Apply for a Project Grant

Closing date for outline applications Tuesday 27 February 2024 at 5pm

Action Medical Research is pleased to announce the 2024 call for project grants.

Applications are invited across the breadth of Action’s remit, to prevent and treat disease and disability by funding vital medical research in hospitals or research institutions across the UK. The remit focuses on child health to include problems affecting pregnancy, childbirth, babies, children and young people.

Our emphasis is on clinical research or research at the interface between clinical and basic science that can be translated into clinical solutions in the short to medium term.  We pride ourselves that our research is both innovative and of a high standard as judged by rigorous peer review.

Within the above criteria, we also support research and development of equipment and techniques to improve diagnosis, therapy and assistive technology (including orthoses, prostheses and aids to daily living) and we encourage applications in the field of medical engineering. We do not fund social, family relationships or socioeconomic research, very basic research, or service provision or audit studies (see full list of exclusions).

Principal Investigators must be based at UK institutions and awards can only be made to UK institutions. Researchers outside the UK can collaborate on UK based projects if appropriate.

Costs

Applications may be made for project grants of up to £200,000 and up to three years duration.

Smaller applications to help researchers develop original and innovative ideas are also welcome. Applications may include pilot studies that will generate data enabling larger scale applications to funding bodies or practical application.

There is up to £2m in funding available through this call. This includes the co-funding opportunities.

Review process

Applications should be made to Action Medical Research via the Outline Proposal form. Applications for all projects will need to meet the remit and guidelines. Please read the guidelines section for more details and the link to the outline form.

Those interested in applying in areas eligible for co-funding should review the requirements outlined below.

Successful applicants from the outline stage will be invited to complete a full application for full external peer review in open competition with other applications in the grant round. Please note outline applications without clear child health focus will not progress to the full application stage.

Awards will be made in late 2024/early 2025.

Questions regarding the round should be directed to Action at applications@action.org.uk.

As part of this round Action is pleased to announce co-funding awards in specialist areas.

This call is now open and the closing date for outline applications is Tuesday 27 February 2024 by 5pm.

Joint translational funding from Action Medical Research and LifeArc

Action Medical Research and LifeArc want to improve the lives of children suffering from rare disease and are working together to co-fund translational, rare disease research projects. Co-funding aims to accelerate promising, cutting-edge medical research that could have a significant impact on the treatment of infants, children and young people (CYP) with any of the >7000 heterogeneous conditions collectively called ‘rare disease’.

Remit

The joint fund will be used to support biomedical research projects from across the UK that have moved beyond a basic understanding of rare disease mechanisms into the development of an intervention (therapeutic, diagnostic, or device).

Call opened:  Early May 2023

Outline deadline:  Wednesday 14 June 2023 by 5pm

Full application deadline:  November 2023

Full outcome expected:  Summer 2024

This call was for joint translational funding from Action Medical Research and LifeArc

Action Medical Research and LifeArc want to improve the lives of children suffering from rare disease and are working together to co-fund translational, rare disease research projects. Co-funding aims to accelerate promising, cutting-edge medical research that could have a significant impact on the treatment of infants, children and young people (CYP) with any of the >7000 heterogeneous conditions collectively called ‘rare disease’.

Remit

The joint fund was used to support biomedical research projects from across the UK that have moved beyond a basic understanding of rare disease mechanism into the development of an intervention (therapeutic, diagnostic, or device).

Call opened: 12 May 2022

Full outcomes: Summer 2023

This was an open competition round across our full remit. 

As part of this round, there were also opportunities for potential joint awards with Borne.

Please scroll further down for information on the joint award opportunities including the call with Borne. There was a separate outline form for this part of the call.

Call opened: January 2022

Outline deadline: Tuesday 22 March 2022 by 5pm

Full application deadline: July 2022

Full outcome: November 2022 to January 2023