Funding

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The Office for Translational Research (OTR) supports researchers in securing translational funding. We have built a track record and have a 76% success rate in applications ranging from relatively modest awards of a few hundred thousand to several million pounds.

Our team has broad scientific expertise gained in industry covering all aspects of new products and approaches to treatment or prevention of human disease and illness. These may include medical devices, surgery, radiology, vaccines, drugs, digital health and nanomedicine as well as gene and cell therapies.

The OTR draws on collective experience of translational research to help you develop your project. We leverage our relationship of trust with national funders and competition-specific knowledge (UKRI and IUK, NIHR and charities) to advise which grant competition will result in the highest chances of success for your project. We are then in a position to identify the right funding scheme with the right partners at the right time for your project.

The OTR can provide written content for your funding applications guiding your response to each question and providing budget advice to create a competitive funding application against the relevant funding body's criteria ensuring you develop a persuasive narrative. We help to develop aspects of the application where researchers may have less experience, such as Public and Patient Involvement, NHS adoption strategy or setting up a project plan with appropriate milestones. The OTR is naturally able to liaise with all entities within the University of Cambridge such as the Research Operations Office (ROO), Cambridge Enterprise, Cambridge Clinical Trials Unit and Cambridge University Hospitals R&D.

The OTR plays an important role in securing funding (in the region of £10m per year) on behalf of the University. Awards encompass the wide range of funders required to take a medical intervention from the laboratory to the clinic. We notably contributed successfully in 2021 to six NIHR awards (i4i, AI and HTA) totalling £7.8m and an MRC Experimental Medicine award in collaboration with Roche totalling £1.5m.

We aim to foster long-term working relationships, nurturing projects in close partnership with academics to articulate the science in line with translational schemes. For example, a number of projects from our Confidence in Concept portfolio awarded in 2017 and 2018 resulted in successful NIHR i4i (MedTech) awards in 2021. This successful outcome demonstrates the effectiveness of the ongoing support provided by the OTR.

We will work with you to decide the most appropriate funding scheme for your project with the best chances of success, whether funding is available from the University of Cambridge internal calls such as Cambridge MRC Confidence in Concept, from larger translational schemes (charities, MRC DPFS, NIHR i4i, InnovateUK) or from industry sources.