Prevention and Population Project Award

Overview

This award funds high quality, hypothesis-driven research with clear objectives in primary prevention and population research. We also welcome applications including prevention interventional studies.

Key information Timelines

Applications are reviewed twice per year. Upcoming deadline: 18 June 2026

Funding period

Flexible, up to 3 years

Funding amount

Flexible, up to £500k

Who is eligible?

Our core eligibility criteria are outlined below. We strongly encourage you to contact us for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal prior to submitting your full application. We will advise you on your eligibility and provide guidance on submitting your application.

Note that if you are applying for funding for an interventional trial, this scheme operates a closed round to ensure only eligible applications are submitted. If applicable, you must first submit an expression of interest.

Email pprc@cancer.org.uk

The applicant

You can apply for our Prevention and Population Project Award if you’re a scientist, clinician or healthcare worker who:

is based at a UK university, medical school, hospital or research institute (including our Institutes)

has some postdoctoral experience or equivalent

in most cases, is fully funded by the host institution for the duration of the award

Career stage

We welcome researchers from all career stages to apply. We would strongly recommend that applications with an early-career researcher as lead or joint lead applicant include at least one established researcher as co-applicant for mentorship.

We outline how we define career stages in our competency framework.

Read the framework

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

Your host institution must approve your application before the submission deadline. 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.

You will need to distinguish your core funded research from the research in your proposal and demonstrate your ability to manage both programmes of work. If this applies to you, you must contact us before submitting your application.

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 inform us and disclose this under the 'Other Funding' section of your application.

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 Prevention and Population Project Award provides support for focused research proposals centred on key questions in primary prevention and population research.

We will fund several research areas so long as your application considers a line-of-sight 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

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

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

Applying for endorsements

If you are conducting academically sponsored studies that receive educational grants and/or free drugs from the pharmaceutical industry and align with our prevention and population research strategy, you may apply for our endorsement. Before you begin your application, please submit an expression of interest form so we can confirm that your proposal is within remit.

Industry-sponsored trials cannot be reviewed under this scheme.

Submit your expression of interest (DOCX, 91 KB)

What isn't suitable for this scheme?

We don’t provide infrastructure support to our clinical trials units or centres through this scheme. 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 the Prevention and Population Research Committee, assisted by our Expert Review Panels and Patient and Public Review Panel.

The standard review process (non-interventional trials) involves the following steps:

After contacting us for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal, you can start your application on our online grants management system, Flexi-Grant.

Your application will be peer-reviewed by the Expert Review Panel. You will have the opportunity to provide a written response to their comments ahead of the panel meeting. The panel will consider your application alongside their comments and your response to the comments before making a recommendation.

Your application will also be reviewed by our Patient and Public Review Panel 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.

Recommendations from both panels will be considered by the Prevention and Population Research Committee who make final funding decisions.

Learn more about how we make funding decisions

Interventional trial review process Expression of interest

For interventional trials only, you must first submit an expression of interest. This will be reviewed in line with our eligibility criteria to determine whether you'll be invited to submit an application via Flexi-Grant.

There is typically an outline and full stage, however, you may be instructed to submit just a full application depending on your proposal.

Outline applications

You may not