2024 Wellcome Trust Mental Health Award: Understanding how anxiety- and trauma-related problems develop, persist and resolve


Descriptions

Opportunity type:

Grant

Sponsor:

Wellcome Trust

Award amount and duration:

Up to £4 million for up to 5 years

Eligibility

Type:
Faculty

Who can apply

You can apply to this call if you are a team of researchers: 

Wellcome Trust encourages applications from: 

  • diverse and interdisciplinary teams, with collaborations covering multiple areas of expertise (for example, biological, psychological and social)
  • researchers at any stage of their career, including early career researchers and/or those who are new to the field of mental health science. 

Each application should include the necessary team expertise and organisational support to answer the proposed research question(s). The contribution of each coapplicant (and collaborator, if applicable) to the project should be justified. Teams may want to consider involving people with lived experience of mental health problems in the project team, as lead applicants, coapplicants and/or collaborators. 

When research occurs in more than one location, applications must include coapplicants based in each country where the research will take place. If the proposed research is planned to take place only in a low- or middle-income country, the lead applicant must be affiliated with an eligible organisation based in that country. For all collaborations, Wellcome Turst expects applicants to demonstrate how they will approach ethical and equitable partnerships, including how this will be approached in partnerships between low- and middle-income country researchers and high-income country researchers.  

Each application can only have one named lead applicant, who would be accountable for the delivery of grant activities, the financial management of the award and compliance with Wellcome’s grant conditions in the event of a successful application. The management of the project locally is at the discretion of the applicants and could include co-leads to ensure equity, where justified (for example, across high-income and low- and middle-income countries). 

Summary

Wellcome’s mental health strategic aim is to drive a transformative change in our ability to intervene as early as possible in the course of anxiety, depression and psychosis, in ways that reflect the priorities and needs of people who experience these problems. This call will fund research that advances scientific understanding of the causal mechanisms through which brain, body and environment interact over time in the development, persistence and resolution of anxiety- and trauma-related disorders,, defined here to include: 

  • generalised anxiety disorder 
  • panic disorder 
  • social anxiety disorder 
  • all types of phobias 
  • obsessive-compulsive disorder 
  • post-traumatic stress disorder 
  • acute stress disorder 
  • transdiagnostic symptoms strongly associated with the above conditions (for example, threat hyperreactivity, repetitive negative thinking, etc.).  

Existing evidence suggests that many factors contribute to the development, persistence and resolution of anxiety-related problems. For example:

  • Genetics
  • Childhood maltreatment
  • Traumatic life experiences
  • Poverty
  • Negative social experiences such as bullying
  • Environmental exposures such as air pollution.

However, we know much less about the biological, psychological and social causal mechanisms underpinning how and why these factors influence the trajectory of these problems over time. With this funding opportunity, Wellcome Trust wants to move beyond correlational evidence to a deeper consideration of the causal mechanisms underpinning anxiety-related problems. This mechanistic understanding will help develop new and improved ways to predict, identify and intervene as early as possible.

Applications must focus on the causal mechanisms underlying the development, persistence and/or resolution of anxiety-related problems. Proposals do not need to focus on all three stages; they can focus on just one, two or three. The chosen causal factor(s) must be related to the trajectory (development, persistence and/or resolution) of anxiety-related problems. The proposal must define and justify why a particular causal factor is being investigated. Research proposals must use research design(s) that allow for the study of how anxiety-related problems develop, persist and/or resolve over time, and provide insights into the causal mechanism(s) explaining this change.  

Research proposals must address at least one of the two key priorities for this call:  

  1. Conduct research that examines questions at more than one level of explanation (for example, cellular, cognitive and environmental). 
  2. Conduct research within and/or across low- and middle-income countries to better understand how anxiety-related problems develop, persist and resolve over time in these environments. 

Research proposals must consider and clearly describe the potential impact of the proposed project and how, if successful, it would contribute to translational work (either directly or over time) supporting real-world application. Research proposals must demonstrate the involvement of lived experience expertise in their research, unless there is a strong justification for not doing so. Wellcome Trust is open to any methods of involvement that teams choose but it is crucial that lived experience experts are involved in the most appropriate and ethical ways to inform multiple aspects and stages of the research project.

