Apply for funding from the Medical Research Council to investigate the causes, progression and treatment of human disease.
Your project must:
- focus on a mechanistic hypothesis
- include an experimental intervention or challenge in humans
You must be a researcher based at a research organisation eligible to apply for MRC funding. If you are taking the next step towards becoming an independent researcher, you may be eligible to apply as a ‘new investigator.
There is no limit to the amount of funding you can apply for or the length of your project. We will fund 80% of your project’s full economic cost.
This is an ongoing funding opportunity. Application rounds close every April and October.
This opportunity is open to organisations with standard eligibility. Check if your organisation is eligible.
Who is eligible to apply
To be eligible to apply for this funding opportunity you must:
- show that you will direct the project and be actively engaged in the work
- be looking to investigate the causes, progression and treatment of human disease
If you do not have a contract of employment for the duration of the proposed project, by submitting an application the research organisation is confirming that, if it is successful:
- contracts will be extended beyond the end date of the project
- all necessary support for the project and the applicants will be provided, including mentorship and career development for early career researchers
New investigator applicants
We welcome applications from early career researchers. The new investigator award is aimed at researchers who are capable of becoming independent researchers and who are now ready to take the next step towards that goal.
If you are applying for this opportunity as a ‘new investigator’, you must also:
- have your research organisation support
- be able to demonstrate that your skills and experience at the time of your application match those of the ‘transition to independence’ career stage, as set out in the MRC skills and experience table
- use this grant to support your long-term career goals and chosen career route
- be able to demonstrate you are the sole intellectual leader of the application and the proposed work
If you meet the eligibility criteria, you can also apply as a new investigator, if you:
- are employed as a postdoctoral research assistant, although this grant cannot start until your current work finishes
- hold a lecturer appointment, a junior fellowship or another research staff position
- hold, or have held, an early career training fellowship such as a Medical Research Council (MRC) skills development fellowship
- do not have a contract with your chosen host organisation
- are not currently based at the eligible research organisation that has agreed to host your new investigator award
- are either a non-clinical or clinically active researcher
- have any number of years of experience
Who is not eligible to apply as a new investigator
You are not eligible to apply if you have already achieved independence. New investigator awards support individuals who have not previously led a research team or been awarded a substantial grant as fellow or project lead (formally known as principal investigator).
A substantial grant is typically defined as for three or more years and including salary support for one or more additional team members.
You are also not eligible to apply as a new investigator if you have:
- an award or have held an award that facilitates the transition to independence
- applied for an MRC new investigator award twice before
- an application for any UK Research and Innovation fellowship currently under consideration, including a early independence: career development fellowship, early independence: clinician scientist fellowship or future leaders fellowships
If you are unsure whether you meet the eligibility criteria as a new investigator or have any questions about your eligibility, you should contact experimental.medicine@mrc.ukri.org to find out whether you can apply.
See further details on the New Investigator Award.
Your other team members (new investigators)
We recognise and support the value of team science and interdisciplinary research, which may be important to your career development. Therefore, project co-leads, specialists and other team roles may be included if you are applying as a new investigator.
Your team members should bring essential complimentary research, technical expertise or skills to the project, that you as the new investigator project lead cannot provide, or you are aiming to develop.
We encourage you to use the appropriate application sections, such as ‘Applicant and team capability to deliver’, to make your leadership role clear and justify the team around you.
It is not usually appropriate for a current or recent supervisor, or lab head of the new investigator, to be part of the applicant team as this may make your leadership unclear. If this is essential to the proposed work, it must be specifically justified.
Demand management
You can only submit one application as project lead to this funding opportunity.
Who is not eligible to apply
You are not eligible to apply for this funding opportunity as a project lead if you are based at an international research organisation. This does not include MRC Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) or MRC/UVRI (Uganda Virus Research Institute) and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit.
If you are employed by these organisations you cannot apply as project lead or project co-lead, but can participate as project partners on an application led by an eligible UK organisation:
- businesses
- charity and third sector organisations
Charities and third sector organisations that are approved UKRI Independent Research Organisations are eligible to apply as project lead or project co-lead.
