Funding Options
How can I identify the best opportunities to financially support my research?
Key Points
- Financial support for research can help buy supplies and materials, pay staff and faculty for their time, support institutional overhead, and compensate research participants.
- Financial support for clinical health research typically comes through grants, which can be extramural (larger grants from outside of your home institution) or intramural (smaller grants from inside your own institution).
- The most common types of extramural grants include: 1) federal or government grants; 2) foundation/philanthropic grants; or 3) private industry grants, such as from pharmaceutical companies.
- Different funding sources have different application requirements. Sometimes these can be very complex. It is important to apply to grants that are a good match with the project goals and objectives.
Helpful Links, Videos and Online Courses
Overview
- Funding sources for research: A research primer for low- and middle-income countries
- This is a link to a very helpful overview paper that is part of an excellent 8-part ‘how-to’ series commissioned by the International Federation of Emergency Medicine. The content applies to many types of healthcare research in low and middle-income countries.
Videos
- Research career tips for researchers in low and middle-income countries
- This is an outstanding video from a physician in Africa who provides many practical suggestions for beginning researchers in low and middle-income countries, including how to find funding for research projects.
Other Links
- Grants & Funding: NIH Types of Grant Programs
- This website is fairly technical, but it describes the types of grants available through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest funder of biomedical research in the U.S.
- Finding Grants and Funding for Clinical Research
- This website provides a summary of different clinical research funding options, with a helpful section on ‘disease specific private grants,’ however some of the options may only apply to researchers in the U.S. (Note: this resource is from a private lab company.)
- NIHR: National Institute for Health Research
- This link describes a new funding program through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) in the United Kingdom to strengthen research capacity in low and middle-income countries, with a focus on establishing Global Health Research Centers in Non-Communicable Diseases.
- Research Funding and Grants Guide
- A nice and clear summary of different grant funding options. It is from the University of Michigan in the U.S., but it includes links to global funding directories.
Relevant Publications
- Cordero et al. (2008). Funding agencies in low and middle-income countries: Support for knowledge translation. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 86(7): 524-534.
- Note: this resource is a bit older (2008), but it is from the World Health Organization and lists international funding agencies and interviewed key members of the organizations for advice and suggestions. The tables are particularly helpful.
