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Find out more about our internal funding schemes, plus information about our guidance and support for those seeking external funding.
Internal funding schemes
There are a variety of opportunities for funding support that are funded by or administered through UCL. These are usually advertised through LMS, Faculty, Domain and Divisional newsletters and some are listed below. You can also find information here on schemes where UCL operates an internal selection procedure prior to external grant submission (link to follow).
Academy of Medical Sciences Springboard Scheme
Awards of up to £100,000 and career support for newly independent biomedical scientists. Find out more here.
UCL Excellence Fellowship Scheme
A UCL Flagship Fellowship scheme to facilitate recruitment of outstanding junior biomedical scientists as they transition to independence. Find out more.
Bogue Fellowships
Bogue Fellowships are generous awards to postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers to carry out research in laboratories in the USA for up to six months.
These Fellowships are provided by a substantial bequest from the late James Yule Bogue, former Research Fellow in the Department of Physiology and at one time Deputy Chairman of the Pharmaceuticals Division of ICI.
They are available to postgraduate research students (subject to approval from the funding agency) and to postdoctoral researchers (normally within 6 years of receiving a doctoral degree).
Their purpose is to support, either in full or in part, visits to carry out research in laboratories in the USA and Canada for up to 6 months, (due to limited funds, requests for up to 12 months will be considered only under exceptional circumstances, the majority of applications are for 3-6 months), in order to enrich the research experience and help develop the scientific career of the Fellow.
Applications will also be considered for attendance at advanced, intensive, high-quality laboratory-based courses at Cold Spring Harbor, Woods Hole and the like, but not for attendance at other types of meeting.
Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund
A fund of £1 million per year provided to UCL to support research. Funds are distributed through internal funding schemes that may vary from year to year. Among the activities to be supported from 2017 onwards, we expect schemes to support junior investigators, cross-disciplinary research projects, outreach and translation. Find out more.
Therapeutic Acceleration Support (TAS) Fund
This fund aims to accelerate the transition from discovery science to the early stages of therapeutic development, by providing responsive and flexible funding to overcome specific “hurdle(s)” in translational progression. Find out more.
External funding schemes guidance and support
Although hard to follow in practice, try to start early and allocate more time than your most pessimistic estimate of how long you will need to prepare your grant applications. Discuss your plans with colleagues and obtain feedback on what you have written. Check the funder rules and regulations early and make sure you follow them. If your application requires any Institutional Support (usually in terms of a support letter, match funding for equipment or estates costs), then make sure you flag this early with your Head of Department/Division and others who need to review and approve any such support.
The LMS Research Coordination Office provides support and guidance to researchers who are applying for personal fellowships or grants. They can arrange practice interviews and advise on wording of specialist parts of the grant application or link you up with relevant UCL teams (e.g. UCL Public Engagement, UCL Business, European Research and Innovation office). They coordinate School / Faculty wide submissions in response to major calls and will help write and review aspects of the applications. The team run grantsmanship workshops and organise networking and support events.
With the intention of streamlining procedures for grant submission and ensuring costings were appropriate for the grant submission, the LMS Research Contracts Checklist was introduced in May 2014. This form still provides guidance with respect to procedures to be followed prior to submitting grants but it is being replaced by procedures built into Worktribe.