Funding

MRC strategic GCRF awards

Visit our application deadlines page to find out about the latest GCRF opportunities.

GCRF Foundation Awards

Infections: £11 million, 21 awards

Non-communicable diseases: £11 million, 20 awards

The 2016 Foundation Awards were flexible, moderately sized, short to medium-term investments targeting research questions of relevance to existing or future LMIC health needs.

This included:

early-phase discovery and translation research
extension of existing research to global settings
population studies, sample/data collection
novel research tools and techniques
development of collaborations, partnerships and teams.

The scheme enabled researchers to lay the foundations for future large-scale funding applications that would ensure the sustainability of the project outputs.

Grant reference	Grant holder	Research organisation	Project title
MR/P023754/1	Paul Elkington	University of Southampton	Bioengineering to combat the tuberculosis pandemic
MR/P023843/1	David Mabey	London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine	Studies towards infectious disease elimination on the Bijagos Archipelago of Guinea Bissau
MR/P024084/1	Michael Begon	University of Liverpool	Optimal control strategies for rodent-borne zoonoses in Brazilian slum settlements
MR/P024270/1	Beate Kampmann	MRC Unit, The Gambia	Evaluating novel diagnostics and enabling preventive measures for childhood tuberculosis between the UK and partners in Sub-Saharan Africa
MR/P024335/1	Bethan Purse	NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology	Optimising forest benefits whilst minimising impacts of emerging zoonotic diseases: co-developing an interdisciplinary tool for forests in India
MR/P024378/1	Rachel McKendry	University College London	m-Africa: Building mobile phone-connected diagnostics and online care pathways to support HIV prevention and management in decentralised settings.
MR/P024416/1	Julian Griffin	University of Cambridge	Identification of specific metabolites in mycolactone producing mycobacteria and Buruli ulcer infection: diagnostic biomarkers through metabolomic
MR/P024483/1	Jeremy Mottram	University of York	Assessing treatment with miltefosine as an intervention strategy for visceral leishmaniasis in Brazil
MR/P024548/1	Adrian Martineau	Queen Mary, University of London	Evaluation of a novel microbiological diagnostic test for latent tuberculosis infection in Ethiopia (Micro-LTBI)
MR/P024661/1	Paul Kaye	University of York	Towards a global research network for the molecular pathological stratification of leishmaniasis.
MR/P024920/1	James Wright	University of Southampton	Drinking-water under a "One Health" lens: quantifying microbial contamination pathways between livestock and drinking-water
MR/P025064/1	Graham Cooke	Imperial College London	SEARCH: SouthEast Asian Research Collaborative in Hepatitis
MR/P02520X/1	Martin James Donnelly	Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	Using spatial statistics and genomics to develop epidemiologically relevant definitions of insecticide resistance in African Malaria Vectors
MR/P025226/1	James Wood	University of Cambridge	The Dynamics of Filovirus Infection in bats in Ghana
MR/P025285/1	Lisa Reimer	Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	A vector excreta surveillance system (VESS) to support the rapid detection of vector-borne diseases
MR/P025307/1	Benjamin Makepeace	University of Liverpool	Rapid diagnosis of onchocerciasis using urinary biomarkers
MR/P025404/1	Gabriella Gibson	University of Greenwich	Human Decoy Trap; operational and social acceptability of novel tool to improve surveillance and control of mosquitoes and other disease vectors
MR/P025447/1	Poppy Lamberton	University of Glasgow	Cultural, social and economic influences on ongoing Schistosoma mansoni transmission, despite a decade of mass treatment, and the potential for change
MR/P025471/1	Rupert Quinnell	University of Leeds	Developing a strategy for cysticercosis control in Rwanda, to reduce the burden of epilepsy
MR/P025501/1	Heather Ferguson	University of Glasgow	Development of a new tool for malaria mosquito surveillance to improve vector control
MR/P02551X/1	Javier Guitian	Royal Veterinary College	A one health approach to the investigation and control of MERS-CoV among camel and human populations in Jordan as a potential model for the region

