Grant Details

• Funding: up to £500
• Duration: up to 6 months (projects taking longer may be considered, based on justification provided in the project overview)
• Eligible Costs: cost of the animal-free product
• Submissions Deadline: Friday 25 September 2026.

Grant Requirements

• Projects should be directly relevant to biomedical research and human health.
• Projects need to contribute to the development of protocols for animal-free antibodies and mimetics, foetal calf serum (FCS) alternatives, and animal-free hydrogels.
• Micro grants are only available to support entirely animal-free protocols.
• Antibody applications: If the product you are looking to replace is an antibody, the replacement must be a Category A recombinant antibody. Categories are assigned based on discovery and production methods: 
• Category A: naïve human B-cell derived display libraries, or fully synthetic/consensus framework libraries with no new animal immunisation or tissue harvesting involved. 
• Category B: naïve, non-immunised animal-derived display libraries, or historically immunised hybridomas with no ongoing reliance on animals.
• Categories C–F: active animal immunisation, or animal-derived products used in discovery or production. 
• Category G: discovery process unclear; production is recombinant. 

Eligibility

• Researchers from universities, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, biotechs, contract research organisations, and other research organisations are eligible to apply.
• Applicants must be developing human-focused approaches. Relevant approaches may include, but are not limited to, in vitro assays such as 2D cell culture, organ-on-chip models, organoids, or spheroids; ex vivo tissue models; omics technologies; or in silico analysis.
• Applications are open to early-career, mid-career, and senior researchers from academia and industry.
• Applications currently open to Scotland based researchers only. Micro Grants will be rolled out to additional regions in the near future.

Application Process

Applicants are invited to submit a brief application outlining the significance of their research and its potential to replace the use of animal-derived products. Applications will be reviewed internally by the Centre. This review process may take up to four weeks.

Grant Selection Criteria

• Alignment to Centre for Human Specific Research strategic goals
• Scientific merit and innovation
• Grant holder and project group expertise and experience
• Feasibility and implementation plan, resources, budgeting, and output
• Merit of proposed research to the broader scientific community and dissemination plan