This call will provide funding for validation activities for novel targets with a clear therapeutic concept and strong biological rationale related to early intervention in anxiety, depression and/or psychosis. Funded proposals will generate data supporting the target’s therapeutic potential in the development of new and improved pharmacological treatments.
This call has been designed in collaboration with the Psychiatry Consortium to help enable early and robust target validation research.
Scheme at a glance
- Administering organisation location: Anywhere in the world (apart from mainland China)
- Frequency: One-off
- Funding amount: Up to £700,000 per project
- Funding duration: Up to 2 years
- Coapplicants: Accepted
Who can apply
You can apply to this call if you are a team of researchers:
- from disciplines relevant to drug discovery and mental health science, including but not limited to genomics, neuroscience, computational psychiatry, molecular biology in psychiatry, medicinal chemistry, neuropharmacology, in-vitro/vivo/silico pharmacology and drug discovery
- from an eligible organisation
- based anywhere in the world (apart from mainland China)
We encourage applications from teams that:
- are diverse and interdisciplinary, within one or across multiple institutions and with collaborations covering multiple areas of expertise
- include researchers at any stage of their career
You can apply for this award if you have spent time away from research (for example, for a career break, parental leave or long-term sick leave). We will take this into consideration during the review of your application.
Retirement
If you have retired, you must contact us before applying. You must have a guarantee of space from your administering organisation for the duration of the award.
Working part-time
Lead and coapplicants can be part-time, but part-time applicants should still be able to contribute at least 20% of their research time to the project. Their part-time work should be compatible with delivering the project successfully.
Who can’t apply
You should not apply for this call if:
- You intend to carry out activities which involve the transfer of funds into mainland China.
- You cannot demonstrate that you can dedicate enough time and resources to the project, if funded.
- You are already an applicant on two applications for this funding call:
- you can only be a lead applicant on one application and a coapplicant on one other application
- you can be a coapplicant on two applications
- You must demonstrate that you have sufficient capacity for both projects if funded. The applications should be for different projects with no overlap of activities.
- You already have applied for, or hold, the maximum number of Wellcome awards for your career stage. Find out how many Wellcome awards you can apply for, or hold, at one time depending on your career stage.
- Your project is not within the remit of this call. Check what kinds of research projects are not in scope for this funding call.
Is your organisation right for this call?
The administering organisation is where the lead applicant is based. It is responsible for submitting your final application to Wellcome and managing the finances of the grant if it is awarded.
The administering organisation can be based anywhere in the world apart from mainland China. It must be able to sign up to Wellcome’s grant conditions.
Your organisation can be a:
- higher education institution
- research institute
- non-academic healthcare organisation
- not-for-profit or non-governmental research organisation
Commercial organisations are not eligible to apply as administering organisations or coapplicants for this call. However, commercial organisations can be added as consultants (service providers) or collaborators.
What is expected of lead applicant and coapplicant organisations
Any eligible organisation must sign up to Wellcome’s grant conditions and grant funding policies. We expect organisations based in the UK to meet the responsibilities required by the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers for institutions, managers and researchers. Any organisation with Wellcome funding that is based outside the UK is expected, as a minimum, to follow the principles of the Concordat.
We also expect organisations to:
- Guarantee that the space and resources you need have been agreed and will be made available to you from the start date through to the end date of the award.
- Explain how your research fits with the strategic aims of the organisation.
- Give you, and any staff employed on the grant, 10 days a year (pro rata if part-time) to undertake training and continuous professional development (CPD) in line with the Concordat. This should include the responsible conduct of research, research leadership, people management, diversity and inclusion, and promotion of a health research culture.
- Provide a system of onboarding, embedding and planning for you when you join the organisation and/or start the award.
Collaboration agreements
If your application involves a collaboration or partnership between multiple organisations, the partners must enter into a suitable collaboration agreement, including provisions that cover:
- confidentiality
- publication rights
If there is potential for foreground intellectual property, the collaboration agreement must include provisions on:
- access to background intellectual property
- ownership of foreground intellectual property
- arrangements for the protection, management and exploitation of foreground intellectual property
The lead applicant’s administering organisation is required under our grant conditions to own all the foreground intellectual property arising from the project and to take the lead in any commercialisation activity. For guidance, applicants are advised to read Wellcome’s intellectual property policy.
Your research environment
Wellcome believes that excellent research happens in environments where people from all backgrounds are treated with respect, supported and enabled to thrive. It requires attention to ethical, social and cultural considerations, and engagement with the needs and perspectives of relevant communities. We believe that creative and high-quality ideas must be open and accessible to everyone to drive innovation and achieve the most significant impact.