International researchers
As MRC is the lead funder for this funding opportunity, international researchers can apply as ‘project co-lead (international)’.
Project co-leads (international) make a major intellectual contribution to the design or conduct of the project. Their contribution and added value to the research collaboration should be clearly explained and justified in the application, using the appropriate application sections, such as ‘Applicant and team capability to deliver’.
Read UKRI project co-lead (international) eligibility for more details. Please contact us if you are uncertain about eligibility.
You should include all other international collaborators (or UK partners not based at approved organisations) as project partners.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
We are committed to achieving equality of opportunity for all funding applicants. We encourage applications from a diverse range of researchers.
We support people to work in a way that suits their personal circumstances. This includes:
- career breaks
- support for people with caring responsibilities
- flexible working
- alternative working patterns
UKRI can offer disability and accessibility support for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) applicants and grant holders during the application and assessment process.
Demand management
Demand management is being applied to this funding opportunity. Further details are provided in the ‘Who can apply’ section.
Scope
You can apply for academically-led experimental medicine projects that are conducted in humans. Your project should be based around a clearly articulated gap in understanding of human pathophysiology and have a clear path to clinical impact.
Successful projects will generate new mechanistic insights, including those that may:
- identify opportunities to modify disease pathways
- enable the future development of novel therapeutic or diagnostic approaches
We welcome applications in all disease areas and interventions.
What your application must include
Your application must involve an experimental intervention or challenge in humans, with safety profiles established, which has been designed to validate a mechanistic hypothesis. The challenge may be, but is not limited to:
- pharmacological
- immunological
- physiological
- psychological
- infectious modalities
Activities we support
The following types of work are eligible for support:
- the use of novel readouts or technologies primarily to advance understanding of human pathophysiology or disease mechanisms, while allowing early efficacy signals as secondary measures
- the use of drugs, other interventions or measures with established safety profiles in new settings or conditions. For example, repurposing drugs as tool compounds to probe disease mechanisms
Support for characterisation or phenotyping of subjects using samples from clinical studies may be included where there is a clear link to a current treatment strategy but should not be the sole focus of your application.
As such, limited, hypothesis-driven, retrospective sample analysis may be included at the start of the project to improve the design of the interventional, experimental medicine study. In such instance, milestone criteria should clearly detail what data is required from the confirmatory analysis for the project to progress.
Prospective, nested studies within a larger cohort trial may be eligible provided they:
- can demonstrate added value
- are exploring disease mechanisms
- test a novel hypothesis
- address a different question to the main study
Competitive applications will aim to address a clear mechanistic question and provide strong rationale to justify the suitability of the experimental system proposed to test the presented hypothesis.
Activities we do not support
The activities that are ineligible for support are:
- characterisation or phenotyping work aiming to elucidate disease aetiology
- biomarker discovery
- experimental intervention or challenge in animals, using clinical assets to explore disease mechanisms and pathways
- pre-clinical model development and validation
These activities are supported through Medical Research Council (MRC) applicant-led funding opportunities:
The following activities are also ineligible for support through this funding opportunity:
- development and evaluation of novel therapeutics, diagnostics or devices (supported by the UKRI Translation: MRC proof of concept funding opportunity)
- high-throughput screening approaches to target validation
- late-phase clinical efficacy trials (supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation Programme)
- observational studies involving no experimental challenge
We encourage you to contact us first at experimental.medicine@mrc.ukri.org to discuss your application, especially if you believe your research may cross MRC or research council interests.
Learn about MRC’s remit, programmes and priority areas.
Duration
There is no limit to the duration of projects. You should justify the timescale of the project in the context of the proposed work.
For new investigator awards, your project duration should be determined by the needs of your project and the case supporting your transition to independence. For this funding opportunity three years is a typical duration. However, you may apply for a longer project duration project, if you are able to justify why this is necessary.
New investigator awards do not normally last for less than three years, because it is unlikely the transition to independence could be achieved in that time.
Milestones
Milestones allow us to mitigate risk and support potentially high-risk, innovative projects.
Experimental medicine awards will typically have at least two milestones with defined success criteria that reflect timely progression points and allow mechanistic hypotheses to be laid out and assessed as the project moves forward.
