Wellcome Career Development Awards

You can apply for a Wellcome Career Development Award if you are a mid-career researcher and you are ready to lead a substantial and innovative research programme. You must aim to make a key contribution to your field by:

• generating significant shifts in understanding

and/or

• developing methodologies, conceptual frameworks, tools or techniques that could benefit health-related research.

During the award, we expect you to:

• develop your research capabilities and leadership skills
• support others to undertake research responsibly and promote a positive and inclusive culture
• start training the next generation of researchers and develop their research skills and careers.

By the end of the award, you should have achieved international standing in your area of research.

You should also have the skills and experience to apply for permanent positions at research organisations.

Lead applicant career stage and experience

To be eligible, you will already be driving your own research.

You must have:

• completed one or two substantial periods of research after your initial research training
• made important contributions to your area of research.

You will probably have experience of working collaboratively. You may have directed, or closely guided, the work of others.

At the point of application, you may also have been appointed to:

• your first permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract, or to a tenure track contract. If this applies to you, you cannot ask for your own salary with this award unless you are based in a low- or middle-income country and have to get your salary from external grant funding.
• a fixed term position with four years or less remaining on your contract at the point of application. If this applies to you, you can ask for your own salary with this award.
• a fixed term position with more than four years left on your contract at the point of application. If this applies to you, you cannot ask for your salary with this award and your host organisation must underwrite your salary costs for the duration of the award.

For permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contracts, you must have been appointed within the last three years unless, during this time, you:

• spent time away from research due to personal circumstances (for example, for a career break, parental leave, long-term sick leave or a chronic illness)
• worked part-time and research was not part of the role, for example, if you have been employed as a healthcare professional
• have worked part-time and your cumulative research time is less than three years
• changed research discipline, for example, moving from astrophysics to computational neuroscience, or environmental chemistry to social anthropology. There may be some crossover, such as in research sites or techniques, but the shift should still be a significant change.
• were based in a low- or middle-income country where it is normal to be appointed to a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract early in your research career.

If the three-year limit falls between two deadlines for this scheme, and you would benefit from applying to the second deadline, we will allow you to do this.

If you hold a proleptic appointment, you can request your salary costs from Wellcome for the duration of the award.

If your contractual circumstances change between the point of application and your award activation you must tell us immediately as this may change your eligibility for salary. We will not normally supplement for salary funds after the award has been made (read our supplementary grant funding page for more information). If after two or more years of your Career Development Award activating your organisation awards you a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract that includes your salary, you will be able to keep the salary element of the award to use towards your remaining research costs.

How much time you must contribute

You must be able to contribute at least 80% of your research time to the award.

If you are requesting your salary on the award, you should not spend more than 20% of your time on non-research related activities, for example clinical duties, teaching or administration. If you’re in a clinical craft speciality, you may spend up to 40% of your time on clinical duties.

If you are not requesting your salary on the award, you should be spending sufficient time on research to support your research team and achieve the aims of the proposed work.

Health professionals

If you are a health professional, you will have completed your clinical training. If you want to continue with clinical activities, you must be registered with, and licensed by, the relevant professional regulator in the country you intend to work in. Read our Q&As for health professionals.

If you’ve spent time spent away from research

You can apply if you’ve been away from research (for example a career break, parental leave, or long-term sick leave). We’ll allow for this when we consider your application.

Depending on your previous career stage and the level of supervision and retraining you need now, you may also want to consider an Early-Career Award.