Discovery Programme Award

Overview

This scheme provides long-term support for established researchers to pursue an ambitious and creative programme of work addressing key questions in the cancer field. Proposals should be centred on a core overarching vision, explored via a set of connected aims. We encourage collaborative teams and multidisciplinary approaches.

Key information Timelines

Applications are reviewed twice per year. Upcoming application deadline (outline): 29 September 2026

Funding period

5 years

Funding amount

Up to £2.5m

Who is eligible?

Our core eligibility criteria are outlined below. Note that this scheme operates with closed rounds to ensure only eligible applications are submitted.

You must contact us for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal prior to submitting your application. We’ll advise on your eligibility and provide guidance on submitting your application.

Email discovery@cancer.org.uk

The applicant

You can apply to this award if you’re a scientist, clinician or healthcare worker based in a UK university, medical school, hospital or research institution.

You can hold this award if you’ve had funding from us before, but prior funding is not a requirement.

During the full duration of the award, you must be in a post that is fully funded by the relevant national Higher Education Funding Council, the National Health Service or equivalent. Please note that Programme Awards cannot be used to fund part of an applicant's salary.

Collaborations

We encourage applications from research teams, which can be located across different institutions in the UK. Supporting roles from international and commercial organisations may also be included as co-investigators and collaborators.

For any international collaborations involving in vivo studies, additional peer review steps will be required to ensure our funding is used only for animal studies carried out to UK ethical standards.

For commercial collaborations, all partners must ensure they can align with our funding conditions. Agreements will need to be put in place and approved by us.

The host institution

You must ensure that your host institution will provide sufficient space and access to resources to undertake the proposed research.

If you receive core funding from one of our institutes (including the Francis Crick Institute), you may not apply as a lead applicant; however, you can be a co-investigator or collaborator.

Flexible working arrangements

Career breaks (due to personal circumstances), part-time working and changes in discipline will be taken into consideration by our panels and committees to make appropriate adjustments when assessing your record of outputs, research achievements and career progression.

You can apply on a part-time or flexible working basis if this fits with the needs of your host institution and they approve your request.

Please contact us before starting your application to discuss your proposed parameters for the award and how to include the part-time request in your application.

Learn about our flexible research career support

Other funding bodies

You can submit applications for the same research question to different funding bodies, including us. However, if successful, you may only accept one award. If applicable, please notify us and disclose this in your application under 'Other Funding'.

We may consider joint funding with other organisations. If you’re interested, please discuss this with us and the other potential funder before applying.

What is suitable for this scheme?

The remit of our Discovery Programme Awards provides long-term support for outstanding established scientists in basic or early-stage translational research fields. The funding will facilitate you to address an overarching question fundamental to cancer biology, through an interrelated set of smaller questions.

Please ensure your proposal offers a well-structured programme of work deliverable within the timeframe. If building on previous work, the proposal must present how it develops, builds on and extends your previous research programme.

Our Discovery Research Committee has a broad remit and supports research that spans different levels of biological organisation from molecular mechanisms to cellular behaviour and cancer at the whole-body scale. We support multidisciplinary research that aims to create or apply novel technologies and methodologies, including for imaging and radiotherapy, to address previously intractable questions in cancer.

In addition to research into the basic biology of cancer, disease specific research and preclinical studies generating biological data to underpin therapeutic development.

For more information on our strategic priorities, read our research strategy and statement of intent.

Read our research strategy

Read our statement of intent

What isn't suitable for this scheme?

Some programme concepts may straddle the remits of more than one funding committee or be more suitable for a different one.

If you are unsure which funding committee is most suited to your research proposal, please contact us and we can provide a recommendation. You can also search our funding schemes to explore other opportunities.

Under this committee we will not consider applications which would sit under our other response mode committees or funding provided by Cancer Research Horizons. These include clinical trials, translational work immediately aligned to a clinical trial such as biomarker validation, applications with drug discovery as the sole function of the award, and approaches in the early detection of primary tumours or cancer prevention.

Additionally, we do not support pure technology development that does not aim to improve our understanding of cancer.

View all available funding

How are applications reviewed? Panels and committees

Applications are considered twice a year by the Discovery Research Committee, assisted by our Expert Review Panels.

The review process involves the following steps:

Express your interest by contacting us. If your research proposal is deemed eligible you will be able to submit an outline application.

After submitting an outline application on our online grants management system, Flexi-Grant, your application will be considered by the Committee. Following this review, you will be provided with written feedback. You may contact us to discuss any feedback and confirm your submission date.

If successful, the Committee will invite you to submit a full application. You may also defer the submission of a full application to the subsequent round.

Upon submission of a full-stage application, an interview is arranged where you will meet the Expert Review Panel. This panel will review the scientific quality of your application.

A final decision will be made by the Discovery Research Committee, taking into consideration any recommendations made by the Expert Review Panels.

Learn more about how we make funding decisions

Assessment criteria

The Discovery Research Committee and Expert Review Panel will review your proposal based on scientific excellence, innovation and relevance to cancer research, considering alignment to our research strategy.

You can find more information on the criteria by which applications are reviewed on our committee pages.

The 5 year rolling success rate (financial year 2020-2025) from application to funding for this scheme is 36%.

Learn more about the committee

Observing funding panels and committees

We offer early- to mid-career researchers the opportunity to observe panel and committee meetings across our funding remit and prioritise giving this opportunity to researchers from underrepresented groups.

Find out more about eligibility and how to apply

Feedback

We will provide feedback on your application, but all funding decisions are final. Committee members cannot discuss their decisions with applicants, so please do not approach them directly.

This allows our committee members to keep the Code of Practice for Funding Committees, which keeps our review process fair and protects applicants, committee members and external reviewers.

Our review process is extremely important to us, so we reserve the right to decline applications from anyone who compromises its integrity. We do not accept resubmissions, unless recommended by the committee.

What are the key timelines?

We consider applications for this award twice a year. This scheme requires an initial outline submission followed by a full application, so the entire process for one proposal spreads over at least two rounds (minimum 9 months).

If your outline application is shortlisted, your full application will be reviewed in the subsequent funding round unless you defer. For instance, an outline application submitted in autumn will be reviewed in full in the spring committee meeting.

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Outline application opens

Outline application deadline

Committee shortlisting

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