Prevention and Population Programme Award

Overview

This award provides long-term support for broad, multidisciplinary programmes with transformative potential in primary prevention and population research.

Key information Timelines

Applications are reviewed twice per year. Upcoming deadline: 15 July 2026

Funding period

5 years

Funding amount

Up to £2.5m

Who is eligible?

Our core eligibility criteria are outlined. We strongly encourage you to 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 us at pprc@cancer.org.uk

The applicant

You can apply for our Prevention and Population Programme Award if you are a scientist, clinician or healthcare worker based in a UK university, medical school, hospital or research institution.

You must have extensive postdoctoral experience, an internationally recognised track record and be able to successfully run an independent research group.

During the full duration of the award, you must be in a post that is fully funded by your host institution.

You can hold this award if you’ve had funding from us before or have previously received one of our fellowships. However, you cannot be an active fellow during a Programme Award. If you have an active award with us, please contact us to check if you can have additional funding at the same time.

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.

Host institutions

Please contact us to check your host institution is eligible. Your host institution must approve your full application before the submission deadline, so we advise contacting your institution’s administrative staff in advance.

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 funding covers several research areas so long as your application is cancer-relevant, considers a line-of-sight to clinical or population impact and clearly articulates the cancer-related question you’re focusing on.

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.

We will fund several research areas so long as your application considers a line-of-sight to clinical or population impact, clearly articulates the cancer-related question you’re focusing on and, where applicable, has clear relevance to cancer prevention as outlined in our prevention research strategy. We also welcome prevention intervention studies in outline applications.

Examples of areas in remit that we will consider include:

population-based studies, including classical, clinical and molecular epidemiological approaches, to help understand risk and disease aetiology, and to test and validate strategies to improve the prevention and control of cancer in patients and the public

translational research seeking to harness mechanistic, biological insights in order to: develop novel cancer prevention targets, agents and strategies, apply understanding of cancer risk/aetiology to reduce risk or better target preventive strategies, work towards precision prevention (through pharmacological, immunological, behavioural or other means), including areas of priority highlighted in our prevention research strategy such as application of immunology, infection, metabolism, ageing and accumulation of somatic mutations

incidence rates of cancer, including changes over time and geographies

investigation into the changes in cancer survival, driven by risk factors or other relevant factors

methodological and statistical research relating to prevention and population sciences

population-level epidemiological studies of secondary physical effects of cancer treatment.

risk stratification and associated cancer prevention studies, including identification of high-risk groups for whom preventative interventions would be beneficial and in which preventative intervention research could be conducted

exploratory and confirmatory clinical trials seeking to test the efficacy and safety of chemopreventive agents

development and evaluation of behavioural and lifestyle interventions to support prevention of cancer, including cancer recurrence, across a range of risk factors, for example, tobacco, alcohol, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, obesity and UV exposure at the individual or population level

screening as a form of prevention, including population-level trials of screening approaches

policy-focused research to help develop our policies and advocacy strategies regarding cancer prevention, including policy research on tobacco control

If you’d like to apply for funding for a clinical trial, please liaise with a clinical trials unit when writing your proposal.

Your programme will have clearly defined objectives, but we don’t expect all questions to be fully answered within the award’s duration. This is why we offer the opportunity to renew funding. Some aspects of the programme may build on ongoing work, while others should explore new lines of enquiry.

We strongly welcome the inclusion of PhD studentships as part of the capacity-building element of your application.

For more information on our strategic priorities, read our prevention research strategy and overarching research strategy.

Read our prevention research strategy

Read our research strategy

What isn't suitable for this scheme?

We don’t provide infrastructure support to our clinical trials units, tissue banks or our centres or institutes through this award. We also don’t support research focusing on prevention of relapse/recurrence, or projects that will audit or evaluate existing clinical pathways.

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?

Applications are considered twice a year by our Prevention and Population 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 can start your outline application on Flexi-Grant.

After submitting an outline application on Flexi-Grant, your application will be considered by the Prevention and Population 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 pr