Pathfinder Awards (Closed)

Scheme at a glance

This scheme is now closed

Funding amount:: £100,000, but can be up to £350,000 in exceptional circumstances

Who can apply

Pathfinder Awards fund:

discrete projects from applicants in the UK and Republic of Ireland
partnerships between academia and industry based anywhere in the world.

The concept you are testing must be at an early stage, with a strong and defined project focus.

At the end of a Pathfinder Award:

your innovation should be a credible asset that’s ready for further development
you should be ready to apply for more innovations funding or have a downstream partner to assist with product development.

All not-for-profit research organisations are eligible. These organisations must sign up to our grant conditions.
Commercial organisations can apply either as lead applicants or as collaborators.
We encourage partnership applications. Partnerships must include an academic or not-for-profit organisation (as lead) and a commercial partner.

Even though the academic or not-for-profit organisation will be the lead, the commercial partner will usually be the partner that receives the funds.

If you’re in a partnership, you can apply from anywhere in the world. If you’re not in a partnership, you must be based in the UK or Republic of Ireland.

Partnership projects could:
- cover an aspect of product development related to any disease
- involve an established company that’s developed a product and taken it to market before
- help the lead organisation access specialist knowledge and/or technologies that could improve their product.
After funding, a downstream development partner should be able to realise a public benefit. The development partner can be the company itself or a third party. Partnerships must show that they can support the research to this point.

Who can't apply

You are not eligible for a Pathfinder Award if your project involves:

target validation
‘blue skies’ or curiosity-driven research
late-stage programmes, where commercial or venture funding could complete the pathway to market
late-stage programmes that could be considered under our other funding schemes
programmes that are already fully funded
a pipeline or undefined future scope of work
companies that aren’t yet established and/or without working capital.

What we're looking for

We encourage applications that focus on:

discrete experiments to show proof-of-concept data assay or development
a critical experiment to validate intellectual property (in strong cases)
product development that benefits people with orphan and neglected diseases.

Pathfinder Awards can last up to 18 months. The award amount is usually about £100,000 but can be up to £350,000 in exceptional circumstances.

For partnership applications, the Wellcome Trust will contribute up to £100,000. You must show evidence of matched funding from your company partner, in cash or in kind. The commercial partner will usually be the partner that receives the funds.

Pathfinder Award costs can include:

- Staff salaries should be appropriate to skills, responsibilities and expertise. You should ask your host organisation to use their salary scales to calculate these costs, which should include:
  
  basic salary
  employer’s contributions, including any statutory obligations (eg National Insurance contributions if you’re based in the UK) and pension scheme costs
  Apprentice Levy charges for UK-based salaries
  any incremental progression up the salary scale
  locally recognised allowances such as London allowance.
  
  You should allow for salary pay awards during Year 1. These should be based on pay awards already agreed: if you don’t know what the pay award is yet then use our inflation rate.
  
  From Year 2 onwards, you should use your organisation’s current pay rates. We’ll provide a separate inflation allowance for salary inflation costs.
  
  Find out more about people working on a Wellcome grant.
  
  We may make a contribution towards the salary of departmental technicians funded by Research England and its equivalents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. You will need to provide a full audit record of their time on your project.
- We will pay for the materials and consumables you need to carry out your proposed research, including:
  
  laboratory chemicals and materials (eg reagents, isotopes, peptides, enzymes, antibodies, gases, proteins, cell/tissue/bacterial culture, plasticware and glassware)
  associated charges for shipping, delivery and freight
  project-specific personal protective equipment (PPE) that is above the standard expected for the setting.
- You can ask for funds to buy animals if they are essential to your project. We will also fund the charge-out rates for animal house facilities if your organisation uses full economic costing methodology. These costs include:
  
  running costs (including animal maintenance, any experimental procedures, licences and relevant staff training)
  appropriate estates costs
  cage and equipment depreciation costs, but not building depreciation costs.
  
  We may not pay the full charge-out rate for an animal house facility if we've provided significant funding towards the infrastructure and/or core support of the facility.
  
