Project Grant Application Guidelines

Applicants and co-applicants must be employed in UK based hospitals, universities or research institutes. The principal investigator (PI) for a project grant is normally employed in a permanent position in a UK university or institution. We welcome applications from early career researchers with an independent position who are less than 5 years in post. Fixed term employees on a long term contract may be eligible to be a PI, providing the term of employment extends at least six months beyond the duration of the proposed research project and the host research institution is prepared to give all the necessary support to the individual and the project. We would not pay the salary of a PI.

Research workers who require personal support from a project grant, and who have made a substantial intellectual contribution to the grant proposal, may be named as co-applicants with an established member of staff as the principal applicant.

Grants are provided for up to three years duration in support of one precisely formulated line of research. An outline of the proposed research is required before a full application can be invited. Successful applicants from the outline stage will be sent a link to our application form. Awards will be made following peer review.

Applications should be of the highest quality as the scheme is very competitive.

Across our wider remit the upper limit for a project grant is normally £200,000 (including joint calls with Cystic Fibrosis Trust and DEBRA). We are happy to consider grant requests at a lower level of funding. Joint calls may have a different upper limit. Our maximum grant award for the joint call with LifeArc is £250,000 per project. The upper limit for the joint call with Borne is also up to £250,000 per project.

Support covers salary costs, consumables and items of dedicated equipment essential for carrying out the work. We would expect the university or research institute to provide standard laboratory equipment and standard office computers. The application should not include any indirect costs such as administrative or other overheads imposed by the university or other institutions and we would not normally pay salary costs for those already employed on salaried positions.

A research team can only apply for one grant per grant round.

Full applications are assessed by open competition and external referees, the number of referees depending on the cost and complexity of the application. The applications and referee reports are then assessed by the members of our Scientific Advisory Panel.

Project grants recommended by the Scientific Advisory Panel are submitted to Council for final approval.

Please note that there will be a limit to the number of full application that we can invite. Where the work is considered peripheral to our aims or in cases where demand on our funds is high, we will inform you of our decision not to request a full application.

Success rate for project grant applications

Action LifeArc joint call for translational research project grants on rare diseases in children 2022/2023.

We received 19 outline applications for the joint Action LifeArc call in 2022. Following assessment by our Action LifeArc Scientific Advisory Panel, 12 were invited to submit a full application and we received 11 full applications. Following external review and panel assessment we were then able to make 4 awards in 2023, giving a 36% success rate for full applications to this round.

Action LifeArc joint call for translational research project grants on rare diseases in children 2021/2022.

We received 34 outline applications for the joint Action LifeArc call in 2021. Following assessment by our Action LifeArc Scientific Advisory Panel, 13 were invited to submit a full application and we received 10 full applications. Following external review and panel assessment we were then able to make 4 awards in 2022, giving a 40% success rate for full applications to this round.

Project grant wider remit 2022 grant call.

We received 80 outline applications for project grants across our wider remit in 2022. Following assessment by our Scientific Advisory panel, 42 were invited to submit a full application and we received 40 full applications. Following external review and panel assessment we were then able to make 13 awards in 2022/2023, giving a 32.5% success rate for full applications.

Outline Proposal

Please ensure that you have thoroughly read the remit and exclusions for Action and any relevant joint call remit before submitting your application.

The link to the online outline application form is below. Download our guide for help on how to save and submit the form.

If the outline proposal is acceptable, you will be invited to complete a full application form online, and you will be advised of the timetable.

The purpose of the outline application is to check that the application falls within the remit of the call and for the appropriate members of our advisory panel to score the applications on remit/potential clinical impact and science and say whether they feel the proposal should go forward to a full application. An outline stage helps to improve the success rate for those applications that are invited to make a full application.