Most COVID-19 related research is now being rolled out into normal funding schemes.

Contact The OTR Team to find the most appropriate scheme for your project

UKRI open call for research and innovation ideas

UKRI has put in place the following process to allow researchers to repurpose existing UKRI standard grant to address COVID-19 research priorities.
For queries about switching your existing funding contact: CV19researchinnovation@ukri.org

National prioritisation of funded studies, irrespective of whether they are funded by the public sector, industry or charities. Also, in partnership with UKRI, prioritisation of studies that require funding. This aims to prevent duplication of effort and to ensure that the capacity of the health and care system to support research is not exceeded.

• For information on NIHR response to COVID-19
• For queries about research funding contact: ccf-nCoV@nihr.ac.uk

Rolling submission

If you are a scientist at an academic institution currently working on a COVID-19 related project and in need of funding, you are invited to apply for a Fast Grant. Science funding mechanisms are too slow in normal times and may be much too slow during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fast Grants are an effort to correct this.  

Deadline date: Rolling submission - decisions are made in under 14 days

• External call (re-opened)
• Funding level: $10K to $500K

Provides 'pump priming' for pilot projects that aim to strengthen applications for external funding.  Research should be relevant to strategic priorities within CUH. Currently identifying funds and donors to support COVID-19 research

Deadline Date:  COVID research proposals are being accepted on a rolling basis. The next main research advisory committee meeting is scheduled for 7 Oct 2020. COVID research proposals may be reviewed outside these scheduled meetings.

• Internal/local call
• Funding level for scheduled calls:  Less than £25K (typically ~£10K)

CEPI issues calls for proposals and requests for information inviting applicants to submit proposals for projects to develop vaccine candidates and support clinical trials involving vaccine candidates.

Deadline Date:  Rolling submission

• External call
• For further information contact: cfp@cepi.net
• Funding level: Not specified

Supporting activities and actions that deploy open science methods and resources and make use of the EOSC communities in order to address COVID-19 related issues. Selected topics of interest include: Opening up virus-related research and data; Sharing of infrastructures and services; Developing open design equipment for fighting COVID-19; Sharing sampling test methodologies and data; Developing open science methodologies for monitoring the spread of COVID-19.

Deadline Date: Rolling submission

• External call
• Funding level: Up to €45K

Funding for exploratory, basic and clinical research grants to collect data and expand knowledge about the effects of SARS-CoV-2 on reproduction, pregnancy, and foetal/neonatal health.

Deadline Date: Rolling submission until 31st October 2020 (response within 14 days of receipt)

• External call
• Funding level: Up to €25K

The European Research Area corona platform is a one-stop shop providing comprehensive information about funding opportunities in relation to Coronavirus at European Union and national level.  (please visit the link)

Deadline Date:  Rolling submission

• External call
• Funding level: Not specified

Funding for reasonably mature open source technology projects which are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in some way such as hardware, software and software which provides solutions for secondary effects of COVID-19.

Deadline Date:  Rolling submission

• External call
• Funding level:  Up to $50K

The NIHR-BHF Cardiovascular Partnership supports the development and delivery of COVID-19 research projects across the UK. Key questions of interest: Understanding the nature and importance of cardiovascular complications in COVID-19 infection; Understanding why patients with heart and circulatory dieases are at greater risk of adverse outcomes; Understanding the short and longer-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for people with heart and circulatory diseases; Gaining mechanistic insights into individual responses to the COVID-19 infection, its effect on the function of the heart and the circulatory system. Existing resources can be repurposed and deployed nationally plus there may be opportunities for sourcing additional resources and funding if projects put forward in this process are deemed to be high quality and of national priority.

Deadline Date: Rolling submission

• External call
• Funding level: Not specified

The research scope of this call is Virology, Immunity and Pathophysiology; Diagnostics; Epidemiology; IPC and PPE; Public Health, Media and Communication; Clinical Management; Primary, Adjunctive and Supportive Therapies; Vaccines; Health and Care Delivery; and/or Underpinning. All proposals will need to be able to show how progress within the period of award could make a valuable contribution to the understanding, diagnosis, prevention and/or management of the COVID-19 outbreak, with data and tools/reagents generated under this call to be made widely available.

Deadline date: Rolling submission until 1st April 2021

• External call
• Funding level: Not specified - 'value-for-money'

With emerging evidence of an association between ethnicity and COVID-19 incidence and adverse health outcomes, proposals are welcomed in two areas: 1. Impact of COVID-19 and association between ethnicity and COVID-19 in the general population; 2. Impact of COVID-19 specifically on people working in health and social care from BAME backgrounds.

Deadline Date: rolling submission

• External call
• Funding level: Not specified - 'value-for-money'

This highlight notice identifies the need for further rapid research using epidemiological methods to determine risk factors for transmission, which groups are most likely to become infected (i.e. who is transmitting infection to whom?), and in what environments transmissions occur. Research applications are invited to investigate the routes of transmission in different environments and groups.