  If your organisation doesn’t use full economic costing methodology to establish charge-out rates for animal house facilities, you can ask for funds to cover:
  
  the cost of buying animals
  running costs (including animal maintenance, any experimental procedures, licences and relevant staff training)
  staff costs, eg contributions towards the salaries of animal house technicians.
  
  We won’t provide estates or depreciation costs.
- Equipment purchase
  
  You can ask for smaller items of equipment that are essential to your proposed project. Costs may include purchase, delivery, installation, maintenance and training, where necessary.
  
  If you want to request larger items, please contact us before applying.
  
  We will cover VAT and import duties if:
  
  the usual UK exemptions on equipment used for medical research don’t apply
  you’re applying from a non-UK organisation, and you can show these costs can’t be recovered.
  
  Equipment maintenance
  
  We will cover maintenance costs for equipment if:
  
  you are requesting it in your application
  it is existing equipment that is:
  funded by us or another source
  essential to the proposed research project
  more than five years old
  cost effective to keep maintaining it.
  
  We won’t cover maintenance costs for equipment if there is a mechanism in place to recoup these costs through access charges.
  
  Computer equipment
  
  We will cover the cost of one personal computer or laptop per person up to £1,500.
  
  We won't pay for:
  
  more expensive items, unless you can justify them
  installation or training costs.
- You can ask for the cost of access to shared equipment or facilities if they’re essential to your research project. These may include materials and consumables, plus a proportion of:
  
  maintenance and service contracts
  staff time costs for dedicated technical staff employed to operate the equipment or facility.
  
  We don’t cover the costs of:
  
  estates and utilities
  depreciation or insurance
  other staff eg contributions towards departmental technical, administrative and management staff time.
  
  If the facilities or equipment were paid for by a Wellcome grant, you can only ask for access charges if:
  
  the grant has ended
  any support for running costs and maintenance contracts has ended.
- We've changed our overheads policy for grant applications submitted from 1 October 2019. Read our updated policy and the 'How to ask for these costs' section below.
  
  How to ask for these costs
  
  This process applies if you’re now eligible to ask for overhead costs.
  
  In your application you must:
  
  give a full breakdown of costs (you can't ask for a percentage of the research costs)
  explain why these costs are necessary for your research
  include a letter from the finance director of your host organisation, confirming that the breakdown is a true representation of the costs incurred.
  
  Our previous policy
  
  This information applies to grant applications submitted up to 30 September 2019.
  
  We cover research management and support costs if:
  
  your host organisation is in a low- or middle-income country and your grant will be directly awarded to that organisation,
  
  or
  
  part of your grant will be sub-contracted to an organisation in a low- or middle-income country.
  
  We don't cover these costs if your host organisation will include the sub-contracted funding in its annual report to the UK Charity Research Support Fund.
  
  They can include:
  
  training costs, eg transferable skills and personal development training for you and any other people employed on your grant
  costs for short-term professional training for administrative, technical and support staff
  administration, eg grant management, technical and administrative services
  other costs which are necessary for your research, eg computing and internet access costs, access to electronic resources, facility and running costs such as utilities, furniture, waste disposal and incineration, and building maintenance.
  
  The total research management and support costs should not be more than 20% of the direct research costs you're requesting.
  
  See a list of low- and middle-income countries.
- You can ask for these costs if you are applying from a university, a not-for-profit organisation or a small company.
  
  Travel costs
  
  Conference attendance
  
  You can ask for a contribution towards the costs of attending scientific and academic meetings and conferences, including registration fees and the costs to offset the carbon emissions of your travel. The limits are:
  
  Lead applicant – £2,000 a year
  Applicants who are asking for a salary on the grant – £2,000 a year
  Staff employed on your grant – £1,000 each a year
  
  You’ll need to specify the amount you’re requesting for each person.
  
  You can also ask for costs to cover caring responsibilities if any staff employed on your grant attend a conference. This includes childcare and any other caring responsibility they have, provided:
  
  Wellcome is paying their salary
  the conference is directly related to the research
  the caring costs are over and above what they'd normally pay for care
  the conference organiser and their employing organisation are unable to cover the costs.
  
  You can ask for up to £1,000 per person for each conference.
  
  Collaborative travel
  
  You can ask for travel and subsistence costs for collaborative visits for you and any staff employed on your grant. You’ll need to justify each visit and its duration.
  
