GOSH Charity National Funding Call

The 2024/2025 National Funding Call closed for applications on 26 June 2024.

The National Call will reopen for applications in May 2025.

GOSH Charity is inviting project grant applications for paediatric health research studies focusing on complex or rare diseases. The call will support research across the spectrum of medical conditions affecting the foetus, neonates, and children directly, as well as pregnancy disorders that affect the child. Qualitative and mixed-methods research projects, including healthcare management for specific childhood diseases/conditions or groups of closely related conditions, are also welcomed.

All projects must aim to improve understanding of the disease or associated conditions or to improve outcomes for the affected child. Proposals will be expected to have the potential to lead to new medical developments or improved healthcare (e.g. diagnostic tools or novel interventions) through laboratory and/or clinically based research. Applicants must clearly articulate the route to clinical application and/or potential for patient benefit, regardless of where their proposed studies are positioned along the basic-to-applied research continuum.

This is a national funding call and is open to independent researchers based anywhere in the UK. Investigators can apply to this call as a lead applicant if they: hold a salaried, academic research post; are in at least their first independent position at group-leader level and have sufficient time remaining in their current post to complete the awarded project or can provide confirmation from their host institution that they will be employed throughout the grant period.

As a way of increasing and retaining capacity in this critical research area, we are particularly interested in supporting projects from promising group leaders at an early career stage. To this end, whilst we welcome applications from independent researchers at any level of seniority, if a funding decision is required between applications of equivalent quality, those from group leaders at an early career stage will be prioritised. Awards may not be used to support the salaries of the Principal Investigator/team leader. Please refer to our list of frequently asked questions for further details, or contact the GOSH Charity Grants team should you have any further questions.

GOSH Charity has made £2.5 million available for this funding call.

Total costs above £50,000 and up to £250,000 per application will be considered, for a maximum project duration of three years. Funding will be provided for the direct costs of research (such as research staff and consumables) but will not cover consultant programmed activities, the salary-time of the Principal Investigator/team leader, nor may it be applied towards PhD studentships.

Applications will be received and managed by GOSH Charity and considered by its Research Assessment Panel. Final funding decisions are expected to be announced in March 2025.

Please note that all applications to this call will be uniformly assessed according to the same criteria for remit, quality, impact, and value for money, irrespective of their potential for co-funding by one of the research partners, or the career stage of the main applicant. Any further prioritisation of applications will only be considered where proposals are deemed equally competitive.

We are delighted to extend the reach of this call by offering, in association with our research partners, the possibility of joint funding for projects focusing on their respective areas of interest. We therefore specifically welcome any applications that:

• Aim to lead to treatments for Norrie Disease, with a particular focus on treating the hearing loss.
• Aim to significantly advance the search to find a cure and/or a treatment for any of the genetic forms of centronuclear and myotubular myopathy.  This includes studies on modifiers of disease progression, and studies that would increase an understanding of liver abnormalities in the condition.
• Aim to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and clinical management of Dravet Syndrome.
• Aim to target therapeutic interventions that can halt or slow down disease progression and improve outcomes for individuals carrying DHDDS mutations.

As funders, we have signed a cross-funder statement coordinated by the Academy of Medical Sciences, on the COVID-19 institutional memory: how we as funders will look to fairly remember and recognise the impacts of COVID-19 on grant applicants' work in the future.

As part of this statement, we would like to reassure our research community that we are aware of the immediate and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on research activities. Any disruptions to research activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be taken into consideration by our panels and committees when assessing an individual applicant’s record of outputs, research achievements, and career progression in future grant rounds. Read the Covid-19 Statement here.

If you would like to know more about the funding call, our research partners, or have any questions not covered in the FAQs, please do not hesitate to email the GOSH Charity Grants team.

View funded National Call projects.