GOSH Charity Programme Grants

Before applying, you must contact the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH) joint research office (Grants.Advice@gosh.nhs.uk) and the GOSH Charity Grant Funding Team (grants@gosh.org) to register your interest and receive advice.

We are inviting applications for ambitious, long-term research programmes which will generate a significant shift in progress or understanding within an area of rare or complex paediatric disease. Programmes should focus on improving understanding of the disease or associated conditions, or improving the prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment of the disease.

Research Programmes should be composed of at least two interrelated projects which complement one another to generate a step change in progress or understanding within a specific area. Single large-scale projects such as late-stage clinical trials are not eligible for funding through this scheme.

To apply as a Principal Investigator for these grants, you must be an independent researcher, an expert in your field, and have proven leadership ability. Your salary must be covered elsewhere through to the end of the grant period, or a supporting letter must be provided by your organisation guaranteeing your continued employment throughout the duration of the grant.

For the 2024 Programme Grants, Principal Investigators must be employed by GOSH or ICH, or have an honorary research contract and conduct their primary research activity at one of those organisations.

Co-applicants and collaborators may be at any career stage and affiliated with any organisation. We encourage applicant teams to include at least one Early Career Researcher as a named co-applicant, and to demonstrate collaboration across organisations and scientific disciplines.

A total of £5m is available for this scheme in 2024. From this, we expect to award 2-3 Programme Grants with a minimum value of £500k each. There is no maximum grant value, however if you wish to apply for a grant costing more than £2.5m we ask you to contact the grants team to discuss your application finances.

Funding will cover the direct costs of research associated with your research programme, including staff salaries, PhD stipends, consumables and animals costs. Any questions about the eligibility of a proposed cost should be directed to the grants team.

Programmes should be for a duration of up to five years.

Applications for this scheme will be in two stages: outline and full. Shortlisting and final funding decisions are made by the GOSH Charity Research Assessment Panel, with input from a lay panel and external experts at the full application stage. Final funding decisions will be made in October 2024.

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, or have any questions not covered in the scheme guidance document, please do not hesitate to email the GOSH Charity Grants team.