  Other travel
  
  We will pay for other essential visits, eg to facilities, for sample collection and for fieldwork. You can include subsistence costs.
  
  Carbon offset costs
  
  This is a new policy. It applies to all types of travel costs Wellcome provides.
  
  You can ask for:
  
  the cost of low carbon travel where practical, even if it's more expensive (for example travelling by train instead of flying)
  project-related resources or activities that provide an alternative to travel, such as video conferencing, communication and file-sharing software
  costs to offset the carbon emissions of the journeys you make.
  
  We won't pay for the core infrastructure that your host organisation should provide, unless you're eligible to ask for these costs under our overheads policy. Examples of these costs include:
  
  organisation-wide video conferencing packages
  high-speed broadband
  HD screens.
  
  See our carbon offset policy for travel for information on what you and your organisation need to do.
  
  Subsistence costs
  
  If you’re away for up to one month you can ask for subsistence costs. These include accommodation, meals and incidentals (eg refreshments or newspapers).
  
  If your administering organisation has a subsistence policy, use their rates.
  
  If your administering organisation doesn’t have a subsistence policy, please use the HMRC rates.
  
  If you’re away for more than one month and up to 12 months, we will pay reasonable rental costs only, including aparthotels. You should discuss appropriate rates with your administering and host organisations, or Wellcome, as appropriate. We expect you to choose the most economical options, booked in advance where possible.
  
  If you’re from a low- or middle- income country and will be working in a high-income country for more than one month and up to 12 months, you can also ask for up to £10 a day to cover extra costs, such as transport and incidentals.
  
  If you’re away for more than 12 months, we will pay the costs of your housing. You should discuss your needs with your administering and host organisations.
  
  The allowance we provide will be based on family and business need. We will set the maximum allowance we pay for each location. This will be based on current market data or, where data is unavailable, in consultation with your administering organisation, using equivalent market rates. Please contact us if you need help calculating the costs.
  
  We will cover the direct expenses you have to pay to find and rent a home. We will not cover the cost of utilities or any refurbishment.
  
  Overseas research
  
  If you or any research staff employed on your grant will be doing research away from your home laboratory, we'll help with the additional costs of working on the project overseas. Please see the 'Overseas allowances' section for details.
- If you or any staff will be spending 12 months or more in another country, we’ll help you with the costs of working on the project overseas.
  
  Our overseas allowances are based on the assumption that you’ll be paying income tax, either in your home country, or the country you will be working in. Your personal tax is your responsibility.
  
  We have 4 categories of allowances for this scheme:
  
  You need to provide the following costs, as accurately as possible.
  
  We will pay the airfares at the beginning and end of your time abroad, for you, your partner and dependent children. All flights should be economy class.
  
  freight allowance up to £8,000 (£4,000 each way)
  
  BUPA Worldwide Medical Insurance with the Option of Worldwide Medical Plus, including emergency evacuation cover for you and your family
  
  visa/vaccination costs and anti-malarial treatment for you, your partner and dependent children
  
  Up to:
  
  £3,000 a year if you are single
  £4,000 a year if your partner is travelling with you
  £5,000 a year if your children are travelling with you
  
  If you will be working at one of the Africa and Asia Programmes you can ask for a higher contribution. You should ask the programme administrators for advice on the level of costs you can ask for.
  
  housing security costs
  
  We will give you an education allowance if you will:
  
  have dependent children travelling with you
  be working in a location where there isn’t a free education in English of the same standard as the UK.
  
  The allowance covers:
  
  90% of nursery school fees for 3 to 4 year olds up to a maximum of 15 hours a week
  90% of local junior school fees
  90% of local secondary school fees
  90% of UK boarding school fees if both parents and/or guardians will be living outside the UK
  economy class return airfares for any children at a UK boarding school, at the beginning and end of each school term.
  
  The allowance doesn’t cover:
  
  education costs for your children over the age of 18, once they have finished secondary school, eg university fees.
  
  If you are spending two or more years in another country, we’ll pay a contribution towards annual leave airfares for you, your partner and dependent children to return to the UK.
  
