NIHR i4i Product Development Award Call 30 (April 2025)
Opening Date: 9th April 2025
Deadline: 28th May 2025 (1pm)
Funding: No specified (max 3 year project)
The Product Development Awards (PDA) support collaborative research and development of medical devices, in vitro diagnostic devices and high-impact patient-focused digital health technologies for use in the NHS or social care system. PDA aims to de-risk innovations, supporting early product development and real-world evaluation, to make them more attractive for follow-on funding or commercial investment. Research proposals may address any area of unmet need. Projects must have a clear pathway towards adoption and commercialisation.
NIHR i4i THRIVE (April 2025)
Opening Date: 14th April 2025
Deadline: 16th May 2025
Funding: £150,000
The NIHR Invention for Innovation (i4i) programme is accepting applications to their new researcher and clinician-led THRIVE (Translate Healthcare Research through InnoVation and Entrepreneurship) funding and training opportunity.
THRIVE aims to accelerate the translation of healthcare innovations tackling health inequalities from bench to bed, speed up patient benefit and concurrently expand the entrepreneurial mindset of researchers and clinicians.
THRIVE offers up to £150,000 over 9 months to support the development of the technology and a structured programme of entrepreneurial training, mentoring, peer support and networking. Through the programme the innovators will explore the market for their innovation and identify potential routes for commercialising (spin-out vs licensing) or sustaining their innovation (Intrapreneurship).
The programme supports innovations that can reduce health inequalities and meet needs in underserved communities.
This is a one stage application process.
NIHR i4i FAST (March 2025)
Deadline: 16th April 2025 (1pm)
Funding: £15k-£50k (3-6 months project)
The FAST (Funding At the Speed of Translation) funding scheme is aimed at innovators in need of a small amount of funding to answer a single specific question to address an evidence gap in developing an innovation.
The spring 2025 call, launched in partnership with the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Paediatrics and Child Health, invites applications to support the development of health technologies to reduce community and hospital waiting lists for children and young people, including those with learning disabilities, seeking mental healthcare or requesting neurodevelopmental assessment.
UKRI Proof of Concept Fund
Opening Date: 12th March 2025
Deadline: 29th May at 09:00
Funding: £100,000 – £250,000
Apply for proof of concept to support the commercialisation of research to enable spinouts or social ventures, licencing or other commercialisation pathways. Applications from any disciplines are welcomed. No pre-existing UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding is required. The programme will not support discovery-driven research. The intention to submit was a mandatory step and you are only eligible for the full stage if you have completed this. Subsequently, if eligible, you will be invited to apply by UKRI via email, but you must also be selected by your research organisation (RO) to submit a full application following the demand management measures.
BHF Healthcare Innovation Fund
Deadline: 28th April 2025
Funding: Up to £350k
The fund will support ideas that:
- Identify an unmet need that needs further scoping and consensus building around need and potential solutions.
- Have been scoped by an appropriate group of stakeholders and are ready to be tested and evaluated in practice.
- Have been tested locally by an appropriate group of stakeholders and are ready for early stage scaling.
The lead applicant or investigator must be employed by an NHS organisation or UK academic institution.
Applications are invited from teams who have been identified and supported by UK’s regional innovation boards, like:
- Health Innovation Networks (HINs) in England
- Innovation Hubs in Scotland
- Cardiac Network Board in Wales
- Cardiology Network in Northern Ireland.
Your project can include working with other partners, such as the third sector and industry, where you think it will benefit people with cardiovascular disease.
Cancer Grand Challenges
Opening Date: Now accepting expressions of interest
Deadline: 18th June (for expressions of interest)
Funding: up to £20m
Seven new Cancer Grand Challenges to the global research community have been launched. These challenges represent the most urgent, complex problems in cancer research that require collaboration across borders and disciplines.
The new set of challenges include:
- AI-human collaborations in cancer
- Cancer avoidance
- The dark proteome
- Mechanisms driving mutational signatures
- The nervous system and cancer
- Rewiring cancer cells
- TME dynamics
Development Pathway Funding Scheme: stage one
Deadline: 16th July 2025 (4pm)
Funding: Total fund £30m
Apply for funding to develop and test novel therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics and other interventions.
Your project can start and finish at any stage on the developmental pathway from early development, through pre-clinical refinement and testing to early-phase clinical studies and trials (up to phase 2a).
You must be based at a research organisation eligible for MRC funding.
There is no limit on the amount of funding you can apply for, but it should be appropriate to the project. We usually fund 80% of a project’s FEC.