Your milestones should also provide a realistic indication of timelines for key steps, such as regulatory steps, study team recruitment, participant recruitment, study completion and data analysis.
Milestone success criteria should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely) and detail any robust Go or No-Go criteria. For all projects, it is advisable to structure the project so that the critical questions are addressed as early as possible in the plan.
Funding available
There is no limit to the funding you can apply for. You should justify the resources needed in the context of the proposed work.
We will fund 80% of the full economic cost and 100% of permitted exceptions.
Find out more about full economic costing.
What we will fund
You can request funding for costs such as:
- a contribution to the salary of the project lead (if you are applying as a new investigator, your salary request is capped at 50% of your total working time)
- a contribution to salary for the time any co-lead will spend working on the project
- support for other posts such as research and technical staff
- research consumables
- equipment
- travel costs
- data preservation, data sharing and dissemination costs
- estates and indirect costs
- NHS research costs. Note: following authorisation from the AcoRD specialist, the Schedule of Events Cost Attribution Tool (SoECAT) ‘study information’ and ‘summary’ page of the ‘funder export’ must accompany your stage two application
- public partnerships and related activities, including payments to public contributors
Note, if you are applying as a new investigator, the salary you request should be in line with the host research organisation’s usual new investigator levels. New investigator salary costs will be funded at 80% of the full economic cost for the proportion of time requested.
You can also request costs for work to be undertaken at international organisations by international project co-leads. We will fund 100% of the eligible costs. The total of such costs requested for international applicants from high-income countries (those not on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) list of official development assistance recipients), India and China must not exceed 30% of the total resources requested.
There is no cap on costs requested for international applicants from Development Assistance Countries (DAC) list of countries.
For more information on international costs and what we will and will not fund see costs we fund and the Collaborate with Researchers in Norway guidance.
How you spend your time (new investigators only)
New investigator awards are intended to support a research project, combined with a range of other academic or clinical activities, during the transition to independence, such as:
- time spent on other research grants
- clinical duties
- teaching
- research organisation administration duties
- other time spent in faculty
To enable new investigator applicants to combine their research project with other activities, applicants are expected to request funding for up to 50% of their contracted working time, as determined by the project. If you want to spend more than 50% of your working time on the project, a strong scientific justification must be provided.
What we will not fund
We will not fund:
- clinical studies designed to assess the safety or efficacy of treatments
- costs for PhD studentships
- publication costs
- funding to use as a ‘bridge’ between grants
Project partner
A project partner is a collaborating organisation in the UK or overseas, including partners based in the EU, who will have an integral role in the proposed research. You may include project partners that will support your research project through cash or in-kind contributions, such as:
- staff time
- access to equipment
- sites or facilities
- the provision of data
- software or materials
- recruitment of people as research participants
- providing samples, such as human tissue, for the project
Each project partner must provide a statement of support. If your application involves industry partners, they must provide additional information if the team project partner falls within the industry collaboration framework.
Find out more about subcontractors and dual roles.
Who cannot be included as a project partner
Any individual included in your application with a core team role cannot also be a project partner.
Any organisation that employs a member of the application core team cannot be a project partner organisation. This includes other departments within the same organisation.
If you are collaborating with someone in your organisation, consider including them in the core team as project co-lead, or specialist. They cannot be a project partner.
Supporting skills and talent
We encourage you to follow the principles of the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and the Technician Commitment.
Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I)
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is committed in ensuring that effective international collaboration in research and innovation takes place with integrity and within strong ethical frameworks. Trusted Research and Innovation (TR&I) is a UKRI work programme designed to help protect all those working in our thriving and collaborative international sector by enabling partnerships to be as open as possible, and as secure as necessary. Our TR&I Principles set out UKRI’s expectations of organisations funded by UKRI in relation to due diligence for international collaboration.
As such, applicants for UKRI funding may be asked to demonstrate how their proposed projects will comply with our approach and expectation towards TR&I, identifying potential risks and the relevant controls you will put in place to help proportionately reduce these risks.
See further guidance and information about TR&I, including where applicants can find additional support.
Visit funding web page
(https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/experimental-medicine/)
