to submit a cover letter to accompany your proposal to briefly articulate the context and outputs of your current programme. This will not count towards your research proposal but must not exceed two pages.
If you’d like to apply for funding for a clinical trial, please be sure to liaise with a clinical trials unit when you write your proposal.
Briefly state the objectives of the proposed research and outline the major outputs you hope to achieve. Include a description of your vision for future research that may lead on from your work.
You should describe the significance of your expected results with particular focus on their relevance to cancer eg future clinical applications or impact on policy and practice.
Summarise your published work and other work relating to your research proposal, including your major achievements over the last five years. If your outline is for a follow on programme award, you should briefly describe the successes of your current programme and how this will build into your new proposal.
We suggest you divide your research plan into objectives. For each objective:
state the research question
outline the experimental methods, techniques and analyses that you will use to test your hypothesis
highlight the novelty of this work compared to existing programmes
refer to your own published work or indicate the availability of appropriate expertise for these methods
include any available unpublished research findings or methodologies supporting your research, such as manuscripts in press or preprints
For each research question:
identify the variables and describe their values
specify the numbers of samples for each analysis and explain what can be achieved with this sample size
include the level of statistical power (where appropriate)
highlight potential limitations
Briefly describe what the major achievements of your research will be, if the programme is successful.
Clarify other relevant details, such as prevalence rates for biomarkers, number of clinical outcome events and their follow-up duration. You will need to provide full copies of non-standard or lesser-known methods in the appendix of your application, if these are a part of your proposal. If you’ll use clinical data or other methods generating high volume data, include details of the bioinformatics support and statistical analysis plans and provide any patient information sheets etc.
If you’re requesting funding for an additional arm or sub-study of an existing trial, provide full details on the main trial and an update on its progress within your application, either in your research proposal or as an appendix.
This is not included in the word count. You’ll need to provide a year-by-year summary of expected costs with a brief justification for the support requested and a full list of collaborators and co-investigators, their institutions and brief descriptions of their roles and expected contributions.
This is not included in your word count.
Please provide a table to indicate clear and well-defined milestones against which progress can be evaluated. Include a schematic to outline timescales for the research proposal.
You should also list potential logistical or scientific problems and suggest solutions or alternative plans to address them.
This is not included in your word count.
Please reference your proposal appropriately, including authors, publication year, title, journal name, volume and page numbers. We don’t accept shortened references or the use of ‘et al.’
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.
If your proposal involves studies using people affected by cancer or members of the public, their samples or data, we encourage you to consider where this may add value to your research proposal and include a PPI plan.
At full application stage, you will either need to include a PPI plan or justify why you haven’t. More information on what to include as part of a PPI plan can be found under the full application guidance below.
You will be provided with a link to apply for your full application once you have completed the outline application and received an invitation from the committee to proceed.
Full applications must be approved online by your host institution.
As part of your full application, you will need to provide the following information:
applicant and co-applicant information, career overview and research abstract, to be completed following the guidance available in Flexi-Grant
research proposal and accompanying uploads/supporting information such as narrative CVs (full list under ‘Additional Information’), to be completed following the guidance provided below
Alongside your research abstract, you’ll need to include a lay summary. Guidance for how to write this is also included below under ‘Additional Information’.
There is no template for this scheme, so please structure your research proposal as outlined below. Throughout the proposal, please:
Use single-line spaced text, in Calibri font, pt 11, black.
Number all pages .
Do not exceed word limits as specified below; these exclude figures, figure legends, timescales and references.
Include the last name and initials of the lead applicant in the header or footer of all pages.
If you have already received funding from us (a Programme Award, Programme Foundation Award or a Senior Cancer Research Fellowship), then you need to complete parts A, B and C of the proposal.
If you are a new applicant, you should only complete part C of the proposal.
Using up to 2,500 words, describe the major achievements of your current award with us.
Identify your research outputs, including all publications from your group during your current award, such as papers, datasets, software and codes, preprints and book chapters or reviews.
List your citations in chronological order, clearly highlighting which outputs result from work led by staff we fund compared with those arising from other collaborations.
Make sure to list all authors avoiding use of ‘et al’, bolding names of staff we’ve funded (past or present). Write ‘(CRUK/A###, or PRCNPG/XXXXX/XXXXXX) after citations for publications that have arisen with our support.
Please make sure your research proposal doesn’t exceed 7,000 words (excluding figures, figure legends and references).
Clearly outline the hypothesis, objectives, and scope of your proposed work, including:
the scientific and clinical need of your proposed work
the significance of your expected results and their relevance to cancer eg potential future clinical applications or impact on policy and practice
the major outputs you hope to achieve and your vision for future research that may lead on from your work
Summarise relevant ongoing and published work related to your research proposal, including key achievements over the past five years.
Describe how you will use your knowledge and experience to address the goals and hypothesis of the proposed research project.
Please do not duplicate details of your published work if you’re a renewing applicant and have included this in the earlier section of your research proposal.
We suggest you divide your research plan into objectives. For each objective:
state the research question
outline the experimental methods, techniques and analyses that you will use to test your hypothesis, referring to your own published work or indicate the availability of appropriate expertise for these methods
include any available unpublished research findings or methodologies supporting your research, such as manuscripts in press or preprints
For each research question:
identify the variables and describe their values
specify the numbers of samples for each analysis and explain what can be achieved with this sample size
include the level of statistical power (where appropriate)
highlight potential limitations
Briefly describe what the major achievements of your research will be, if the programme is successful.