GCRF Non-Communicable Diseases

Grant reference	Grant holder	Research organisation	Project title
MR/P022006/1	Kevin Mortimer	Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	Lung health in Africa across the life course
MR/P023851/1	Amelia Crampin	London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine	Understanding non-communicable diseases (NCD) and the role of infection in Africa: building a partnership to generate big data
MR/P02386X/1	Neil Pearce	London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine	Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown cause (CKDu) in disadvantaged communities in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs)
MR/P023894/1	Bhismadev Chakrabarti	University of Reading	Development & validation of a scalable mobile platform for screening of developmental neuropsychiatric disorders in low-resource settings
MR/P024033/1	Paul Kelly	Queen Mary, University of London	Novel therapeutic approaches to malnutrition enteropathy
MR/P024114/1	Monica Lakhanpaul	University College London	Integrated Health, education and environmental (HEE) intervention to optimise infant feeding practices through schools and Anganwadi networks in India
MR/P024297/1	Moin Saleem	University of Bristol	Trans-national cohorts of nephrotic syndrome - a unified approach to a global chronic disease
MR/P024351/1	Christian Ottensmeier	University of Southampton	MICA: Immunotherapy for oral cancer prevention and treatment
MR/P024408/1	James Woodcock	University of Cambridge	Towards an Integrated Global Transport and Health Assessment Tool (TIGTHAT)
MR/P024513/1	David Lalloo	Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	Health in a changing climate: the dynamic challenge of snake bite in South Asia
MR/P024696/1	Kim Graham	Cardiff University	Developing low-cost cognitive tools for dementia assessment in low-to-middle income countries (LMICs)
MR/P024718/1	Helen Elsey	University of Leeds	Surveys for Urban Equity: getting, and using, the data needed to respond to neglected non-communicable diseases in urban areas in LMICs
MR/P025080/1	Zhengming Chen	University of Oxford	Assessing health risks associated with exposure to household and ambient air pollution in rural and urban China
MR/P025102/1	Gene Feder	University of Bristol	Improving the primary health care response to violence against women in low and middle income countries
MR/P025153/1	Michelle Holdsworth	University of Sheffield	Dietary transitions in African cities: leveraging evidence for interventions and policy to prevent diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs)
MR/P025188/1	Sarah Hawkes	University College London	Analysing the policy and governance environment for NCD control, and identifying potential policy options.
MR/P025250/1	Nigel Unwin	University of Cambridge	Developing theory and methods for evaluating the impact of community food initiatives on NCD risk, social and economic wellbeing and the environment.
MR/P025420/1	Richard Sullivan	King's College London	Comparison of traditional vs. virtual simulation-enhanced training for scaling the cervical cancer surgery workforce in Zambia
MR/P025463/1	Bernard Keavney	The University of Manchester	A North-South Partnership in Congenital Heart Disease (CHD)
MR/P02548X/1	Melanie Davies	University of Leicester	EXTending availability of self-management structured EducatioN programmes for people with type 2 Diabetes in low-to-middle income countries (EXTEND)

GCRF Call in Networks for Vaccine R&D

£5 million, five awards

With co-funding from BBSRC, the aim was to support a small number of multidisciplinary networks, foster collaboration, facilitate wider cross-disciplinary integrative participation (including biological, medical, engineering and physical sciences, environmental and social science research (where appropriate)) and build capability which together contributed to and underpinned the development of novel approaches in vaccines R&D.

Grant reference	Grant holder	Research organisation	Project title
MR/R005850/1	Helen McShane	University of Oxford	VAccine deveLopment for complex Intracellular neglecteD pAThogEns (VALIDATE)
MR/R005958/1	Tim Connelley	University of Edinburgh	International Veterinary Vaccinology Network
MR/R005974/1	Calman MacLennan	University of Birmingham	BactiVac
MR/R005982/1	Peter Openshaw	Imperial College London	Human infection challenge vaccine (HIC-vac) network
MR/R005990/1	Beate Kampmann	Imperial College London	IMPRINT: IMmunising PRegnant women and INfants neTwork

MRC-AHRC Global Public Health

£2 million, 14 awards

The aim of this activity was to build interdisciplinary research capability and to support research innovation across the MRC and AHRC communities, building and strengthening UK and international research collaboration and partnerships for global public health benefit.

