Research funding opportunities

We support and promote paediatric child health research in the UK and internationally. Search our database of current and upcoming opportunities for projects and posts.

These opportunities are not managed nor endorsed by RCPCH. Though we do our best to ensure they are relevant and high quality, we cannot take any responsibility for their content or accuracy.

If you have questions or would like to submit a joint funding application with the College, contact us on research@rcpch.ac.uk.

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BMA Foundation - Medical Research Grants

Provides funding to encourage and further medical research in a variety of areas. Applications are invited from doctors and research scientists and can be for either research in progress or prospective research.
Award programme/theme
Project grant
Funding amount range
£50,001 to £100,000
Maximum duration
3 years
Submission deadline

European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases (ESPID) - Research Grant

This is a new research grant by ESPID and INOPSU to support infection surveillance across two or more European countries and aims to facilitate infection surveillance research in Europe by ESPID researchers.
Award programme/theme
Project grant
Funding amount range
Under £50,000

Health Foundation - Policy Challenge Fund

To support high quality, original policy analysis that will generate insight to support and inform policy makers on important current and future issues in UK health policy.
Award programme/theme
Project grant
Funding amount range
£50,001 to £100,000
Maximum duration
Up to 1 year

Health Foundation - Research Projects

Fund research and policy analysis work to shine a light on how to make successful change happen within the healthcare sector
Award programme/theme
Project grant
Funding amount range
£250,001 to £500,000

JDRF - Development of Interventions to Modulate Immune Cell Trafficking in T1D

The goal of this funding opportunity is to accelerate the identification and validation of reagents that promote immune rebalance and the protection of beta cell function through modulating the trafficking of immune cells to the pancreatic islets. Proposals submitted for this opportunity should describe the preclinical or clinical development of therapeutic strategies targeting the trafficking of disease-relevant immune cell populations.
Award programme/theme
Project grant
Funding amount range
Over £500,000
Maximum duration
3 years
Submission deadline

JDRF - Glycaemic and beta cell monitoring in individuals at risk of type 1 diabetes

The aim of this call is advancing our understanding of glycaemic changes during disease progression in presymptomatic individuals (Stages 1 and 2), with the potential to improve progression biomarkers and monitoring their transition to clinical diagnosis (Stage 3). The focus of this call is the improvement of current or new metabolic risk assessment tools and their integration into clinically and commercially utilized testing platforms.
Award programme/theme
Project grant
Funding amount range
Over £500,000
Maximum duration
3 years
Submission deadline

JDRF – Innovative Awards

JDRF provides seed funding for highly innovative, high risk high reward research with significant potential to accelerate the mission of JDRF. Proposals should address key outstanding questions and have the potential to lead to a challenge or a change in the current paradigm or conventional wisdom and/or lead to a ground breaking discovery.
Award programme/theme
Project grant
Funding amount range
£100,001 to £250,000
Maximum duration
1 year
Submission deadline

Kidney Research UK - Project Grant

Funds standalone research at innovation and project level that will advance our knowledge of kidney disease and refine current treatments or lead to new advances in the future.
Award programme/theme
Project grant
Funding amount range
£100,001 to £250,000
Maximum duration
3 years

Medical Research Council (MRC) - Research Grant

Funding for focussed research projects that may be short or long term in nature.
Award programme/theme
Project grant
Funding amount range
Over £500,000
Maximum duration
3-5 years

National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) - Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME)

Primarily supports clinical trials, and other robustly designed studies that test the efficacy of interventions. The interventions should have the potential to improve patient care or benefit the public. The programme will only support studies where there is sufficient evidence that the intervention might work in man, i.e. that there is ‘proof of concept’.
Award programme/theme
Project grant
Funding amount range
Over £500,000