Early Career Grants Programme Pause: FAQs
The Board of Trustees at the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene recently announced a pause to the 2026 Early Career Grants Programme. This decision was made as a result of a grants consultation that was conducted in 2025.
Please see below for FAQs about this decision, the grants consultation and what’s next for the Programme.
What is the Early Career Grants Programme?
The RSTMH Early Career Grants Programme (ECGP) provides grants to individual researchers – early in their research careers and from anywhere in the world – to carry out their first piece of research into tropical medicine or global health. The ECGP has been established for more than 40 years and has seen significant growth in recent years. In 2025, we received 3,663 applications.
Submissions are assessed by a network of voluntary Global Assessors and undergo due diligence checks before our list of awardees is confirmed. The grants are up to £5,000 each and are paid to researchers directly. Awardees have one year to conduct their research, and they report to RSTMH on their progress and results throughout. In the last 10 years we have given out more than 1,000 awards across over 70 countries.
Who has funded the Early Career Grants Programme?
The ECGP would not have been possible without the support of our donor partners, including the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), Wellcome, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), The International Alliance for the Control of Scabies (IACS), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), and The Journal of Comparative Pathology Educational Trust (JCPET).
What is the grants consultation?
Given the enormous growth in applications to the Programme, RSTMH decided to conduct a Grants Consultation in 2024. The aim of this Consultation was to assess the value of the Grants Programme to awardees and to the community. We wanted to check whether changes needed to be made to the key features of the Programme, which had not been changed for many years, and to understand if additional support was needed to ensure the goals of the Programme – to grow skills and networks and improve careers for awardees – were being met.
The first part of the consultation was a survey completed by over 1,000 people.
- Over 90% of respondents felt the Early Career Grants Programme is extremely, or very, valuable.
- The majority (52%) of the respondents also said that the Programme needed some changes. The main areas they wanted to change were the size of award and the length of time given to complete the project.
Interviews conducted as part of the Consultation highlighted other areas of the Programme that could be improved. The results of the Consultation coincided with a change to the funding of the Programme and it is therefore an appropriate time for us to review the Early Career Grants Programme.
This review will provide the opportunity to make any changes needed to ensure it meets the strategic goals of RSTMH and delivers the best experience and career impact for awardees. The results of the Consultation also recommended that we review other areas of support alongside the grant offering, which will also be addressed as part of this review. Once this review is completed, we will be seeking funding for the Programme and other relevant activities.
When is the 2026 Programme opening?
We are not yet able to confirm when the Programme will reopen, but please do sign up to the newsletter to keep up to date with the latest news and any future announcements. We will share this news as soon as we are able to.
Will there be changes to the Programme when it is reopened?
Changes to the Programme have not yet been finalised, so we are currently unable to confirm this. We are working through the suggestions from the Grants Consultation and our own findings to make improvements to the Programme. We will share updates on this as soon as we are able to.
What other sources of funding are available?
Currently, the Early Career Grants Programme is RSTMH’s only grants initiative. Any changes to the existing Programme, or new opportunities for funding, will be announced in our newsletter and on our website.
In terms of external opportunities for funding, we recommend looking at portals and websites which list grants available. You could also visit our website grow to see a selection of the latest opportunities in global health.
I received a grant between 2020 – 2025. Does this affect my project?
No, any changes to the Programme going forward will not affect previous awardees.
I'm still waiting to hear about my application to the 2025 Programme. Does this affect my changes of receiving an award?
No, the pause to the 2026 Programme does not affect your existing application.
RSTMH already has a confirmed amount of funding available for the 2025 ECGP, so these changes will not impact any yet-to-be confirmed grants for 2025. We apologise for the delay in getting back to you on this – due to the unprecedented number of applications in 2025, we are still working through the applications to confirm final awards. We will be in touch as soon as possible.
Please note that if you have any questions not addressed by the above FAQ, you can email info [at] rstmh [dot] org. Please make sure your question is not answered by the above information before emailing RSTMH, because you will be redirected to this page if the information is already available.