Grant reference	Grant holder	Research organisation	Project title
MR/R024448/1	Cindy M Gray	University of Glasgow	Culture and bodies: an interdisciplinary approach to non-communicable disease prevention in Malawi and Tanzania
MR/R024278/1	Marie Claire Van Hout	Liverpool John Moores University	Promoting sexual health and accessible HIV Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support services for women prisoners in Zimbabwe and Malawi.
MR/R024286/1	Jenevieve Mannell	University College London	Exploring Narrative Storytelling as Mental Health Support for Women Experiencing Gender-based Violence in High Prevalence Settings
MR/R024324/1	Cornelia Guell	University of Exeter	Historical and epidemiological transitions in urban Caribbean foodscapes: understanding the past to enhance future healthy eating
MR/R024405/1	DK Arvind	University of Edinburgh	Public Health Initiative on LMIC Air Pollution (PHILAP)
MR/R024480/1	Nervo Xavier Verdezoto Dias	University of Leicester	Healthy Crossroads in Pregnancy Care (HCPC) - A Scoping and Participatory Design Study of the Potential for ICTs to Improve Maternal Health in India
MR/R024502/1	Shane Declan Doyle	University of Leeds	Maternal Mortality in East Africa
MR/R024510/1	Andrew Shennan	King's College London	The HAPPEE Partnership Project (Humanities and Arts in Preventing Pre-eclampsia complications through community Engagement and Education)
MR/R024553/1	Evelyn Lynne Lohfeld-Uzunoz	Queen's University of Belfast	Documenting how the arts and storytelling can save lives: The Viet Nam Breast Cancer project
MR/R024596/1	Alan Robert Smyth	University of Nottingham	Women's empowerment and child health: exploring the impact of Rojiroti Microfinance in poor communities in Bihar, Northern India
MR/R024618/1	Lauren Marion Stewart	Goldsmiths College	Developing a Community Singing-Based Intervention for Perinatal Mental Health in The Gambia
MR/R024693/1	Merlin Willcox	University of Southampton	Family Planning: Fact or Fiction?
MR/R024723/1	Sally Haw	University of Stirling	Right to Health in Prison
MR/R024731/1	Edward Duncan	University of Stirling	The RTrT Partnership: Reducing Traffic-related TraumA - A community-based prevention and first-response programme intervention for Malawi and beyond.

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Confidence in Global Mental Health Research

£2 million, 10 awards

The purpose of this call was to provide institutional “pump-priming” funds that would lay the grounds for future large scale, multidisciplinary, cross-country global mental health research bids to address issues of primary relevance to LMIC.

Grant reference	Grant holder	Research organisation	Project title
MR/R019541/1	Alison Murray	University of Aberdeen	Early-life origins of brain resilience to mental illness and cognitive impairment across the life-course
MR/R018448/1	Athula Sumathipala	Keele University	Establishing a child and adolescent twin register for research and capacity building on the aetiology of mental illness in Sri Lanka and other LMIC
MR/R018529/1	Mark Johnson	Birkbeck College	MICA: BRAINTOOLS Phase 1: Optimising neurodevelopmental outcomes for global health
MR/R018677/1	Glyn Lewis	University College London	Community violence and adolescent mental health in Brazil
MR/R01910X/1	Andrew McIntosh	University of Edinburgh	A Network for Studying Psychological Resilience in Low and Middle-Income Countries (NESP)
MR/R019460/1	Helen Fisher	King's College London	Identifying Depression Early in Adolescence (IDEA) King's-Brazil-Nepal-Nigeria network
MR/R019606/1	Charles Richard Newton	University of Oxford	The influence of Executive Function on Mental Health in vulnerable adolescents: a multi-site low and middle income country approach
MR/R019622/1	Marcus Munafo	University of Bristol	Confidence in Global Mental Health Research
MR/R019797/1	Pui-Ying Iroh Tam	Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	Neurodevelopmental disorders in LMIC settings - creation of a network and analysis of diagnostic abilities of tools to identify children early.
MR/R019991/1	Jonathan Burns	University of Exeter	GCRF: Trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences Springboard (TrACES)

MRC Confidence in Global Nutrition and Health Research

£2 million, 11 awards

The purpose of this call was to provide institutional “pump-priming” funds to lay the grounds for future large scale, multidisciplinary, cross-country global nutrition and health research bids addressing issues of primary relevance to LMIC.

