Start-up grants

We are the largest charity dedicated to kidney research in the UK. Our research strategy to 2030 outlines our four strategic research objectives and what we want to achieve through research in the next ten-years or sooner!

In our pledge to drive a major surge in research in the UK, we are changing some of the way we do things. Our 2022 hybrid grants programme is now open. This is one of the many ways we fund and facilitate high quality research.

Read our research strategy

Dr Eddie Wang holding test tubes in his research lab

Does your proposal align to our research priorities?

In your application, we will ask you how your proposal aligns with our immediate research priority areas:

Transforming treatments; dialysis, transplantation and medical technology

Improve dialysis and lessen the impact of dialysis on patient’s lives; research that aims to minimise the stress of dialysis on the body; research that improves the options available to patients at the start of their dialysis and maximises the success of these approaches.
Maximise the number of suitable donated kidneys; research into the causes of kidney transplant failure and the development of monitoring and treatments to better manage and prevent transplant rejection; addressing the ‘fear of failure’ through research into the mental health challenges faced by kidney transplant patients; research on the long-term use of immunosuppressive medication which reduces the life expectancy of kidney transplant recipients.
Research and innovation that will enable development of safe and effective patient monitoring in home and community settings; will slow kidney disease ; reduce the number of people who progress to end stage kidney disease; improve treatment and care in all settings, of kidney patients who may also have other medical conditions.

Multiple health conditions; diabetic kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and mental health

Prevent or delay the onset of diabetic kidney disease; accelerate discovery and innovation in diabetic kidney disease to understand the relationship between kidney disease and diabetes and to develop new treatments.
Treatment of hypertension, heart and circulatory diseases in patients with kidney disease; how to prevent people with high blood pressure or other heart and circulatory disease risk factors from developing kidney disease.
Increase our understanding of how living with a long-term condition impacts mental health, and how this affects patients with kidney diseases; how to prevent mental health problems to help kidney patients with mental health problems get well and stay well.

Heath equalities

Paediatric, rare and hereditary

Understand the genetic causes of rare kidney diseases; to define diagnostic criteria and accelerate testing for rare diseases; find new ways to treat rare and hereditary kidney diseases and their symptoms.
Address the distinct treatment challenges faced by children and young people, and which progresses understanding of how multiple health conditions (eg. cardiovascular health, bone health) develop in children and young people with kidney disease and how to prevent these.

Applying and submitting your application

Both scientific and lay summaries will be used to assess each submission. Consideration will be given to how closely the proposal matches to our immediate priority areas for research and all submissions will be ranked according to their potential to deliver against these.

All applicants must be resident in the United Kingdom and the research must take place in a UK establishment.

Successful applicants will be invited to submit a full application in due course. This invitation is no guarantee of funding which will be competitively awarded. Only applications invited to the second stage will be considered.

Applicants will be notified on 31 May 2022 if they are invited for a full application to be submitted by 6 July 2022.

We welcome pre-submission enquiries. You can find more information about our grants in our regulations and conditions.

Regulations and conditions for applicants

Submit an expression of interest

We are pleased to invite expressions of interest from teams or individuals whose proposals directly address our immediate priority areas for research, and who seek initial or further support to establish their research career.

We are keen to encourage applications from new investigators who have not previously held competitively awarded project or start-up funding as a principal investigator.

We will only consider one application type per applicant even if you have several research ideas, and applicants can only apply in one of our 2022 grants rounds. If you already hold three or more active awards from us, you are ineligible to apply this year.

Our expression of interest forms have moved to our online grants portal. Please sign up for an account if you don’t have one already.

Closing date: 5pm, Tuesday 17 May 2022

Closed for expression of interests

For further information contact:

Dr Aisling McMahon: 01733 367 887

Elaine Davies: 01733 367 835

[email protected]

What difference can funding make to you?

"Funding has enabled me to set up preliminary data to apply for intermediate fellowship applications and enabled me to be more competitive in these applications."

Dr Soma Meran, Innovation grant recipient

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Start-up grants

Start-up grants

Does your proposal align to our research priorities?

Applying and submitting your application

Submit an expression of interest

For further information contact:

What difference can funding make to you?

Get our Research Roundup email

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