Deadline Date:  Rolling submission

• External call
• Funding level: Not specified - 'value-for-money'

This highlight notice identifies a policy need for further research with children, health and social care workers, and residents in nursing and residential care homes.  Research applications are invited to investigate transmission, exposure, risk factors for disease acquisition and seroprevalence in priority groups. Research applications are invited to investigate the role of children in transmission. Research in other groups and settings is also welcomed in the NIHR-UKRI call.

Deadline Date:  Rolling submission

• External call
• Funding level: Not specified - 'value-for-money'

Travel and subsistence funding for appropriately qualified public health professionals, clinicians and academics who wish to offer science and technical advice to support the immediate response to COVID-19 in low and middle-income countries

Deadline Date:  Rolling submission (apply for approval prior to travel)

• External fund
• Funding level: Not specified

Short-term projects addressing and mitigating the health, social, economic, cultural and environmental impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak - new research or innovation with a clear impact pathway that has the potential (within the period of the grant) to deliver a significant contribution to the understanding of, and response to, the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts AND/OR supports the manufacture and/or wide scale adoption of an intervention with significant potential AND/OR
gathers critical data and resources quickly for future research use

Deadline date:  Currently open - response within 10 days of submission

• External call
• Funding level:  Not specified

The application process for UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) COVID-19 open call will change on 31st July 2020. After this date, instead of submitting a proposal via email, researchers must apply via UKRI’s online submission system the “Joint Electronic Submission” (JeS). Further details are available on the UKRI website.

Proposals are invited for short-term projects addressing and mitigating the health, social, economic, cultural and environmental impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak in countries identified on the OECD DAC list of ODA recipients1.
This call is funded through the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and the Newton Fund.

Deadline date:  Apply at any time

• External call
• Funding level:  80% of the fEC for Research Council funding

Call for collaboration with colleagues in China for development of AI support for COVID-19 diagnosis and prognosis from imaging and clinical data.

Deadline Date:  Not specified - open call

• Internal/local call
• Funding level:  Not applicable

October 2020

ESHRE Research Grant COVID-19ESHRE Research Grants are designed to support scientists and clinicians (investigators) by funding proposals in basic and clinical research in the field of reproductive medicine. 

Deadline Date:  Preliminary applications due by 15 October 2020; extended proposals due by 1 February 2021.

• External call
• Funding level:  Up to €200,000 max.

NIHR PRP invites applications for research to inform the policy response to challenges posed by COVID-19; and to capture learning arising from the pandemic. The research specification document sets out the need for research in specific topic areas to inform medium- to longer-term policy decisions for health and social care resulting from COVID-19.

Deadline Date:  Applications due by 1pm on: 16 July 2020,  10 September 2020, 22 October 2020.

• External Call
• Funding level: amount max £500,000

We are inviting applications from clinicians and basic scientists conducting research in anaesthesia, which can additionally be projects focused on topics of relevance to the COVID-19 pandemic but this is not mandatory. Previous applicants will be given the opportunity to revise and/or resubmit their previous application in light of the above.

Deadline Date:  Applications due by 5pm on:  30th October 2020.  Interviews for shortlisted candidates will take place in January 2021 (TBC), 

• External Call
• Funding level: £80,000

November 2020

The NIHR is accepting stage 2 applications to this primary research funding opportunity. The research question is: Which drug or antibody interventions are effective, cost-effective, safe and most acceptable for prophylaxis of COVID-19 in a UK care home setting?

Deadline Date:  Applications due by 1pm GMT on 11th November 2020. 

• External Call
• Funding level: Not specified

CLOSED

Heart Research UK is offering a Covid-19 specific research grant to support research into the links between Covid-19 and heart disease.  
We know that people with existing cardiovascular disease have a higher risk of severe complications from Covid-19 infection, evidence is emerging that the virus can cause damage to the heart.
There is a pressing need to improve our understanding of the links between Covid-19 and the cardiovascular system, including how Covid-19 infection influences heart disease and whether it changes the ways in which we treat patients.

Deadline Date:  Applications due by 1.00pm on: 12th October 2020

• External call
• Funding level:  Up to £250k max.

The British Embassy to France is seeking a partner organisation(s) to deliver an innovative and exciting research project, under our supervision, including papers and events for the period October 2020 to February 2021.

Deadline Date:  3rd October 2020

• External call
• Funding level:  Up to  £30,000 max

EPSRC through the UK-RAS Network and in collaboration with Imperial College London, Wellcome, KUKA and Intuitive Surgical, invites calls seeking innovative ideas that could aid in the response to COVID-19 offering a unique opportunity to galvanize medical robot technologies, as they play an increasingly major role in combating contagious diseases.

Deadline Date:  30th September 2020

• External call
• Funding level:  £15,000

• How health and social care service delivery has changed in light of COVID-19.
• The impact of COVID-19 on health inequalities and the wider determinants of health. 

Deadline Date:  30th September 2020

• External call
• Funding level:  between £100-£200K