RSTMH awards £100,000 in small grants and travel/training scholarships

We are delighted to announce that we have awarded just under £100,000 in small grants and travel/training scholarships to early-career investigators in the UK and overseas.

Our aim in this grants round was to support early-career clinicians and scientists in all disciplines of tropical medicine and global health, including the relationship between human health and animal health, in the pursuit of themes of clinical or scientific research or fieldwork. We were particularly looking to fund projects with a strong element of creativity and/or innovation that would have benefits beyond the academic community and will make a tangible and measurable difference.

We offered two programmes; a travel and training scholarships programme (up to £1,000) and a small grants programme (up to £5,000) such as pump-priming grants, pilot studies or discrete elements within larger projects,

We received over 110 applications and after two stages of screening and assessment, the Grants Panel recommended to the Trustees 20 travel/training scholarships totalling just under £20,000 and 16 small grants totalling just under £80,000 for funding. The full list of awards can be downloaded here.

On hearing of her £5,000 award  for her project entitled 'Investigation and exploitation of exosomes to improve vaccines for emerging viral infections' Dr Lynda Coughlan, a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Oxford said:

"Supporting postdocs to develop their own research ideas enables us to generate preliminary data for future independent funding applications, factors which are critical to our career development. It is fantastic that RSTMH are supportive of scientists at an early career stage. I am positive that this small grant will have a significant impact on the success of my project!"

The staff and Trustees congratulate all this year's successful applicants and look forward to hearing about their progress over the coming months. The next grants round will open in September 2016.