GOSH Charity National Research Programme Grants

The National Research Programme Grants will be open for applications until 3pm on Thursday 26th March 2026. Applications should be submitted through GOSH Charity’s application portal.

A guidance webinar for applicants will be held on Wednesday 10 December 2025 to give candidates further information on the call. If you’d like to attend, please sign up. The webinar will be recorded and made available to any applicants unable to attend.

We are inviting applications for ambitious, long-term research programmes that will generate a significant shift in progress or understanding within an area of rare or complex paediatric disease. This scheme will support research across the spectrum of medical conditions affecting the foetus, neonates and children directly, as well as pregnancy disorders that directly affect the child.

Programmes should focus on improving understanding of the disease or associated conditions, or improving the prevention, diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment of the disease. Each programme should be composed of multiple interrelated and complementary work packages within an overarching research theme. These work packages must be scientifically connected and designed to inform and strengthen one another.

Single large-scale projects, clinical trials and programmes consisting entirely of sequential work packages are not eligible for funding through this scheme.

To apply as a Principal Investigator for these grants, you must be an independent researcher based at a UK Higher Education Institution, an expert in your field, and have proven leadership ability. Your salary must be covered through to the end of the grant period, or a supporting letter must be provided by your organisation guaranteeing your continued employment throughout the duration of the grant.

Co-applicants and collaborators may be at any career stage and affiliated with any organisation. We encourage applicant teams to include at least one Early Career Researcher as a named co-applicant, and to demonstrate collaboration across organisations and scientific disciplines.

Up to £10m is available for this scheme in 2026. From this, we expect to award 4-5 Programme Grants with a minimum value of £500k each. There is no maximum grant value, however if you'd like to apply for a grant costing more than £2.5m we ask you to contact the grants team to discuss your application finances.

Funding will cover the direct costs of research associated with your research programme, including staff salaries, PhD stipends, consumables and animal costs. If you have questions about the eligibility of a proposed cost please email the grants team.

Programmes should be for a duration of up to five years.

Applications for this scheme will be in two stages: outline and full. Shortlisting and final funding decisions are made by the GOSH Charity Research Assessment Panel, with input from a lay panel and external experts at the full application stage. Final funding decisions will be made in November 2026.

GOSH Charity is keen to explore partnership opportunities with other organisations for our National Research Programme Grants Scheme, to co-fund successful programmes that will transform the lives of seriously ill children. With £10 million already committed, collaboration offers the opportunity to increase the number and scale of awards and drive major advances in rare and complex paediatric disease. We welcome partners with diverse research interests and offer flexible collaboration models and shared communications. Together, we can accelerate discoveries and improve outcomes for seriously ill children.

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.

If you would like to know more about the funding call, or have any questions not covered in the scheme guidance document, please do not hesitate to email the GOSH Charity Grants team.