Translational funding for projects covering any aspect of technology development from a range of disciplines – including physical, computational and life sciences. Projects must address an unmet need in healthcare/applied medical research, offer a potential new solution, and have a realistic expectation of further development by the market.

The Wellcome Trust Translation Fund

Projects must address an unmet need in healthcare and offer a potential new solution. Projects must plan to take the innovation to a stage at which it is sufficiently developed to be attractive to another party, such as not for profit organisations and commercial organisations (e.g. venture capital funds, pharma, biotech).

The aim of Translation Awards is to develop innovative and ground-breaking new technologies in the biomedical area. Projects must have already demonstrated proof of principle, supported by experimental data. Proposals are welcome from academic and commercial organisations based in the UK and overseas. To encourage more applications in underserved and challenging areas, the fund will have strategic highlight areas, currently (mid 2014) “Restoring the Body". Ground-breaking proposals in novel biomedicine are invited, proposals that seek to restore function to the body and enable people to lead full and independent lives. However, projects covering any aspect of technology development from a range of disciplines - including physical, computational and life sciences - will be considered at any time. The Trust will normally actively participate in the stewardship of the project and lead on intellectual property management and exploitation.

Prospective applicants should complete a concept note and send it to Innovations innovations@wellcome.ac.uk where it will be considered internally. If a decision is made to invite a preliminary application the applicant(s) will be sent a link to the form on e-grants.
Preliminary applications will be reviewed and shortlisted by the Translation Fund Committee.
Following triage shortlisted applicants will be invited to submit a full application and will be subject to international peer review and due diligence by members of our Technology Transfer Advisory Group (TTAG). Applicants will be expected to make a presentation on their proposal to the TFC. Unless otherwise advised, this will be at the next scheduled meeting of the TFC.
Proposals are taken forward by invitation only. Uninvited applications will not be considered.

The Wellcome Trust website has more detail, see “Application Process” and “Forms and Guidance” tabs for further information.