Projects with human participants must use, as a minimum, one or more of our recommended common measures. This work must also comply with our policy on research involving human participants.  All projects must describe the relevant ethical, social and cultural implications of their proposed work.

Application Submission

The application process will be completed in three-stages:

1. Preliminary Application Stage. Applicants must complete a Preliminary Application Form. Please note that you will NOT be able to save your progress and return to the form later. Therefore, it is recommended that you prepare your preliminary application responses on a separate document (using the questions outlined in the Sample Preliminary Application), and then copy the information into the online form for submission.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit their Preliminary Application materials to the Research Services Office for review and approval prior to submitting their online form. Initiate University of Calgary internal approvals by completing a Pre-Award/Letter of Intent record in RMS (https://my.rms.ucalgary.ca/). Attach a copy of your complete preliminary application materials and submit for approvals. Please ensure that you allow time for academic approvals prior to the Research Services Office internal review deadline of 12:00pm MT, November 9, 2023.

2. Shortlisting Stage. At the shortlisting stage, Wellcome Trust staff and lived experience advisors will review your preliminary application. If shortlisted, Wellcome Trust will contact you the week commencing 18 December 2023 and invite you to submit a full application. All shortlisted applicants will receive feedback on their applications in early January 2024. No feedback will be offered if your preliminary application is not shortlisted.

3. Full Application Stage. Those invited to submit full applications will receive additional information from Wellcome Trust on how to complete their full application in the application portal. More information and guidance will be available after preliminary applications have closed. Applicants invited to submit full applications should email Chantal Lemire (chantal.lemire@ucalgary.ca) for additional information on the next stage of this competition.

Please note that applicants must obtain institutional approval from the University of Calgary in order to submit their application in the Wellcome Trust application portal. Initiate required University of Calgary internal approvals by completing a Pre-Award/Application record in RMS (https://my.rms.ucalgary.ca/). Attach a copy of your complete full application materials and submit for approvals. Please ensure that you allow time for academic approvals prior to the Research Services Office internal review deadline of 12:00pm MT, February 29, 2024.

Overhead

15% of direct research costs. Refer to the Wellcome Trust Overhead Policy.


Deadlines

Pre-application deadlines

RSO internal deadline

Type:
LOI
Date:
November 9, 2023 - 12:00 PM

Pre-application program deadline

Date:
November 14, 2023 - 11:00 AM

Application deadlines

RSO detailed review deadline

Date:
February 20, 2024 - 12:00 PM

RSO final internal review deadline

Date:
February 29, 2024 - 12:00 PM

Program application deadline

Date:
March 5, 2024 - 11:00 AM

Approvals

NOTE: Consult your Faculty Associate Dean (Research) (ADR) regarding Faculty-specific deadlines and submission processes.

Principal Investigators: Complete a Research Management System (RMS) record, including a copy of your complete application, and submit this for approvals in RMS.

Postdocs, students, and trainees: For fellowships and externally-sponsored research training awards or opportunities, you must complete the Research Funding Application Approval (RFAA) Trainee PDF form, and submit it, along with a complete copy of the application, to Research Services at rsotrainee@ucalgary.ca. Trainees should not use RMS at this time.

Approvals: The University of Calgary requires that all funding applications be approved prior to submission. Approval requires signatures via either RMS or the RFAA Trainee form, in the following order:

  • Principal Investigator
  • Department Head
  • Faculty ADR/Dean
  • Research Services (on behalf of the Vice-President Research)

Read the Meaning of Grant Signatures policy to understand what your approval means. Please see the agency guidelines for details about which signatures are required on your application, as it may differ from internal requirements.

Late submissions: Late submissions will only be accepted in cases of medical or family emergencies, or other exceptional circumstances. If you submit your RMS record to Research Services after the internal deadline has passed, you must secure additional approvals. Please read: Late Applications Process.



Contact Details


Keywords

2024 Wellcome Trust Mental Health Award: Understanding how anxiety- and trauma-related problems develop, persist and resolve
Wellcome Trust
International Foundations