Convocatoria de proyectos de Investigacion Fundacion CajaCanarias – Fundacion Bancaria 'La Caixa'

What you get

You get up to 60,000 EUR to run a research project on mental health in the Canary Islands, lasting 2 or 3 years. You get the full 60,000 EUR if your project hires a researcher with a doctorate or a doctoral student on a contract. All other projects get up to 40,000 EUR. The money can cover staff you hire, running costs such as equipment, surveys and consumables, short research trips (up to 15 days, capped at 3,000 EUR), conference fees when you present results, and open-access publication costs. The grant is awarded every year by the Fundación CajaCanarias and the "la Caixa" Banking Foundation.

Who can apply

• Institution: Your project must be based at a public Canarian university or an accredited research centre in the Canary Islands.
• Lead applicant: The person leading the project must hold a doctorate and work full time at the applying institution for the whole project.
• Field of research: Your project must address mental health in the Canary Islands, for example loneliness and suicide prevention, mental health and addiction in children and young people, or AI-based and neuroscience approaches to mental and neurological health.
• Team: Team members must work full time; part-timers may make up at most 30% of the team. For every researcher from outside the region, you need at least two Canarian researchers.
• No double-dipping: No team member may join two applications to this call at the same time. Other funding sources may cover at most 80% of the project.
• Under-40 boost: Up to 15% of the total budget is reserved for projects led by someone under 40 whose evaluation score is above the median.

How to apply

Apply online through the CajaCanarias website by 31 July 2026 at 14:00. You can send questions until 29 July 2026. External expert reviewers and a selection committee then score the science, the team, the feasibility and the fit with the call's priorities. The two foundations make the final decision.

How realistic are your chances?

This is a tightly focused call. Only teams at Canarian public universities or accredited local centres, led by a doctorate holder and working on mental health in the Canary Islands, can enter. That keeps the applicant pool small, so a well-designed project with a strong multidisciplinary team and clear practical results has good prospects. If your lead researcher is under 40, part of the budget is set aside for you, which further improves the odds.