A curated listing of global health funding opportunities.
About
At the General Assembly, hosted by WHO in Geneva 3 to 4 December, the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GloPID-R) coalition of research funders launched a new funding mechanism, "Global Research Improving Pandemic Preparedness (GRIPP)". This initiative aims to improve collaboration between international research funders around the world, improving our research responses to future outbreaks, epidemics and wider health emergencies.
The first GRIPP call, focused on strengthening the clinical research ecosystem in LMICs to improve clinical trial good practices aligned with WHO guidance and GloPID-R Roadmap for Clinical Trial Coordination, will be launched in early 2025.
ABOUT
Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness award scheme is intended to support postgraduate students and early-career researchers to present or co-present a paper in the field of the sociology of health and illness at an appropriate international conference outside the United Kingdom, by providing funding for registration, standard accommodation and travel costs.
Closing date: 31 October 2025
AMOUNT
Maximum award: £1,000
ELIGIBILITY
Applications will be considered from postgraduate students registered for a Masters degree or MPhil/PhD in a UK University, including students who are full-time or part-time and students who are not UK or EU citizens, and early-career researchers at a UK University within three years of the award of their PhD (regardless of where their PhD was awarded).
The British Academy in partnership with The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) has announced a call for applications to the CIFAR Global Scholars Program. This is a two-year opportunity (2026-2028) to collaborate and receive mentorship within a close-knit, interdisciplinary network of leading global researchers in a CIFAR research programme. One relevant programme is Child and Brain Development, where policy leaders in early childhood and health and CIFAR fellows in the programme are developing public policies and intervention programmes that address health disparities and improve children’s development, health, and well-being.
- Amount: The Global Scholars Program provides 100,000 CAD in unrestricted research support. These funds can be used for research expenses, teaching release, student or postdoc support, conference travel, and more.
- Deadline: 5 November 2025
ABOUT
Funding for projects that robustly test the real-world effectiveness and assess implementation strategies of scalable transformative early interventions for anxiety, depression and psychosis in young people.
The team must include expertise in mental health, lived experience, clinical trials, statistics, health economics and implementation science and must include implementation partners.
At least one implementation partner must be included as a co-applicant. Implementation partners can include individuals from national or local government agencies, healthcare providers, education providers, non-government organisations, community groups or international organisations.
The team must also include either a lead applicant or co-applicant based in each country where the research will take place.
Deadline: 11 November 2025
AMOUNT
This award is structured in two phases:
- This first phase will provide teams with £200,000 to build their teams and develop their detailed proposal for their research study over 12 months. The research must take place in the UK or a low- and middle-income country. The proposal must capture multiple outcomes that are relevant to people with lived experience and implementing partners, including mental health outcomes, functional outcomes and full economic evaluation.
- All funded teams from the Foundation Phase will be invited to apply for the Impact Phase. Wellcome expect the award amount for the Impact Phase to be between £5 million and £8 million and the duration to be up to 5 years.
ELIGIBILITY
Applications are welcome from anywhere in the world (except mainland China) and from any relevant discipline.
These awards will support transdisciplinary teams to catalyse research discoveries at the intersection of genomics, humanities, social sciences and bioethics. Funded projects will be given the time and resources to create new research agendas and explore innovative ways of working.
You can now register for research matchmaking through Neuromatch to find potential collaborators for this award.
About
Apply for funding to generate critical data that builds confidence in developing a new or repurposed medicine, medical device, diagnostic test, or other medical intervention.
The concept for the product should be backed by prior funding. Projects should focus on one high-risk step, not multiple, to ensure efficient management. This step must address the crucial missing evidence needed to rapidly de-risk onward development or determine failure.
criteria
- Award range: £50,000 - £300,000
- Deadline: 12 November 2025, 4pm UK time
- Eligibility: you must be based at a research organisation eligible for Medical Research Council (MRC) funding
Apply for the MRC Gap fund for early-stage development of new healthcare interventions
About
Funding to develop and test novel therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics.You can apply for academically-led translational projects that aim to either:
- improve prevention, diagnosis, prognosis or treatment of significant health needs;
- develop research tools that increase the efficiency of developing interventions.
Criteria
- Total fund: £11,000,000
- Deadline: 19 November 2025, 4:00pm UK time
- Criteria: employment at a research organisation eligible for MRC funding.
Apply to the MRC: Developmental Pathway Funding scheme
This is a new ODA-funded opportunity to contract a high-quality research partnership to collaborate with the UK Health Security Agency to deliver the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST).
The UK-PHRST works to address the threat posed by infectious disease outbreaks in LMICs through an integrated triple remit incorporating outbreak response, research, and capacity-building. The primary aim of the Research Partnership is to deliver an interdisciplinary programme of planned and responsive research that aims to support and improve public health responses to infectious disease outbreaks in the world’s poorest countries while generating evidence for best practice in outbreak response, facilitating its uptake into public health policy, and supporting continuous learning to improve future UK-PHRST deployments.
Criteria
The application must make a clear case for how the research will be of primary benefit to the development challenges of LMICs and how outcomes will promote health and welfare. The lead applicant must be employed by a research active higher education institution (HEI) based in the UK and there must be at least one co-applicant employed by a research active HEI or research institute based in an ODA-eligible country.
Amount
Funding is a single award of up to £18 million (£3.6 million per year) for five years.
Deadline
13:00 GMT, 27 November 2025
About
This year’s programme will reflect the field’s growing complexity and dynamic response to the global health challenge of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It will highlight surveillance innovations, novel therapeutics, pioneering anti-AMR strategies, advances in point-of-care technologies and diagnostics, the variety of non-susceptibility phenotypes, and lessons learned from non-bacterial microorganisms. The role of big data and emerging technologies in driving insights and accelerating progress across these areas will also be a key theme.
This conference will be a hybrid meeting – with onsite or virtual attendance. In addition to invited talks from global leaders, the programme will include short oral presentations selected from abstracts, posters, poster pitch talks and networking opportunities.
criteria
- Priority will be given to PhD students/trainees from LMICs, or those from underrepresented/minority groups. Other early career researchers will be considered if funds allow.
- Deadline for bursary application: 1 December 2025.