Submit your Expression of Interest for Cancer Grand Challenges

Ultimately, they are looking for the best teams with the best ideas to address the challenges. They also anticipate that proposals will drive global collaboration and bring together scientifically diverse expertise in a way that is not already happening.

Teams will involve individuals with the potential to become future leaders in cancer research, as well as people affected by cancer to support efforts to ensure the needs of patients are heard and understood.

Focus Areas

• AI-human collaborations in cancer
• Cancer avoidance
• The dark proteome
• Mechanisms driving mutational signatures
• The nervous system and cancer
• Rewiring cancer cells
• TME dynamics

Funding Information

• Awards of up to £20m ($25m).

Eligibility Criteria

• They are inviting global, interdisciplinary teams to submit their Expressions of Interest.
• Teams must be international in nature, with no more than 70% of the activity (and funding) being based in a single country. There is no requirement for teams to be led by, or comprise team members, who are based in the UK or US.
• They expect a team to include one Team Lead and up to seven Co-Investigators. Applications are welcomed from teams working across a breadth of disciplines, including but not limited to: the biomedical sciences; software development and technology; engineering and physical sciences; and behavioural, health, population and social sciences.

Assessment Criteria

• Quality: the work proposed must be of the highest international scientific calibre, advancing a robust and unbiased approach to accomplishing its goals.
• Relevance: there must be a clear plan to address the challenge as it has been articulated. The research plan should address the challenge in a way that fully takes advantage of the opportunity to pursue a large, coordinated, international team-based effort. The application should describe how successfully completing the proposed work has the potential to change their understanding of the concepts, methods, technologies, treatments, services, and/or interventions associated with the challenge and related scientific fields.
• Innovation: the work must involve the development of new methodologies, approaches, theoretical concepts, instrumentation, resources and/or capabilities to tackle the challenge in a novel way. Rather than scaling up existing experimental approaches, the application should describe how the scope and scale of the research will allow for unique and innovative approaches that are not otherwise possible via other funding mechanisms.
• Team: the very best team should be assembled to address the challenge. The team must:
  • Comprise a scientifically diverse group of investigators, each of whom has a demonstrated record of accomplishments in advancing their respective fields;
  • Be interdisciplinary, drawing on researchers with complementary and integrated expertise, and attracting new thinking to cancer research;
  • Be international, facilitating global collaboration between researchers;
  • Incorporate training for future leaders in cancer research;
  • Demonstrate an ability to operate as a highly functional research team, with maximum cohesion and collaboration;
  • Be led and organised in such a way that is appropriate to achieve the team’s scientific objectives.
• Impact: the ambition must be that the results of the proposed research could have significant benefit for patients and/or the wider public in the long term.

For more information, visit Cancer Grand Challenges.