  The number of return flights we’ll pay for depends on how long you’ll be spending overseas:
  
  24-35 months: 1 annual leave flight
  36-47 months: 2 annual leave flights
  48-59 months: 3 annual leave flights
  
  Flights should be economy class.
  
  You need to provide the costs for outward and return airfares, health insurance and education allowance if you need them. These should be as accurate as possible. We will work out the other costs.
  
  Your funds can cover the airfares at the beginning and end of your time abroad, for you, your partner and dependent children. All flights should be economy class.
  
  freight allowance up to £8,000 (£4,000 each way)
  
  BUPA Worldwide Medical Insurance with the Option of Worldwide Medical Plus for you and your family
  
  a contribution of £200 towards visa/vaccination costs for you, your partner and dependent children
  
  Up to:
  
  £3,000 a year if you are single
  £4,000 a year if your partner is travelling with you
  £5,000 a year if your children are travelling with you
  
  You can use the funds to cover an education allowance if you will:
  
  have dependent children travelling with you
  be working in a location where there isn’t a free education in English of the same standard as the UK.
  
  The allowance can cover:
  
  90% of nursery school fees for 3 to 4 year olds up to a maximum of 15 hours a week
  90% of local junior school fees
  90% of local secondary school fees
  90% of UK boarding school fees if both parents and/or guardians will be living outside the UK
  economy class return airfares for any children at a UK boarding school, at the beginning and end of each school term.
  
  The allowance can't cover education costs:
  
  if you'll be working in an English-speaking high-income country as you will usually have access to suitable public/state schools for your children
  education costs for your children over the age of 18, once they have finished secondary school, eg university fees.
  
  If you are spending two or more years in another country, you can use some of your funds towards annual leave airfares for you, your partner and dependent children to return to the UK.
  
  The rates are:
  
  £500 a year if you are single
  £1,000 a year if your partner is travelling with you
  £1,300 a year if your children are travelling with you
  
  The number of return flights it can cover depends on how long you’ll be spending overseas:
  
  24-35 months: 1 annual leave flight
  36-47 months: 2 annual leave flights
  48-59 months: 3 annual leave flights
  
  Flights should be economy class.
  
  You need to provide the costs for outward and return airfares, if you need them, as accurately as possible. We will work out the other costs.
  
  We will pay the airfares at the beginning and end of your time in the UK, for you, your partner and dependent children. All flights should be economy class.
  
  freight allowance of £1,000
  
  a contribution of £200 towards visa/vaccination costs for you, your partner and dependent children
  
  Up to:
  
  £3,000 a year if you are single
  £4,000 a year if your partner is travelling with you
  £5,000 a year if your children are travelling with you
  
  If you are spending two or more years in the UK, we’ll pay a contribution towards annual leave airfares for you, your partner and dependent children to return to your place of primary residence.
  
  The rates are:
  
  £500 a year if you are single
  £1,000 a year if your partner is travelling with you
  £1,300 a year if your children are travelling with you
  
  The number of return flights we’ll pay for depends on how long you’ll be spending overseas:
  
  24-35 months: 1 annual leave flight
  36-47 months: 2 annual leave flights
  48-59 months: 3 annual leave flights
  
  Flights should be economy class.
  
  You need to provide the costs for outward and return airfares, health insurance and, if you need them, anti-malarial treatment, housing security and education allowance. These should be as accurate as possible. We will work out the other costs.
  
  We will pay the airfares at the beginning and end of your time abroad, for you, your partner and dependent children. All flights should be economy class.
  
  freight allowance of £1,000
  
  health insurance and anti-malarial treatment (if needed) for you, your partner and dependent children
  
  a contribution of £200 towards visa/vaccination costs for you, your partner and dependent children
  
  Up to:
  
  £3,000 a year if you are single
  £4,000 a year if your partner is travelling with you
  £5,000 a year if your children are travelling with you
  
  housing security costs if you will be working in a low- or middle-income country
  
  We will give you an education allowance if you will:
  
  have dependent children travelling with you
  be working in a location where there isn’t a free education of the same standard as your home country.
  
