Wellcome Mental Health Funding: Grants for Youth Research

Overview

Wellcome funds mental health research for young people, offering €1-4 million grants, with applications due by July 14, 2026. Wellcome strategic programmes include; discovery research, climate and health, infectious disease and mental health. Mental health award, using physical activity and circadian-based interventions to reduce anxiety and depression in young people. aged 10-18 years. Successfully team will build on existing mechanistic evidence to develop more precise and effective early intervention that have potential to scale.

BENEFITS

• As an established researcher, you will have the experience needed to drive and lead a research programme.
• You will have a track record of training and managing others.
• If applying as a lead applicant, you will have a permanent, open-ended or long-term rolling contract.
• An established researcher can hold one Discovery Award where they are sole applicant and also as the lead team.
• An established researcher can be a coapplicant on other Wellcome awards.

PRIZE

€ 1-4 million per grant
Wellcome are expecting to make 5-10 awards in this highly competitive funding call
Funding duration is 3-4 years

Role And Responsibilities Of People Involved

• Lead applicants to create and submit a grant application. They have intellectual ownership of the application and the project, but if they have coapplicants ownership is shared.
• Lead application are accountable for:
  - How grant activities are completed
  - The financial management of the grant
  - Complying with Wellcome’s condition of the award.
  - Coapplicants must make significant and essential contributions to the research proposal, be based at an eligible organisation, and meet the call or scheme’s eligibility and suitability criteria
• Guest editor. A Lead applicant can give Guest editors access to their application form so they can help review and edit it. They can’t submit applications
• Sponsor. They must have an established post at the applicant’s administering organisation for the duration of the award, give the applicant research guidance, support the applicant’s development throughout the grant, have a strong track record in research, training and mentorship, and confirm the organisation support for the applicant.
• Mentor. They should have a track record in training and mentorship, and support and guide the applicant on how to:
  - Manage their application
  - Develop their research career
  - Manage the process and regulations at the administering organisation
• Collaborators. They support the delivery of the project but don’t lead on a specific component of the researcher, They support by:
  - Sharing facilities
  - Providing access to the resources
  - Providing expertise on working in different countries
  - Sharing subject-specific knowledge and guidance