GOSH Charity National Paediatric Cancer Clinical Trial Fund

The National Paediatric Cancer Clinical Trial Fund will be open for applications until 11 September 2025. Applications should be submitted through GOSH Charity's  application portal.

Before applying, you must contact your research office and the GOSH Charity Grant Funding Team (grants@gosh.org) to register your interest and receive advice.

GOSH Charity will be hosting a webinar to give candidates further information on the call from 1-2pm on 23 June 2025.

We are inviting applications for:

• Early phase clinical trials that are testing the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and preliminary efficacy of new treatments. This includes a standalone paediatric clinical trial, a paediatric arm to be added to an existing adult trial, and a UK paediatric arm to be added to an existing paediatric platform study.
• Translational work packages that will accelerate existing early phase paediatric clinical trials to move through the research pathway.

The scheme is designed to support research that has the potential for significant impact on the lives of children and young people with the hardest to treat cancers.

This is a national funding call that is open to independent researchers based anywhere in the UK.

To apply as a Principal Investigator for this scheme, you must hold a relevant academic or clinical position and be affiliated with a recognized UK university, research institute or NHS trust.

We encourage applicant teams to include at least one junior co-investigator and welcome collaborators across the UK and internationally.

Applications must be discussed with relevant research groups, such as the UK Collaborative for Cancer Clinical Research (UKCCCR) and Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC) Paediatric Network, for support and endorsement, and we recommend discussion with a UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) registered clinical trial unit or relevant sponsor.

GOSH Charity has made a total of £6 million available for the National Paediatric Cancer Clinical Trial Fund.

From this, we expect to award around 2-3 applications per round, with an expected value of £1-2.5 million. Please note that this is a guide and there is no maximum limit for proposals.

Funding will cover direct research costs associated with the research proposal, please see our scheme guidance document above for details.

Applications will be received and managed by GOSH Charity and considered by the GOSH Charity Cancer Assessment Panel, with input from people with lived experience and external experts at the full application stage.

Applications for this scheme will be in two stages: outline and full. Applicants will be informed of the outcome of their outline application by the end of October 2025. The full application form will then be open until January 2026, with final funding decisions expected in June 2026.

As funders, we have signed a cross-funder statement coordinated by the Academy of Medical Sciences, on the COVID-19 institutional memory: how we as funders will look to fairly remember and recognise the impacts of COVID-19 on grant applicants' work in the future.

As part of this statement, we would like to reassure our research community that we are aware of the immediate and long-term impacts of COVID-19 on research activities. Any disruptions to research activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be taken into consideration by our panels and committees when assessing an individual applicant’s record of outputs, research achievements, and career progression in future grant rounds. Read the Covid-19 Statement here.

If you would like to know more about the National Paediatric Cancer Clinical Trial Fund or have any questions, please do not hesitate to email the GOSH Charity Grants team at grants@gosh.org.