Our definition of a research environment is not restricted to the quality of the infrastructure but also considers the culture, practices, behaviours and ecosystems that foster excellent research to produce better evidence and meaningful impacts. This includes research that is inclusive in design and practice, attentive to relevant ethical considerations, engaged with relevant stakeholders, as well as open and transparent.
Read more about how to address research environment and culture in your application.
Is your research right for this call?
This call aims to support research activities to validate novel targets that have a clear therapeutic concept, a strong biological rationale and relevance to early intervention in anxiety, depression and/or psychosis. Successful projects will generate data demonstrating that modulation of the target has potential to lead to a clinical benefit, including toxicity considerations, and will develop the potential for a drug discovery campaign. Early elimination of non-viable targets is also important to better inform future research hypotheses and experimental designs.
We define a ‘target’ as a biochemical entity in the body that a drug can bind to, including but not limited to:
- receptors
- proteins
- enzymes
- biomolecules (for example, DNA, RNA, peptides)
- gut microbiome
Target validation activities must demonstrate that a target is directly involved in a pathophysiological process that leads to the emergence of symptoms and that the modulation of the target can produce a change in the biological pathway and possible clinical efficacy.
Mental health conditions in-scope for this funding call
This funding call is focused on proposals that target anxiety, depression and psychosis or associated symptoms. This includes:
- all types of anxiety and depressive disorders (including obsessive-compulsive disorder, postpartum depression and post-traumatic stress disorder)
- all forms of psychotic disorders (including schizophrenia, postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder)
While we do not specify any particular diagnostic or classification system, we expect applicants to use a framework and measurement approach that fits their research aim and to provide a clear rationale for doing so.
What your proposal must include
Please also refer to the assessment criteria to inform what your proposal must include.
- Novelty: A clear explanation as to the target’s novelty with supporting evidence.
- By ‘novel targets’ we mean those that are not currently the subject of ongoing drug discovery and development programmes for any of the in-scope conditions, based on currently available public information. For instance, if there is an existing phase I drug candidate for target A in depression, proposals on target A would not be considered novel in this funding call.
- Alternatively, we will consider target novelty in other ways. For example, a novel binding site on a non-novel target; a new approach to a target that has been investigated previously but where resulting drug development has been unsuccessful; or other innovative target approaches.
- Proposals adopting a precision-psychiatry approach alone would not be considered novel. Instead, this should be considered on top of target novelty.
- Rationale and evidence: A clear rationale supporting the target including the therapeutic concept (for example, detailing the mechanism of how target modulation would lead to clinical efficacy). The applicant should consider the latest converging lines of evidence and the latest relevant knowledge on the target.
- Patient impact: A clear description of the potential patient population with appropriate justifications as to why the symptom(s) are a priority focus for people with lived experience. There must also be a description of how the proposal has the potential to create a step-change in early intervention.
- Proposal plan: A feasible plan to generate a robust validation data package supporting the target’s therapeutic potential.
- The plan should include experiments to demonstrate:
- the target’s potential for modulation by a drug,
- target modulation leading to clinical efficacy,
- and target-based safety
- We encourage applicants to consider how their data package would encourage the inclusion of under-researched populations in future drug development programmes. The plan should have appropriately justified go/no-go milestones and cover the development of/access to necessary tools.
- The plan should include experiments to demonstrate:
- Expertise and skills: Clear evidence to show that the team and any consultants is comprised of necessary expertise. The team must include at least one person with knowledge relating to the biological mechanisms of the relevant mental health condition(s). Proposals should clearly describe and justify the role of each team member and any consultants.
Relevant research activities include, but are not limited to, the use of:
- in-vitro models/assays including cells, iPSCs and organoids
- in-vivo mechanistic animal models/studies including knockouts
- in-silico target modelling and structural biology
- ex-vivo animal models, such as animal brain culture slices
- computational neuroscience, including neural circuit and network analysis
- electrophysiology
- imaging
- bio- and chemo- informatics and structural biology
- genomics, including CRISPR technology
- proteomics and transcriptomics including mRNA interference, if focused on validating a specific target
- optogenetics and chemogenetics
- in-vivo human studies if focused on novel target validation
- development and/or use of molecular tools for the purposes of target validation
- drug repurposing with a novel target and a focus on target validation
If you are conducting studies with human participants or animals, refer to our relevant policies:
Research that is not right for this call includes:
- Validating targets for mental health problems outside of the in-scope conditions. For example, eating disorders, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or substance use disorders.
- Research on non-pharmacological interventions.
- Research on target identification (genetics/genomics data) or research that is focused on generating hypotheses for target validation. Target identification research should be completed prior to this award.
- Research exploring or developing new animal or cellular models with no validation of novel targets.
- Hit screening campaigns or similar drug discovery projects.
- Drug repurposing without a novel target.
- Research using holistic animal disease models that have limited/no mechanistic understanding.
