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Apply for funding for UCL-industry collaborations to explore solutions to challenges in digital public health.
About the grant
The aim of the grant is to drive impact in digital public health by finding, developing and deploying solutions to pressing digital public health challenges.
A secondary aim is to develop partnership and collaboration opportunities in the field of digital public health, bringing together UCL academics with organisations active in digital solutions for public health.
Funding is available for projects which:
- are collaborative and demonstrate an aspect of knowledge exchange
- cover an aspect of digital public health, for example:
- disease surveillance and prediction
- health information systems
- digital health interventions
- artificial intelligence and machine learning
- digital health equity
- behavioural health and digital therapeutics
- public health surveillance
- telemedicine and telehealth
- personalized medicine
- health data analysis
- digital health resource allocation
Who can apply: All UCL academics can apply, but applications must be developed with a non-academic external partner (full eligibility criteria below).
Amount: You can apply for up to £5,000.
Duration: The maximum length for projects is 6 months. You can decide the most suitable start date for your project, but the earliest you can start is 1 November 2025. Projects must be completed by 30 June 2026.
Funders: The grant is funded by UKRI’s EPSRC, STFC and BBSRC Impact Acceleration Account funding and is managed by UCL Innovation & Enterprise.
Applying for the grant
Applications are now closed.
Successful applicants will be notified by email by 1 November.
Before you apply, you should read the further details and guidance (below) and the funding terms and conditions.
After you apply
Your application will be reviewed and scored by a UCL selection panel. If you’re successful, you’ll receive an email with details of how the grant will be released by Award Services at UCL Research and Innovation Services.
Successful candidates will receive further mentoring throughout the project from UCL Innovation & Enterprise, including possibilities to engage with UCL Business, the Innovate UK Business Growth team and the Strategic Innovation Partnerships team.
You must spend the grant within 6 months of your selected start date and complete the project by 30 June 2026.
Further details and guidance
Eligibility
To be eligible:
- the lead applicant must be a member of staff or doctoral student at UCL. This includes part and full-time researchers and academics from any discipline. (Honorary staff, undergraduate and master’s students cannot apply.)
- the application must be developed in partnership with a company or other non-academic external partner such as a charity or public health organisation.
- the project must demonstrate ability to impact public health and have applicable benefits for the UK.
- the project must have an element of knowledge exchange and benefits for both parties involved.
- the proposed project must align with a research area included in the EPSRC, BBSRC or STFC portfolios.
Guidance on completing your application
The lead applicant must be a UCL academic, researcher or doctoral student. If a doctoral student is the lead applicant, they'll need to name a UCL staff member as Principal Investigator (PI) on the application form. The PI will have a number of responsibilities outlined in the terms and conditions.
It’s the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure that:
- all the information provided in the application is correct
- your proposal meets the eligibility criteria.
In the application form, you'll need to include:
- details of your proposal (600 words) including:
- the project scope
- how there will be a two-way exchange of knowledge between researchers and the company or partner (this can be in form of workshops and meetings)
- a brief public description of your proposal (200 words)
- 3 to 5 project outcomes with specific deliverables (600 words)
- how you'll track, measure and report on the project impact (500 words)
- a project timeline (300 words)
- how the grant money will be spent (300 words)
- how your project meets the EPSRC, BBSRC or STFC research priorities (200 words)
- how your project adds value to digital public health in the UK
- how you plan to embed equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in your proposed activity
Your application must show:
- how the project is helping to solve a challenge within innovation in digital public health
- why your project is best placed to solve the challenge
- how the project can provide a benefit to the UK (e.g. financial, reputational, health outcomes)
- the roles your partner will play, how you’ll collaborate and exchange expertise/knowledge between UCL and non-academic organisations/communities