Changes to the RSTMH Early Career Grants Programme
The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (RSTMH) announces a pause to the opening of its 2026 Early Career Grants Programme.
RSTMH has been providing grants for many decades. Since consolidating its named grant awards, with its own investment and support from donor partners, the Early Career Grants Programme, as it is now known, has grown from providing a handful of awards per year in 2019 to almost 300 in 2024. In 2025 the number of applications was over 3,500, which has increased from just over 200 in 2019. Over the last six years over 1,100 awards have been distributed, 49% of which were to women, and over 90% of which were to awardees based in LMICs.
We are very proud of the impact the Programme has had, and continues to have, on the careers of early career researchers and professionals around the world, in more than 100 countries. This growth 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). We are also very grateful to the network of voluntary Global Assessors who review the applications to the Programme. Without them, it would have been very difficult to maintain the quality of the Programme.
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 we review other areas of support alongside the grant offering, which will be done over the coming months. Once this review is completed, we will be seeking funding for the Programme and other relevant activities.
We do not currently know when we will open the Early Career Grants Programme for applications, but we hope it will be in 2026. If you would like to keep up to date with the latest news about the Early Career Grants Programme, please sign up to our newsletter where we will be sharing progress.
These changes to the Programme will not affect the awardees provided with grants in 2025, nor awardees from past years who are currently working on their projects. If you have any specific questions about this, please email info [at] rstmh [dot] org
RSTMH Board of Trustees