Research project grants

Dr Ben Caplin at the UCL Medical School Royal Free, London

Research project and start-up grants

We are the largest kidney research charity dedicated to kidney research in the UK. We fund high-quality, patient-focused research to prevent kidney disease, protect kidney function and improve treatments. Our Research Strategy to 2030 outlines our three strategic priorities and what we want to achieve through research in the next ten years or sooner.

Our hybrid grants programme is one of the many ways we fund and facilitate high-quality research. Through our research project and start-up grants, we invest in studies with strong scientific rationale, clear objectives and the potential to deliver meaningful impact for patients.

Whether you are developing a new research idea or advancing existing work, these grants provide flexible support to generate new knowledge, inform clinical practice, or lay the foundations for future innovation.

If you have a project that can contribute to transforming kidney health, we encourage you to apply.

Read our research strategy

Does your proposal align to our research priorities?

Following the findings from our report into the health economics of kidney disease the need to support high-quality, innovative research in this area has never been clearer. 

We are looking for research proposals aligned to our areas of interest that align with our overarching goals of prevent, protect and treat, and we intend to make at least one award in each area. Within your application, we will ask how your proposal aligns with these.

Transforming treatments

We will find ways to make kidney transplants last longer, dialysis more tolerable, reduce the burden of treatment and monitoring, and improve quality of life for people living with kidney disease. We will harness and develop technology to enable people to take control of their kidney health.

We are particularly interested in receiving grant applications that address these themes:

Bringing kidney treatment closer to home: This could relate to novel technologies that improve dialysis or digital technologies that help reduce the number of visits to healthcare professionals.

Change conversations: This could relate to shared decision making and education

Improve treatment access and equity: Making sure everyone gets the treatment they need regardless of location or background

Address complications associated with renal replacement therapies: This could relate to co-occurring conditions or complications of renal replacement therapy.

Multiple health conditions

We will investigate how kidney disease is linked to other multiple long-term conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, obesity and liver disease. Under the holistic area of cardiovascular, renal and metabolic conditions, we would welcome applications to better understand the interplay between these conditions. With a focus on cardiovascular disease and kidney disease to reveal the pathways linking these conditions, and improvements in prevention and earlier detection of kidney disease and subsequent management of multiple long-term conditions.

We are keen receive applications for grants that address our recently published research recommendations in diabetic kidney disease which was created jointly with Diabetes UK and Breakthrough type 1 diabetes with focuses on understanding causal mechanisms, improving prevention and diagnosis, addressing health inequalities, improving care and supporting self-management, for patients and their carers.

Health equalities

We will highlight the inequalities of kidney disease; we will investigate why some groups of people are more at risk of kidney disease, and progress to kidney failure much faster. We will press for greater diversity in kidney research, so that discoveries benefit everyone.

We are keen to receive proposals that address kidney health inequalities, particularly those research evidence gaps that have emerged from the Time to Act: A new review of kidney health inequalities report launched in July 2024.

Mental health

Kidneys and cancer

We welcome grant applications addressing kidneys and cancer.

We are particularly interested in receiving applications that address the following overarching priorities:

reducing the number of people developing kidney cancer

prevent kidney damage due to cancer treatment

reducing the risk of cancer due to treatment of kidney disease

We are interested in projects that will improve the earlier detection, diagnosis and treatment of kidney cancers, reduce nephrotoxicity caused by chemotherapy, and investigate cancers associated with immunotherapy and post-transplant immunosuppression (such as skin cancer and lymphoma)

Types of grants available

We are open for all grant types, career development and research project and start-up submissions in this round.

For innovative standalone research projects that will advance our knowledge of kidney disease and refine current treatments or lead to new ones.

Funding available: up to £250k
Funding period: three years maximum

Start-up grants

For investigating new hypotheses around the kidney that lack any significant existing research prior to a full research project.

Funding available: up to £40k
Funding period: over two years maximum

Expression of interest information

Information of eligibility, grant regulations and conditions, and opening and closing dates for submissions.

We are pleased to invite expressions of interest from teams or individuals whose proposals directly address our immediate research priorities, and who seek initial or further support to establish their research career.

We are keen to encourage applications from new investigators who have not previously held competitively awarded project or start-up funding as a principal investigator.

Expression of interest applications will not be eligible for submission where:

the lead applicant already holds three or more concurrent active Kidney Research UK awards, excluding PhD Studentships and Start-up awards
the lead applicant may only submit one grant type expression of interest application in any twelve month period.

Both scientific and lay summaries will be used to assess each submission. Consideration will be given to how closely the proposal matches to our immediate research priorities and all submissions will be ranked according to their potential to deliver against these.

All applicants must be resident in the United Kingdom and the research must take place in a UK establishment.

Successful applicants will be invited to submit a full application in due course. This invitation is no guarantee of funding which will be competitively awarded. Only applications invited to the second stage will be considered. Full application invited from 8 September and closes 20 October.

We welcome pre-submission enquiries. You can find more information about our grants in our regulations and conditions.

Regulations and conditions

Open for expression of interest: 30 June 2025

Closes for applications: 11 August 2025

Apply now

What difference can our funding make to your research?

"Funding has enabled me to set up preliminary data to apply for intermediate fellowship applications and enabled me to be more competitive in these applications."

Dr Soma Meran, innovation grant recipient

Got a question? Get in touch.

If you have a question or would like further information contact:

Grants@kidneyresearchuk.org

Dr Aisling McMahon: 01733 367935

Elaine Davies: 01733 367 835

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Research project grants

Research project and start-up grants

Does your proposal align to our research priorities?

Types of grants available