Grant Details

• Funding: from £5,000 to £25,000 
• Duration: from 6 months to 2 years
• Eligible Costs: personal support for a Primary Scientist (capped at 50% of the total project cost), consumables, and small equipment items
• We are open to receiving applications with matched funding

Grant Requirements

• Projects should provide further insight into the utility of human-focused techniques or technologies and advance their development, validation, and application.
• Projects should be directly relevant to biomedical research and human health.
• Pilot grants are only available to support entirely animal-free protocols.

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.
• The Primary Applicant must be mid-career level (e.g. postdoc or Senior Scientist ) or above.
• Applications from mid-career researchers must include a senior researcher (Principal Investigator, Department Head, or equivalent) as a Secondary Grant Holder.
• Early-career scientists (e.g. PhD or Scientist level) are not eligible to apply for this grant but can be named as Primary Scientist on the grant if they are to be completing the work.

Application Process

The Pilot Grant application is a two stage process.

• Stage One
  Applicants are invited to submit a brief preliminary application outlining the significance of their research and its potential to replace the use of animals. Applications will be reviewed internally by the Centre. This review process may take up to four weeks.
• Stage Two
  Applicants shortlisted at Stage One will be invited to submit a full application. Full applications will be reviewed internally by the Centre and by members of its Scientific Advisory Panel. Where appropriate, additional external expert reviewers may be consulted. This review process may take up to two months.

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