Funding available to accelerate innovation in the battle against COVID-19

Updated 1st July 2020

If you are taking up this challenge and looking for some additional funding, you may be able to find assistance from one of the following:-

Innovate UK

Sustainable Innovation Fund Round 1 (temporary framework)– an investment of up to £55m to fund single and collaborative research and development projects to help organisations across the economy recover from Covid-19 in a clean and resilient way.  Each organisation working alone or in a collaboration can claim a maximum of £175,000. For more details and a link to register for the competition briefing at 09:30 on 3 July, click here.

Deadline =  29 July.

Sustainable Innovation Fund SBRI phase 1 – larger clean-tech projects of up to £3m that are pathfinders to the UK’s net-zero ambitions.  Phase 1 will focus on exploring the feasibility of proposals. Phase 2 will concentrate on continued research, development and testing. Only successful applicants from phase 1 will be able to apply to take part in phase 2.  Phase 1 projects total costs are a maximum of £60,000. . For more details about the competition, the virtual marketplace to help collaborators connect and a link to join the competition briefing at 11:00 on 2 July, click here.

Deadline = 5 August

European Commission

The Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, under the LIFE programme, invites applications for its integrated projects call. This supports the implementation of large territorial scale environmental and climate plans or strategies within the EU. Integrated projects should aim towards the full implementation of the targeted plan or strategy. All applicants are encouraged to look at their project idea and identify any element that could potentially improve the collective ability to avoid a crisis similar to COVID-19 outbreak in the future. Projects can financially support small, local initiatives. UK-based legal persons are eligible to participate under this call.

Deadline = 6 October 2020

European Spallation Source

The Deuteration & Macromolecular Crystallisation (DEMAX) platform at ESS is offering prioritised access to laboratory services for scientists and researchers working on COVID-19-related research projects.

IBM

https://callforcode.org/challenge/

Call for Code asks innovators to create practical, effective, and high-quality applications based on one or more IBM Cloud™ services (for example, web, mobile, data, analytics, AI, IoT, or weather) that can have an immediate and lasting impact on humanitarian issues. Teams of developers, data scientists, designers, business analysts, subject matter experts and more are challenged to build solutions to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and climate change.

NIH

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-HL-20-757.html

NHLBI is issuing this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) to highlight the urgent need for research on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and on biological effects of its causative agent, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Topics of specific interest to NHLBI include host response, associations with heart, lung, and blood (HLB) diseases, potential impacts on transfusion safety, and clinical outcomes of infected individuals.

Deadline = 6 October 2020

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-TR-20-012.html

National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is issuing this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) to highlight the urgent need for research on the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease it causes, i.e., “coronavirus disease 2019” (COVID-19). NCATS is particularly interested in projects that repurpose existing drugs or biologics (existing therapeutics) that have already begun or completed a Phase I clinical trial.

Deadline = 17 October 2020

COVID-19 HPC Consorium

The COVID-19 HPC Consortium encompasses computing capabilities from some of the most powerful and advanced computers in the world. We hope to empower researchers around the world to accelerate understanding of the COVID-19 virus and the development of treatments and vaccines to help address infections. Consortium members manage a range of computing capabilities that span from small clusters to some of the very largest supercomputers in the world.

Moz://a

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/03/31/moss-launches-covid-19-solutions-fund/

As part of the COVID-19 Solutions Fund, Moz://a will accept applications that are hardware (e.g., an open source ventilator), software (e.g., a platform that connects hospitals with people who have 3D printers who can print parts for that open source ventilator), as well as software that solves for secondary effects of COVID-19 (e.g., a browser plugin that combats COVID related misinformation).

Open Road Alliance

https://openroadalliance.org/covid-19/

For organizations engaging in direct COVID-19 response. We will prioritize organizations and activities that have a clear and direct role in ‘flattening the curve’ and thus limiting, shortening, or minimizing the economic and social, as well as health effects of the pandemic.

UKRI

https://www.ukri.org/funding/funding-opportunities/ukri-open-call-for-research-and-innovation-ideas-to-address-covid-19/apply-to-switch-your-existing-funding-to-covid-19-priority-areas/

The UKRI are putting together processes to allow researchers to repurpose existing UKRI standard grant to address COVID-19 research priorities.

Welcome Trust

https://wellcome.ac.uk/grant-funding/schemes/epidemic-preparedness-covid-19

Currently closed, but under review so watch this space.