  The allowance covers:
  
  90% of nursery school fees for 3 to 4 year olds up to a maximum of 15 hours a week
  90% of local junior school fees
  90% of local secondary school fees
  90% of home country boarding school fees if both parents and/or guardians will be living abroad
  economy class return airfares for any children at a boarding school, at the beginning and end of each school term.
  
  The allowance doesn’t cover education costs:
  
  if you'll be working in an English speaking high-income country as you will usually have access to suitable public/state schools for your children
  for your children over the age of 18, once they have finished secondary school, eg university fees.
  
  If you are spending two or more years in another country, we’ll pay a contribution towards annual leave airfares for you, your partner and dependent children to return to your place of primary residence.
  
  The rates are:
  
  £500 a year if you are single
  £1,000 a year if your partner is travelling with you
  £1,300 a year if your children are travelling with you
  
  The number of return flights we’ll pay for depends on how long you’ll be spending overseas:
  
  24-35 months: 1 annual leave flight
  36-47 months: 2 annual leave flights
  48-59 months: 3 annual leave flights
  
  Flights should be economy class.
- We will provide funds if you need to outsource project work to:
  
  contract research organisations
  other fee-for-service providers.
- If you are applying from a university we will add an inflation allowance to your award.
  
  How we calculate your inflation allowance
  
  Your inflation allowance is based on your total eligible costs and the duration of the award. If the costs in your application are in pounds sterling, euros or US dollars, you’ll receive the following allowance:
  
  Award duration (in months) Inflation allowance
  0-12 0.0%
  13-24 1.0%
  25-36 2.0%
  37-48 3.0%
  49-60 4.1%
  61-72 5.1%
  73-84 6.2%
  
  These rates are calculated using compound inflation at 2.0% a year from Year 2 onwards.
  
  If your costs are in any other currency, we will use an inflation allowance that reflects the inflation rate of the country where the host organisation is based.
  
  What to include in your application
  
  The costs in your application must be based on current known costs, excluding inflation.
  
  You should allow for salary pay awards during Year 1. These should be based on pay awards already agreed; if you don’t know what the pay award is yet then use our inflation rate.
  
  Wellcome's studentship stipend scales for non-clinical/basic science PhD studentships include an annual increase for inflation.
- If your organisation receives block funding, you can ask them to cover your open access article processing charges.
  
  If you're at an organisation that doesn't receive block grant funding, we’ll supplement your grant when your paper has been accepted for publication.
  
  You can't ask for these charges in your grant application.
- If you need to carry out clinical trials or research using NHS patients or facilities, we will cover some of the research costs.
  
  Annex A of the guidelines for attributing the costs of health and social care research and development (AcoRD) sets out the costs we cover, and which costs should be funded through the Department of Health in England, or its equivalent in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. If you're based in the Republic of Ireland, we would expect you to adhere to the spirit of these principles.
  
  Further information on our clinical trials policy.
- Costs you may ask for (you will have to justify these costs in your application):
  
  fieldwork costs, including survey and data collection and statistical analysis
  specialist publications that are relevant to the research and not available in institutional libraries
  consultancy fees
  expenses for subjects and volunteers – includes recruitment of participants, their participatory fees and travel, as well as interviewee expenses
  reasonable research-associated costs related to the feedback of health-related findings but not any healthcare-associated costs
  costs associated with developing an outputs management plan
  questionnaires, recruitment material, newsletters etc for clinical, epidemiological and qualitative research studies
  public engagement materials where dissemination (including printing and publishing) is a key activity of the project
  recruitment, advertising and interviewee travel costs for staff to be employed on the grant
  purchase, hire and running costs of project-dedicated vehicles.
  
  Costs we won’t pay:
  
  estates costs – such as building and premises costs, basic services and utilities. This also includes phone, postage, photocopying and stationery, unless you can justify these within a clinical or epidemiological study.*
  page charges and the cost of colour prints
  research, technical and administrative staff whose time is shared across several projects and isn’t supported by an audit record*
  charge-out costs for major facilities* – departmental technical and administrative services, and use of existing equipment
  cleaning, waste and other disposal costs*
  
  *We will fund these costs in the case of animal-related research.
  
  indirect costs – this includes general administration costs such as personnel, finance, library, room hire and some departmental services
  office furniture, such as chairs, desks, filing cabinets, etc.
  clothing such as lab coats, shoes, protective clothing
  non-research related activities, eg catering, room and venue hire for staff parties, team-building events and social activities
  indemnity insurance (insurance cover against claims made by subjects or patients associated with a research programme)
  ethics reviews, unless you are in a low- or middle-income country
  radiation protection costs.

