Wellcome Grant Funding Schemes (aktuelle Foerderangebote)

What Wellcome grant funding offers

Wellcome funds biomedical and health-related research through several schemes for people at different career stages. Depending on the scheme, you get your salary plus money for research costs, running for 3 to 8 years. Wellcome is one of the world's largest research funders, based in London, and backs work that aims to improve human life, health and wellbeing. The four main schemes are:

• Early-Career Awards: Your salary plus up to about 460,000 EUR (400,000 GBP) for research costs, usually over 5 years. For researchers just after their PhD.
• Career Development Awards: Research costs, typically under about 290,000 EUR (250,000 GBP) per year, usually over 8 years. For mid-career researchers ready to lead their own programme.
• Discovery Awards: Costed individually, averaging about 4 million EUR (3.5 million GBP) over up to 8 years. For established research leaders, alone or in a team.
• PhD Fellowships for Health Professionals: A fellowship is funded time to do research. You get a salary on the UK clinical pay scale, research costs and UK-rate tuition fees, over 3 years, while you do a PhD as a registered health professional.

Who can apply

• Career stage: There is a scheme for each stage. Early-Career needs a completed PhD (or 4 years of equivalent research experience) and at most 3 years of postdoc experience. Career Development needs one to two substantial research periods since your first degree. Discovery is for established international research leaders.
• Field of study: Open to all disciplines with a health link, including sciences, medicine, public health, social sciences and humanities.
• Where you are based: Your organisation must be in the UK, the Republic of Ireland, or a low- or middle-income country (except India and mainland China). PhD Fellowships are UK-only. From 29 October 2026 the eligible regions narrow to the UK and low- and middle-income countries in Africa, South Asia and South-East Asia.
• Nationality: Any nationality can apply. What matters is where your organisation is based.
• Research time: For Early-Career and Career Development Awards you must spend at least 80% of your time on research.
• Health professionals (PhD scheme): You are a registered doctor, dentist, nurse, pharmacist, physiotherapist, vet, psychologist, midwife or similar, aiming for an academic career.
• Who cannot apply: Tobacco-industry researchers are excluded, and grant funds cannot be transferred into mainland China.

How to apply

You apply online through the Wellcome Funding Platform. Early-Career, Career Development and Discovery Awards are open year-round with fixed full-application deadlines: 21 July 2026 for Early-Career, 28 July 2026 for Career Development and 22 September 2026 for Discovery, plus further rolling rounds after that. Selection runs in stages and ends with an interview. You do not apply for PhD Fellowships at Wellcome directly. Instead you apply through individual programmes at UK universities, each with its own annual recruitment cycle.

How realistic are your chances?

These are competitive research grants, not a scholarship you simply qualify for. They are judged on the quality of your proposal, your track record and your research environment. Wellcome funds at an international level, so a strong, well-matched application with clear scientific merit is what wins support. Your prospects depend far more on the strength of your research case than on ticking eligibility boxes.