Doctors' Corner · Funding trackerReviewed 3 Sep 2026
Open calls for concept notes and full proposals in global health, climate and health, vaccines and new interventions for low- and middle-income countries. Sorted by closing date, with a separate list of rolling schemes that never close — so there is always somewhere to send an idea, even in a quiet month.
Presenting rather than proposing? Abstract deadlines for medical and dental congresses, free webinars, and the conference travel grants that pay for the trip are on the companion abstract deadline tracker.
These have no fixed deadline, or the next date has not been published. Two things worth knowing: several major funders are deliberately moving away from fixed rounds toward always-open submission, and "no deadline" does not mean no hurry — rolling budgets get spent.
Every large pharmaceutical company runs a route for research you design and you sponsor, using their money, their drug, or both. These programmes are badly under-used outside the big academic centres — not because they exclude you, but because nobody tells you they exist. Almost all accept proposals year-round with no deadline.
What "investigator-initiated" actually means. You are the sponsor, not the company. You write the protocol, you hold the regulatory responsibility, you run the study and you publish the result — including if it is unflattering to their product. The company reviews your proposal for scientific merit and fit with its stated areas of interest, then supports it with funding, drug supply, or both. If a company writes the protocol or directs the analysis, that is not an IIR — it is a company-sponsored trial with your name on it, and you should treat the distinction as non-negotiable.
Read this before you submit anything. Three conditions catch people out. First, post-approval only: most companies require the drug to already be registered in the country where you will run the study — check your national regulator first, not theirs. Second, institutions apply, not individuals: several programmes accept submissions only from a legal entity, so your institution must be willing to sponsor and sign. Third, publication rights: confirm in writing that you may publish regardless of outcome, and what notice period the company gets to review a manuscript. Thirty days for comment is normal; a veto is not. Where a study touches your own patients, disclose the funding source in consent documents and to your ethics committee, and declare it on every resulting paper.
A realistic note on getting a yes. These programmes fund a small fraction of what they receive, and a proposal that ignores the published areas of interest is refused without review. Read the therapeutic-area list first and propose into a stated gap, not around it. Most companies also welcome an informal conversation with their local medical affairs contact before you write — in Pakistan that means the country office, and that conversation is usually the difference between a considered submission and a wasted month.
Oral disease affects billions and falls hardest on low- and middle-income countries, yet dental research is funded from a much smaller pool than the rest of medicine. The upside: these schemes are small, specific, and far less contested than the big global health calls. A £5,000 or CHF 10,000 award is a realistic first grant, and several explicitly rank LMIC applicants highest.
The membership step catches people out. Several of these run through IADR or FDI structures, so eligibility depends on a society link rather than your CV. IADR runs an Adopt-A-Member programme that covers dues for members in LMICs who cannot pay them, and FDI accepts non-member applicants provided a Regular or Associate member in your own country writes in support — for Pakistan that means going through the national dental association. Sort the affiliation before the call opens, not during it.
Scale your ambition to the money. These awards mostly sit between £5,000 and CHF 10,000, over 6 to 12 months. That will not fund a trial, and a proposal written as though it might is the commonest reason for rejection. What it does fund well: a feasibility study, a validated survey in a new population, a pilot of a prevention programme in one district, or the groundwork that makes a larger application credible next year. Several schemes say plainly that smaller requests are more likely to succeed.
Most concept notes are rejected on eligibility or fit, not on science. This sequence catches the avoidable failures first.
Read who may be the lead applicant, which countries qualify, and whether your institution needs a legal entity registration or an existing account with the funder. An excellent proposal from an ineligible applicant is a rejected proposal.
Most calls carry an explicit "we will not fund" list — incremental improvements, commercialisation-only work, basic research with no translational path. Read that list before the objectives; it rules out more submissions than the objectives rule in.
Calls often specify performance, cost or scale targets, sometimes as a target product profile. If your idea cannot hit the stated numbers, a strong write-up will not rescue it. Propose against the target, or find a different call.
Nearly every scheme needs an authorised approver at your organisation to submit. If it is your institution's first application to that funder, an organisation account may take days to create. Start this the week you decide to apply.
Larger calls run an information session and publish the recording plus an FAQ. These routinely answer questions that decide eligibility, and questions submitted in advance get answered directly. An hour here saves a wasted month.
Multi-country schemes require partners in several eligible countries, and some run matchmaking platforms for exactly this. Consortium assembly, not writing, is what makes people miss these deadlines.
Indirect cost caps are common and often sit around 15%. Some funders will not pay a lead applicant's salary unless they are based in an LMIC. Check both before promising anyone their time.
Large schemes take a short first-stage proposal, then invite full proposals months later. Note both dates at the start — the gap between them is your real writing window, and it is usually shorter than it looks.
A note on resubmission. Some funders cap how many times the same project may be submitted across all their schemes, and count applications that reached review even if you later withdrew interest. Before recycling a rejected idea, check whether you are spending your last attempt.
On scam "grant" emails. Genuine funders do not ask you to pay a processing fee, do not award money to an individual's personal account, and do not announce awards for proposals you never submitted. Gates Foundation and several others maintain published fraud warnings for exactly this reason. If an offer arrives unsolicited and asks for money or bank details, it is not a grant.
Calls open and close constantly, and funders change their submission rules mid-cycle. If you find a date that has moved, a call we have missed, or an entry that is wrong, tell us the call name and where you saw it and we will fix it.
If there is a disease area or a funder you want tracked here — nutrition, NCDs, mental health, One Health, a national research council — say so and we will add the section.
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