Award duration (in months)	Inflation allowance
0-12	0.0%
13-24	1.0%
25-36	2.0%
37-48	3.0%
49-60	4.1%
61-72	5.1%
73-84	6.2%

What we don’t offer

Academic organisational overheads.
Large standalone equipment.
Building or refurbishment expenditure.
Patent costs.
Working capital costs incurred by the commercial partner.
Salaries for tenured academics.

Stages of application

This scheme has no further application deadlines for 2016.

Find out about the future of innovation at Wellcome.

Contact us

Individual applications

You can submit a full application immediately or contact us for advice first. We’re happy to help while you prepare your proposal.

Partnership applications

Before submitting a full application, please email innovations@wellcome.org to confirm your eligibility.

You must provide details of your project and the partnership (eg describe how both parties will support the research to the point where a development partner can realise a public benefit).

Please also provide details of the commercial organisation’s funding status, including:
- how long it has been established
- how it’s financed – if the company’s in its early stages, we need to know the stage of fundraising it has reached
- how it will be able to provide the required matching funding
- evidence of working capital for the duration of the project.
You must also, where applicable, provide a written statement that details:
- any restrictions on IP
- restrictions on publications relating to background IP
- restrictions arising from the proposed research.
Submit your full application

You must submit your application through the Wellcome Trust Grant Tracker.

View a sample full application form for Pathfinder Individual Awards [PDF 2.1MB] or Pathfinder Partnership Awards [PDF 2.1MB]
Review

Our Pathfinders Assessment Group considers all applications. Some applications will also be reviewed by independent external experts.

We don’t usually provide specific written feedback to unsuccessful applicants. This is due to the scheme’s short turnaround time.

Disabled applicants

If you are disabled or have a chronic health condition, we can support you with the application process.

Dates

Applications are considered twice a year. We must receive your application by 17.00 (GMT/BST) on the deadline day. We cannot accept late applications.

Full application deadline

20 June 2016
Funding decision

September 2016

More information

For Pathfinder Awards of between £100,000 and £350,000, we may choose to award through a funding agreement. If we do, the partners must enter a collaboration agreement that covers:

ownership of Trust-funded IP
necessary licences for background IP
confidentiality
publication
protection, maintenance, exploitation and commercialisation of Trust-funded IP.

Lambert templates can be used as a guide.

Exceptions to our grant conditions

Pathfinder Awards are governed by:

the Trust’s Grant Conditions (except as set out below)
other Trust policies and positions
the terms of individual award letters.

We’ve waived Trust Grant Condition 8.2 for Pathfinder Awards of up to £100,000. For these awards:

you don’t need written permission to use Trust-funded IP for commercial purposes or third-party exploitation
you won’t have to share any benefits from commercialisation and/or exploitation with us.

Forms and guidance

Innovations awards termination policy [PDF 79KB]

Collaborative Awards in Science

Funding teams of researchers, consisting of independent research groups, to work together on the most important scientific problems that can only be solved through collaborative efforts.

Full details of Collaborative Awards in Science

Seed Awards in Science

Helping researchers develop novel ideas that will go on to form part of larger grant applications to Wellcome or elsewhere.

Full details of Seed Awards in Science

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What we offer

Visa and work permit costs

Equipment purchase

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Computer equipment

How to ask for these costs

Our previous policy

Travel costs

Conference attendance

Collaborative travel

Other travel

Carbon offset costs

Subsistence costs

Overseas research

How we calculate your inflation allowance

What to include in your application

What we don’t offer

How to apply

Stages of application

Contact us

Submit your full application

Review

Disabled applicants

Dates

Full application deadline

Funding decision

More information

Exceptions to our grant conditions

Forms and guidance

Contact us

Collaborative Awards in Science

Seed Awards in Science