Early Detection and Diagnosis Programme Award

Overview

This award funds long-term, integrated and potentially renewable programmes of exceptional science to drive forward a transformational change in how early cancers and pre-cancerous states are detected.

Key information Timelines

Applications are reviewed twice per year. Upcoming deadline: 21 July 2026

Funding period

Up to 5 years

Funding amount

Up to £2.5m

Who is eligible?

Our core eligibility criteria are outlined below. Note that this scheme operates a closed round 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 early.detection@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.

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.

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.

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 apply as a joint lead applicant with a researcher based outside our institutes. However, you should explain why you require extra support in addition to the funding you receive from the institute and contact us before you apply.

Other funding bodies

You can submit applications for the same project 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.

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.

If you’d like to apply on a part-time basis, 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

What is suitable for this scheme?

Our Early Detection and Diagnosis Programme Awards provide long-term support for broad, ambitious, multi-strand programmes where the various work streams coordinate and integrate to address a central theme, asking an interrelated set of questions. They aim to encourage the research community to think bigger.

Applications must demonstrate early detection/diagnosis relevance, consider a line-of-sight to clinical or population impact and clearly articulate the cancer-related question you’re focusing on.

The programme award will have defined objectives, but we don’t expect all questions to be conclusively answered within the tenure of the award. Parts of the programme may be a continuation of current activity; other elements should start new lines of enquiry.

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

You can apply for a Programme Award in any number or combination of areas relevant to cancer early detection and diagnosis. Examples of areas in remit that we will consider include:

the discovery and validation of signatures for the detection of early cancer/pre-cancer including the development of the technologies to enable this

development and validation of tests and other interventions to enable early detection and diagnosis

clinical trials of early detection and diagnosis technologies and approaches

early detection and diagnosis health systems

clinician behaviour and decision support

understanding and intervening in public behaviour to enhance early detection and diagnosis

health economics of early detection and diagnosis research

For more information on our strategic priorities, explore the following resources.

Read our research strategy

Read our statement of intent

Read our early detection and diagnosis of cancer roadmap

Spotlight call: reducing inequalities in cancer early detection and diagnosis

We're committed to addressing critical gaps in cancer research through our spotlight calls, which highlight key areas of need where dedicated research efforts could accelerate progress.

With our new spotlight call, we encourage applications to develop novel approaches to reduce existing known inequalities in cancer detection and diagnosis or explore and address less well understood mechanisms driving inequalities.

Applicants can apply for funding to address the spotlight call through this award. All applications will be considered alongside the full pool of the award's proposals, with primary evaluation based on scientific quality and relevance to early detection and diagnosis. However, applications of comparable quality may be prioritized if they address a strategic need in tackling inequalities.

The spotlight call will span multiple funding rounds, with the decision on when to end the call made by us and the Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee, based on the coverage of awarded projects.

Learn more about the spotlight call

What isn't suitable for this scheme?

research focussing on late-stage disease and/or metastasis (except early detection of cancer recurrence)

research without line-of-sight to impact in early detection

infrastructure support to our clinical trials units or centres

Some programme concepts may straddle the remits of more than one funding committee.

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.

View all available funding

How are applications reviewed? Panels and committees

Applications are considered twice a year by the Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee, assisted by our Expert Review Panels and Patient and Public Review Panel.

The review process involves the following steps:

After contacting us for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal, you will receive access to the scheme and will be able to submit an outline application on Flexi-Grant.

After submitting an outline application on Flexi-Grant, your application will be considered by the Early Detection & Diagnosis Research Committee.

If successful, the committee will invite you to submit a full application for consideration at their next meeting. You should contact us to discuss any feedback and confirm your submission date. You may also defer the submission of a full application to the subsequent round.

Your full application will be considered by the Expert Review Panel and the Patient and Public Review Panel. You will have the opportunity to present your proposal, respond to peer review comments at interview with one of the Expert Review Panels, and answer any questions they may have. Our Patient and Public Review Panel will review your application regardless of the level of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) within the proposal. The panel will mainly focus on your lay summary, PPI plan including associated costs and study population, if applicable, and the proposed clinical/population impact of your work.

A final decision will be made at a second meeting of the Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee.

Learn more about how we make funding decisions

Assessment criteria

The Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee and Expert Review Panel will review your proposal based on relevance to our strategy, statement of intent and a set of standard criteria.

Programme applications should also articulate multiple interrelated strands of research which address a central theme. The committee will consider the added value of integration of these strands as a programme.

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

The five-year