Mental Health & Wellbeing Catalyst Grants 2024-2025

UCL’s Grand Challenge of Mental Health & Wellbeing (GC MHW) welcomes applications for “catalyst” funding of up to £10,000 per project to support cutting-edge research and innovation in that crosses disciplinary boundaries and focuses on bringing discovery to practice. 

Projects should represent impactful catalytic work that can lead that enable interdisciplinary connections, trial new approaches, and preparation for large-scale research bids.

The call is specifically designed to support early and early mid-career staff. Applications should be led by an early career researcher (PhD student, post-doctoral researcher, or faculty member/fellowship holder within eight years of PhD graduation or six years of their first academic appointment). Later career academics can be involved as co-applicants.

Applications should be aligned with the key focus of GC MHW – improving mental health and wellbeing via prevention and early intervention. We define intervention as any systematic effort to bring about an improvement in the mental health and/or wellbeing of individuals or groups of individuals. 

Both basic and applied academic work that is critical for helping identify potential mechanisms for or testing preventative or early interventions will be considered and we strongly encourage applications from across different UCL faculties. 

UCL Grand Challenges uses ‘interdisciplinarity’ to mean collaboration between experts in different fields that cuts across traditional subject areas. We see interdisciplinary research as the effort to solve problems in an innovative way through the integration of skills and/or approaches from different disciplines.

• Funding

Applications for projects costing up to £10,000 will be considered under this call. In total, it is anticipated 8-10 projects will be awarded funding. Funding must be spent by 31st July 2025 – any unspent funds will be returned to UCL Finance at the end of the grant. 

Salary costs for research assistant staff are eligible, but contributions towards salary costs for contracted UCL staff members are not. A brief report of all expenditures must be submitted, alongside as an impact report.

• Eligibility

First Applicants must be UCL staff – either researchers in academic Faculties or Professional Services. 

Second Applicants can be UCL staff/PhD students and / or external partners. There is no limit to the number of secondary applicants and we therefore strongly encourage involvement of more than one UCL department/faculty, as well as consideration of external partners were appropriate. Applications that only involve one UCL department/faculty are extremely unlikely to receive funding and must justify how they meet interdisciplinary remit of the call.

•    The team must comprise at least one early career researcher (PhD student, post-doctoral researcher, or faculty member/fellowship holder within eight years of PhD graduation or within six years of their first academic appointment). 

• How to Apply

1. Read the

   full guidance and eligibility criteria for the call.

   full guidance and eligibility criteria for the call.
2. Please complete a

   short application form

   short application form
   and then submit your proposal using the online form. 

Please Note: Applications must be made using the online system. Emailed applications will not be accepted.

If you have any questions, or require the form in an alternative format, please email Jade Hunter (jade.hunter@ucl.ac.uk)