Clarify other relevant details, such as prevalence rates for biomarkers, number of clinical outcome events and their follow-up duration. You will need to provide full copies of non-standard or lesser-known methods in the appendix of your application, if these are a part of your proposal. If you’ll use clinical data or other methods generating high volume data, include details of the bioinformatics support and statistical analysis plans and provide any patient information sheets etc.
If you’re requesting funding for an additional arm or sub-study of an existing trial, provide full details on the main trial and an update on its progress within your application, either in your research proposal or as an appendix.
Please provide information on the composition of the team of applicants and collaborators including:
whether this is a new or existing collaboration
the roles of co-applicants and collaborators
whether the team or members of the team have published together previously
This is not included in your word count.
Please provide a table to indicate clear and well-defined milestones against which progress can be evaluated. Include a schematic to outline timescales for your research proposal.
You should list any potential logistical or scientific problems and suggest solutions or alternative plans to address them.
This is not included in your word count.
Please reference your proposal appropriately, including authors, publication year, title, journal name, volume and page numbers. We don’t accept shortened references or the use of ‘et al.’
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 those applicable to both outline and full, or just the full application in each section.
Outline application | Full application | |
|---|---|---|
Generative AI tools | X | X |
Narrative CV | X | X |
Declaration of competing interests | X | X |
Data sharing plan | X | X |
Supplementary uploads | X | X |
Reviewers | X | X |
Patient and public involvement plan | X | |
Justification appendix | X | |
Letters of support | X | |
Research declarations | X | |
Costs | X | |
Other funding | X | |
Association of Medical Research Charities full economic costing | X |
You will be directly asked to declare whether you have used any generative AI tools when completing the application form. If you have, you’ll then be asked to confirm compliance with our requirements on their use.
Read our policy on the use of generative AI tools
A narrative CV allows you to highlight your research achievements and contributions relevant to your application. You should also include your research outputs, such as preprints, training delivered, contribution to consortia, community outreach, patents, key datasets, software, novel assays and reagents.
Guidance on the types of activities you may include are provided below each question in the form template, but this is not exhaustive. You do not necessarily need to provide an example for every activity.
All lead and joint lead applicants named on the application will need to complete and upload their own narrative CV labelled with their name in the header or footer.
Read our guidance on narrative CVs
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
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
You may nominate up to 10 reviewers who would be qualified to assess your application critically. You should not nominate individuals if you have had a close collaboration with them, or if you have published with them in the last three years.
You can also nominate referees to exclude from the review process, but please provide justification for the exclusion. We will decide on the final selection of reviewers and nominations must comply with our conflicts of interest policy.
Read our conflicts of interest policy
We encourage collaboration between academia and industry through our awards. Most UK host institutions will already have a technology transfer agreement in place with our commercial arm, Cancer Research Horizons. If not, our standard funding terms and conditions would apply. If you are working with a commercial collaborator, please contact the Cancer Research Horizons team before applying for a confidential discussion around intellectual property and technology transfer.
A formal agreement between academic and industrial partners is not needed to apply, but a letter of support from a relevant individual at the industrial partner organisation is. This letter should describe the nature of the collaboration and the industrial partner’s contribution, including funding and/or in-kind support such as data, samples, reagents, technology or expertise. If the grant is awarded, you will need to share an outline of the agreement between academic and industrial partners with our Cancer Research Horizons Team to receive funding.
Contact the Cancer Research Horizons team
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.
A separate text field is provided for you to describe a patient and public involvement (PPI) plan to explain how these add value to your proposal. If you are not including a PPI plan in your application, you must explain why and justify why it would not add value to your research.
Clearly outline your proposed PPI plan, 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
All applicants must provide 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.
For this award, you will need to submit a justification appendix. For details on how to complete this, please see the link below.
View our justification appendix guidance
Please upload statements of support on headed paper from:
the host institution of 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
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 will review this on a case-by-case basis.
You should provide the costs that you’re requesting from us as part of your award. Add these costs under the relevant headings and justify them in your justification appendix.
Note that we will apply indexation to your application costs according to our policy. In addition, any ineligible costs will be removed. If this is relevant, we will contact you. As a result, the final costs awarded through an official grant award letter may differ from those of the original costs requested.
Our costs guidance details our allowance for PhD students. This is a fixed sum for all Cancer Research UK-funded PhD students. Requests for any other funding amounts will not be accepted.
We don’t pay overseas fees or part-fund studentships, so any PhD student funded through the award must be fully funded for four years which must fall within the duration of the award. This means that for a standard-length Programme Award (60 months), you’ll need to recruit any proposed PhD students in the first or second year of the award.
If you’re requesting funding for a PhD student, you’ll need to list this as a running expense in the first year of the award as opposed to a staff post. Include as one total cost under the ‘Running Expenses’ category in year one of the award (even if recruitment is planned for the second year of the 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 your research proposal appendix.
If you plan to involve patients, and/or if your research will be conducted within the NHS, we expect the Department of Health or NHS to support your research but meeting any associated costs for patient care.
It’s your responsibility to inform the relevant NHS Trust R&D office(s) of any support they’ll need to give you. Please discuss your application with them at the earliest opportunity, and you must indicate in your research proposal that you’ve notified the relevant providers. Be sure to update us on the status of these discussions throughout the application process.
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.
Please contact us if you have questions about your eligibility, application or active award.
Dr Alice Burke, Research Grants Manager
Dr Nikita Dhillon, Research Grants Manager
Reasonable adjustments can be made throughout the grant application process. We do not require a formal diagnosis to access support.
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