Early Detection and Diagnosis Primer Award
About this scheme
Key information
To stimulate and develop the early detection and diagnosis (ED&D) field, we're encouraging early-career researchers, scientists new to ED&D and/or cancer research, as well as established ED&D researchers to apply for Primer Awards.
You should:
- Have some postdoctoral experience or equivalent
- Be scientists, clinicians or healthcare workers in UK universities, medical schools, hospitals, or research institutes
Scientific remit
With this award, we're challenging you to consider how you can utilise skills and techniques in innovative ways to accelerate ED&D research. Primer Awards provide seed funding to develop new relationships, ideas and lines of research, and the generation of pilot data.
The award aims to encourage scientists at all career stages to engage with the early detection and diagnosis of cancer field. It will support new and exploratory research ideas and/or pilot studies of high scientific risk and potential reward. It supports the development of new partnerships and exploration of highly novel concepts, involving researchers from any research area, including from non-traditional cancer fields.
Areas that could be considered include:
- Development of novel technology to address an area of need in the ED&D of cancer field
- Development or modification of existing technology from other research fields or sectors, to be applied to an early detection and diagnosis of cancer question
- Innovative and ‘out-of-the-box’ lines of investigation within ED&D
- Establishment and development of new collaborations or consortia to tackle an ED&D area of need
- Bringing individuals and skillsets into ED&D which have not previously been applied there
- Preliminary research to establish proof of principle in any area of ED&D remit
Funding can contribute towards generating pilot data for a new and exciting idea, establishing and developing new collaborations, testing a new technology or using an existing technology in an innovative way. We envisage that data generated or collaborations established through a Primer Award will form the basis for a more extensive future project within ED&D.
Out of remit
Proposals for research in these fields are likely to be ineligible for this funding scheme:
- Research which does not have any line-of-sight to impact on early detection – this may be eligible for our discovery research funding opportunities
- Research that focuses on population-level trials of screening approaches – this may be eligible for our prevention and population research committe
If you are unsure which funding scheme is most appropriate for your research, please get in touch to discuss your proposal.
The award will provide up to 1 year of flexible seed funding up to £100k. Funding could cover:
- Salaries for postdocs or technical staff
- Experimental expenses
- Associated running expenses
- Equipment
- Collaborative travel and networking costs
- Training courses
- People exchange
We are also giving applicants to this funding scheme the opportunity to opt-in to a new multi-journal pilot project on Registered Reports.
How to apply to this scheme
Application process
We strongly encourage you to contact the CRUK office for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal. We will advise you on your eligibility and funding options. Please contact us more than 1 month and no later than 2 weeks before a submission deadline to help us best assist you.
All applications must be made online through our online grant management system, Flexi-Grant.
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Submit your application. Your submission must be approved online by your Host Institution before the submission deadline.
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The Early Detection and Diagnosis Committee will make a final decision on funding. All applications, regardless of outcome, will receive feedback from the Committee. Due to the high volume of applications, feedback letters will be limited compared to other awards.
Timelines
Applications for this scheme are considered twice a year.
| Application deadline | Committee decision |
| 12 September 2024 | November 2024 |
| 27 March 2025 | May 2025 |
Before you begin your application
- You must read the application guidelines, together with our Grant Conditions, before starting your application, even if you have applied for funding with us before.
- You must read our costs guidelines to understand what we will and will not fund.
- We expect patient and public involvement to be demonstrated in applications. Please use our Patient and Public Involvement Toolkit for Researchers for advice on this.
The Early Detection and Diagnosis Primer Award aims to catalyse growth of the ED&D field and encourage engagement with the research area. Your application may concern experimental work to gather pilot data and may consider the development of novel technologies, using existing technologies in innovative ways and/or innovative models or ideas within ED&D. The Primer Award may evaluate the impact of ED&D policies or interventions as well as explore health systems research for ED&D. You could also use the Primer Award to establish a new collaboration or access training to develop skills and standing in the ED&D field.
We welcome proposals from a broad range of fields, including:
- Biomedicine
- Engineering
- Physics
- Statistics
- Mathematics
- Chemistry
- Informatics
- Computer and data sciences
- Policy research
- Behavioural Science
- Health systems research
- Health economics
Whatever the nature of your proposal, the benefit of the project to advancing the ED&D field should be clear. This could be in the form of generating pilot data leading to a bigger project, testing the feasibility of an idea or technology in an ED&D setting, generating new collaborations which will contribute to the field in the future, or providing an opportunity for talented and ambitious researchers to establish themselves in the ED&D field.
In your application, you should consider and discuss the potential future clinical/population impact of the proposed work. The line of sight to clinical/population application may be during or downstream of the proposed project. This may be the eventual implementation of a new technology or biomarker in the clinic, or the value of a collaboration to long-term early detection work. Appropriate involvement of clinical/population expertise to ensure this line-of-sight is encouraged.
You should ensure you have a suitable team to adequately consider the questions addressed in the proposal, including co-applicants and collaborators where relevant. We encourage multidisciplinary, international and industrial collaboration where appropriate to the science proposed. For example, this could involve collaboration between biologists, clinical researchers, engineers, physical scientists, maths/stats/computation expertise, population scientists or industry. You should clearly articulate the added value of each collaboration in your application.
The Early Detection and Diagnosis Committee will consider your application based on:
- Scientific excellence and innovation
- Clear articulation of the challenge to be addressed
- Cancer early detection and diagnosis relevance
- Clarity of line-of-sight to clinical/population impact
- Team composition: are the right skillsets to deliver the proposed work and achieve impact in place? Do any collaborations between disciplines, institutions or with industry add value to the project?
- Is the right infrastructure in place to deliver the proposed research?
The 5 year rolling success rate (financial year 2019-2024) from application to funding for this scheme is 41%.
Cancer Research UK contact details
Please contact the relevant Research Grants Manager if you have questions about your eligibility or require any assistance with your application or active award.
For London and The South of England (including Oxford and Cambridge)
Ms Sara Castro
Research Grants Manager
For the rest of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
Dr Emily Friar
Research Grants Manager
More early detection research opportunities
Early detection of cancer is one of our top priorities and we have funding and other support to help you develop your early detection research, whether you're established in the field, early in your career, or applying your research to early detection for the first time.
Disability and accessibility support
We offer additional support for grant applicants and grant holders who are disabled or have a long-term health condition.
More funding opportunities like this
We have a range of funding opportunities catering for a broad research community at all career stages and in any research field which can impact on earlier detection and diagnosis of cancer.
Find a collaborator
Looking for a collaborator for this award?
Submit your details and search for a potential partner using our Early Detection Collaboration Matcher.