Grant reference	Grant holder	Research organisation	Project title
MR/R018545/1	Caroline Fall	MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit	Collaborative network for adolescent nutrition and health in sub-Saharan Africa and India
MR/R019118/1	John McLaughlin	The University of Manchester	ManGO: Manchester Global Omics Initiative for Nutritional Health
MR/R019177/1	Sophie Moore	King's College London	Creating an open access knowledge hub of nutritional biomarkers for use in global health settings
MR/R019258/1	Gary Frost	Imperial College London	The Role of Nutrients, Gut Dysfunction and the Gut Microbiome in Determining Health Outcomes in Undernutrition
MR/R019428/1	Jason Gill	University of Glasgow	Development of nutritional strategies for diabetes prevention in Malawian adults at high diabetes risk
MR/R019436/1	Andrew Prendergast	Queen Mary University of London	Interdisciplinary interventions for stunting and wasting in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Pakistan
MR/R019576/1	Paul Finglas	Quadram Institute Bioscience	Capacity building in dietary monitoring and public health nutrition in the Eastern Mediterranean Region Countries
MR/R019657/1	Paula Griffiths	Loughborough University	UK-Africa network to improve the nutrition of infants and young children living in poverty (NINO LIP) in urbanising sub-Saharan African countries
MR/R019789/1	Stephen Allen	Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	Improving the survival, growth and developmental of low birth weight newborns through better nutrition
MR/R020183/1	Andrew Prentice	MRC Unit, The Gambia	Creating a West African BioResource for Nutritional Genetics and Epigenetics
MR/R020221/1	Angus Hunter	University of Stirling	Protein deficiency, sarcopenia and cardiometabolic risk in older urban black Cape Town populations: feasibility studies

AMR in a Global Context (PDF, 148KB)

Development awards

£796,000, 10 awards

Consortia awards

£12 million, four awards

This call, which the MRC administered on behalf of the partnership, had two stages, an obligatory developmental phase to provide seed funding followed by a consortia phase.

The call aimed to support three to four interdisciplinary research consortia taking a whole systems approach to identify the burden and primary drivers of AMR and specifically antibacterial resistance (ABR) in low and middle income countries (LMIC).

Grant reference	Grant holder	Research organisation	Project title
MR/R014876/1	Alistair Boxall	University of York	DRIVERS OF HUMAN EXPOSURE TO ANTIBACTERIAL RESISTANCE IN THE SRI LANKAN ENVIRONMENT
MR/R014914/1	Richard Sullivan	King's College London	"Iraqibacter": Exploring the Links Between War and Antimicrobial Resistance
MR/R014922/1	Matthew Beardsall Avison	University of Bristol	One Health Drivers of Antibacterial Resistance in Thailand
MR/R015031/1	Mathew Holden	University of St Andrews	Holistic Approach Towards Unravelling Antibiotic Resistance in East Africa
MR/R015058/1	Christopher Quince	University of Warwick	Novel inter-disciplinary approaches for identifying and tackling the spread of AntiMicrobial Resistance through Environmental pathways in PAKistan
MR/R015066/1	Ruth Nicolet Zadoks	University of Glasgow	Supporting the National Action Plan on AMR in Tanzania (SNAP-AMR)
MR/R015074/1	Nicholas Alexander Feasey	Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	How do human and bacterial behaviour interact in urban and rural African environments to facilitate the stable acquisition of antimicrobial resistance
MR/R015090/1	Eric Maurice Fevre	University of Liverpool	Partnership for a cross-disciplinary approach to the ecology of antimicrobial drug resistance in Kenya
MR/R015104/1	Javier Guitian	Royal Veterinary College	Towards controlling antimicrobial resistance in global aquatic animal food systems by enhancing collective resilience (AMFORA)
MR/R015147/1	John Walley	University of Leeds	Containing antimicrobial resistance in rural Cambodia: a one-health multi-disciplinary intervention to improve village healthcare and farming practice
MR/S004815/1	Ruth Nicolet Zadoks	University of Glasgow	Supporting the National Action Plan for Antimicrobial Resistance (SNAP-AMR) in Tanzania
MR/S004769/1	Matthew Beardsall Avison	University of Bristol	One Health Drivers of Antibacterial Resistance in Thailand
MR/S004785/1	Matthew Holden	University of St Andrews	Holistic Approach To Unravel Antibacterial resistance in East Africa (HATUA)
MR/S004793/1	Nicholas Alexander Feasey	Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	Drivers of Resistance in Uganda and Malawi: The DRUM Consortium