Pre Announcement: MRC Gap Fund
Opening Date: TBC
Deadline: TBC
Funding: £50k-£300k
The gap fund funding opportunity will be re-launched in April or May 2025
You can apply for academically led translational projects that aim to undertake a focused package of work that will bridge the gap between the inception of a new idea and substantive funding through schemes such as the MRC Developmental Pathway Funding Scheme (DPFS) to:
- help prevent disease
- help improve speed and accuracy of diagnosis of disease
- develop new treatments for disease
- help to improve outcome monitoring of patients receiving treatment
- help to improve the management of diseases and conditions
All human diseases and medical interventions are eligible for support, both in the context of UK healthcare and addressing global health issues.
Creative England Investments
Deadline: None specified
Funding: £100,000 – £1m
Creative Growth Finance is providing vital scale up finance to a portfolio comprising some of the UK’s most promising creative businesses. Finance will be directed to post-revenue creative businesses presenting promising growth potential and who:
– bring change, disruption and new IP to the creative industries
– harness creativity with technologies and supporting businesses
– are talent led
Partnership
- Loans of £100,000 – £1m across all UK regions
- Long-term specialist support
- Access to investment and creative networks
- Access to support programmes
Researching motor neurone disease
Deadline: None specified
Funding: Discretionary
Through this highlight notice, applicants are invited to submit innovative research proposals to MRC that aim to:
- improve the mechanistic understanding of MND, including identification and validation of new biomarkers
- investigate potential new therapeutic avenues
Apply for funding to research motor neurone disease (MND). You can get funding through any:
- grants from MRC research boards or panels
- MRC fellowships
You should apply through the existing funding opportunity that is most relevant to your science area and career stage.
Global Innovation Fund
Deadline: None specified
Funding: Discretionary
The Global Innovation Fund is a non-profit innovation fund headquartered in London with an office in Washington D.C. that invests in the development, rigorous testing, and scaling of innovations targeted at improving the lives of the world’s poorest people. Through our grants and risk capital, we help breakthrough solutions to global development challenges from for profit firms, non profit organisations, researchers, and government agencies to maximise their impact and affect meaningful change.
NIHR: Health Technology Assessment
Deadline: None specified
Funding: Discretionary
The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme funds research about the clinical and cost-effectiveness and broader impact of healthcare treatments and tests for those who plan, provide or receive care from NHS and social care services. They have a number of themed calls, please refer their website for more information.
NIHR: Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation Programme
Deadline: None specified
Funding: Discretionary
The EME Programme primarily supports clinical trials, and other robustly designed studies that test the efficacy of interventions. The interventions should have the potential to improve patient care or benefit the public. The programme will only support studies where there is sufficient evidence that the intervention might work in man, i.e. that there is ‘proof of concept’. Current calls here include Cystic Fibrosis, Novel strategies to reduce overtreatment, Paediatric Care among others.
Nesta Impact Investment
Deadline: None specified
Funding: £1,000,000
Nesta Impact Investments is a £17.6m fund investing in life changing innovations that help tackle the major challenges faced by older people, children and communities in the UK.
New Horizons Grants – Cardiovascular research
Deadline: None specified
Funding: Up to £300,000 per project
Funding from BHF to encourage scientists from outside traditional cardiovascular biology to engage in cardiovascular research and bring novel expertise to the field to develop new technologies, models or methodologies and explore novel concepts. The principal investigator will be a senior researcher working in an established research institution in the UK. Early-stage concept development and testing, which may later lead to translational research, is appropriate for the New Horizons scheme. The proposed research plan should contain elements of developing novel technologies, models, applications or methodologies utilising the multidisciplinary background of the applicants.
Digital Health.London’s Accelerator programme
Deadline: None specified
Funding: Discretionary
DigitalHealth.London’s Accelerator programme aims to speed up the adoption of technology in London’s NHS, relieving high pressure on services and empowering patients to manage their health.
Companies successful in gaining a place on the programme usually have a product or service that has already been piloted in the NHS and is ready to scale.
Innovate UK Scale Up programme
Deadline: None specified
Funding: Not specified
Innovate UK EDGE’s highly regarded Scaleup Programme provides oneto-one, bespoke and fully funded support centered around innovative scaleups’ specific needs. It is available to those companies achieving, or with the potential for, 50% compound annual growth rates (CAGR) and over. The Scaleup Programme helps the highest potential businesses realise their ambitions. Delivering growth at scale is at the heart of Innovate UK’s emerging strategy for business innovation in the UK. Innovate UK EDGE is a key enabler of this strategic priority and through the Scaleup Programme, helps the highest potential businesses realise their ambitions.
The British Heart Foundation (BHF)
Deadline: None specified
Funding: Not available
BHF provide personal support for clinical and non-clinical cardiovascular researchers at all stages of their career. They also provide grants for short and long term research projects, essential infrastructure and strategic initiatives.
