Wellcome Discovery Awards
This scheme provides funding for established researchers and teams from any discipline who want to pursue bold and creative research ideas to deliver significant shifts in understanding related to human life, health and wellbeing.
Scheme description
Lead applicant career stage: Established researcher
Who can apply
You can apply for a Wellcome Discovery Award if you are a researcher who wants to pursue bold and creative research ideas. You must aim to make a major contribution to your research field by:
- generating significant shifts in understanding
and/or
- developing methodologies, conceptual frameworks, tools or techniques that could benefit health-related research.
An award can be held by an established researcher or a team of researchers led by an established researcher.
Funding amount: You should ask for the resources you need for your research programme – see the ‘Research costs we’ll cover’ section on this page. You will need to justify this in your application. The average size of a Discovery Award is £3.5 million. Applications above £5 million will be subject to additional scrutiny.
Funding duration: Awards can be up to 8 years, but may be less for some disciplines, and may be longer if held on a part-time basis. The average duration of a Discovery Award is 7 years, although we have supported awards from 3 to 8 years.
Coapplicants: Accepted
- Funding Organisation
- Wellcome
- Status
- Apply Anytime
- Closing date
- Apply Anytime
- Funder type
- Charity
- Funding type
- Grant
- Eligible organisation
- Higher Education Institution (HEI), Other
- Geographic eligibility
- Europe, Global, London, Other, UK, UK Regions
- Area in health
- Consumer health, Medical devices, Other, Services, Software, Therapeutics
- Maximum award
- £5m
- Use of funding
- Career Development, Products Testing, Programme/Project, Real World Evidence, Research