GCRF Antimicrobial Target Discovery and Validation

£4 million, three awards

To complement the wide range of research supported by the MRC, including through the Cross-Council AMR Initiative, and build on the UK’s excellent discovery bacteriology research. Supported multidisciplinary networks/collaborations to develop innovative approaches to accelerate the antimicrobial pipeline, with a focus on LMIC.

Grant reference	Grant holder	Research organisation	Project title
MR/S00467X/1	Giancarlo Augusto Biagini	Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine	MICA: New combination therapy against MDR TB targeting the respiratory chain
MR/S004394/1	Jeremy Stuart Brown	University College London	Adjunct antibody therapy for severe antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infections
MR/S004688/1	Peter Monk	University of Sheffield	Adhesion to host cell membrane microdomains in cornea as an antimicrobial target to prevent corneal ulceration

Cancer research and global health initiative

£1.9 million, 11 awards

The purpose of this call was to provide “pump-priming” funds to undertake projects to generate preliminary data and establish, expand and consolidate UK-LMIC partnerships.

Applications had to be led by principal investigators based in UK institutions, with at least one LMIC-based researcher named as co-investigator.

Successful partnerships would define research questions in a field or interrelated fields, assess the viability of proposed approaches relevant to the local socioeconomic and cultural context, gather preliminary findings, and develop and test the feasibility of sustainable UK-LMIC research partnerships.

Grant reference	Grant holder	Research organisation	Project title
MR/S014268/1	Elinor Sawyer	King's College London	Molecular Genetics of Lobular Breast Cancer in a South African cohort and effect of HIV infection.
MR/S014527/1	Ewen M Harrison	University of Edinburgh	Feasibility of a cluster randomised trial of a nutritional intervention to improve outcomes after cancer surgery in low-income countries
MR/S013865/1	Sarah Barman	Kingston University	Classification of oral lesions using deep learning for early detection of oral cancer
MR/S01411X/1	Robert Michael Ewing	University of Southampton	Towards new therapeutic strategies: Zika-driven oncolysis of brain tumor cells
MR/S014349/1	Michael Donnelly	Queen's University of Belfast	A study of the implementation of population-based bowel cancer screening in Malaysia
MR/S014438/1	Arnie David Purushotham	King's College London	A pilot study to develop an efficacious oral cancer screening strategy for India
MR/S014535/1	Matthew Allsop	University of Leeds	Understanding data and information needs for palliative cancer care to target mobile phone-based intervention development in Uganda and Zimbabwe
MR/S014551/1	Ling Yang	University of Oxford	Developing a multiplex serology panel to detect and quantify Epstein-Barr virus infection
MR/S01473X/1	David James Adams	Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute	Identifying the drivers and vulnerabilities of acral lentiginous melanoma through the study of PDX models from Latin American patients
MR/S014985/1	Julian Peto	London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine	Preventing cervical cancer in older Vietnamese women
MR/S015027/1	Jonine Figueroa	University of Edinburgh	Improving earlier diagnosis and precision medicine for reduced mortality of breast cancer in Kenya

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