Infectious Disease Clinical Trial Award: Optimising interventions for impact

This funding call will support transdisciplinary teams led from Africa, South Asia or South-East Asia to conduct randomised controlled trials that optimise licensed pharmaceutical interventions for infectious diseases.

The clinical trial should generate evidence to inform changes to policy, practice and guidelines, and lead to measurable impact in the communities most affected, ultimately improving the treatment and prevention of infectious diseases in low- and middle-income countries.

Funding Organization: Wellcome Trust in partnership with UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)

Scope: The pharmaceutical intervention (vaccine or therapeutic) must focus on one of the following disease areas:

• mycobacterial infections (tuberculosis, leprosy or infections with non-tuberculous mycobacteria)

• bacterial infections (sexually transmitted infections, lower respiratory tract infections or bloodstream infections)

• invasive fungal infections

• dengue, leishmaniasis or schistosomiasis  

Eligibility: The lead applicant and at least one coapplicant must be based in Africa, South Asia, or South-East Asia, and remain resident in that country for the duration of the award, at least 50 percent of applicants. Teams may include coapplicants based at eligible organizations in other parts of the world, apart from mainland China.

Maximum Award: Between 1,000,000 GBP – 8,000,000 GBP for 3 to 5 years. Up to 12 awards will be provided.

Application Process: Applications must be submitted to the Wellcome Funding platform (https://funding.wellcome.org). The funding webinar will be held on 23 March 2026 at 10am GMT (5PM in Bangkok). Register for the webinar at: https://wellcome-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_28MyEY2VSiOlEQ4qrgVbLg#/registration

Application Deadline: 2 June 2026

Further information: https://wellcome.org/research-funding/schemes/infectious-disease-clinical-trial-award-optimising-interventions-impact

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For more information, please contact

Ms. Panida Suwannatheerak and Ms. Mananchaya Pissaparn

Tel. 0-2470-9654

Email: researchfollowup@kmutt.ac.th