Through this experience, we hope you can:
understand how grant funding decisions are made to ensure we fund the best quality research
develop your own successful research proposals in the future
help develop your skills as peer reviewers
have the opportunity to give feedback to us to help improve our review processes.
We welcome expressions of interest from early- to mid-career cancer researchers* based in the UK** who are potential applicants to one of our award schemes in the next 2 years.
We particularly welcome applications from researchers from ethnic minority groups, women and non-binary researchers and researchers who are disabled or have a long-term health condition.
You do not need to be funded by us to apply. However, you would be expected to apply for future funding from us. For those applicants who hold one of our awards: priority will be given to award holders in the final two years of their award. Please note that when applying for any of our funding schemes, you would need to meet the full eligibility criteria as required by the funding scheme guidelines.
*Currently ineligible: non-clinical PhD students and senior or established investigators.
**For confidentiality reasons, this opportunity is only open for researchers based at a UK host institution. If your current institution is based outside the UK but you’re planning to move to a UK host institution, you will need to provide us with a letter of support from the new UK host institution to be eligible for this observer opportunity.
Places will be allocated first to researchers who fall within our priority groups and then on a first-come, first-served basis.
We will try and allocate you a place based on the award you’re interested in applying for, however, places are very limited and we cannot guarantee specific panels or committees. This also applies if you fall within one of the priority groups.
If you’re allocated a place, we will contact you and ask you to complete a confidentiality agreement and declare any potential conflicts of interest. If you’re not allocated a place, you’ll be added to a waiting list, and we’ll be back in touch to check if you’re still interested in the future.
Please note that the same priority groupings apply to our waiting list and we cannot guarantee a place at a future committee or panel meeting.
We are currently inviting observers for the following meetings:
Research Careers Committee - Expert Review Panels (meetings in spring and autumn)
Early Detection and Diagnosis Research Committee (meetings in spring and autumn)
Prevention and Population Research Committee (meetings spring and autumn)
Discovery Research Committee – Expert Review Panels (meetings spring and autumn)
Clinical Research Committee – Expert Review Panels (meetings in spring, summer and autumn)
Our research careers programme managers are here to help our research community and advise researchers who are interested in making an application. Email us to access support.
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