Action Medical Research

The charity funds medical research targeting childhood diseases, physical health conditions, and disabilities affecting children and young people. Supported work includes laboratory research, clinical trials, and translational studies that turn scientific discoveries into real-world treatments. Grants cover salaries, equipment, research costs, and training for both project grants and research training fellowships. All funded work must take place within the UK, and the charity supports research across a wide range of paediatric conditions, from rare diseases to common childhood illnesses, with an emphasis on conditions that have significant unmet medical needs.

Applications are accepted from UK-based hospitals, universities, and research institutes. For project grants, applicants and co-applicants must be employed in these settings. Research training fellowships are hosted in university departments, teaching hospitals, or other recognised research centres within the UK. The charity welcomes unsolicited applications and supports both established scientists and early-career researchers through its fellowship programme. Beneficiaries of the funded research are children and young people across the UK.

The charity does not fund service provision, audit studies, higher education courses, medical or dental electives, work undertaken outside the UK, indirect costs, advertising or recruitment costs, top-up funding, conference attendance, general appeals from other charities, complementary or alternative medicine research, training for clinical staff, social research, or very basic research with little likelihood of clinical impact. Core costs are also excluded from both project grants and fellowships.

Action Medical Research provides multi-year grants for up to three years duration. They accept unsolicited applications and do not require match funding. The charity funds both project grants and research training fellowships, supporting a range of research activities from laboratory science to clinical trials. Their funding is awarded through a competitive peer-review process that prioritises scientific rigour and potential patient impact.