Data for Children’s and Young People’s Cancer Pilot Award

About this scheme

Key information

Career level
Early career researcher
Established independent researcher
Industry researcher
Clinician
Health professional
Non-clinical researcher
Nurse
Research area
Cancer biology
Engineering
Physics
Drug discovery
Drug development
Biomarker research
Clinical trials
Pre-clinical research
Early diagnosis
Epidemiology
Cancer prevention
Statistics and methodology
Funding period
Up to 24 months
Funding amount
Up to £250k
Supports data-driven research questions to develop new, scalable and generalisable solutions to common challenges in children’s and young people's cancers.

Applications for this award are currently closed.

We encourage applications from multi-disciplinary teams across a broad range of fields, including but not limited to:  

  • Biomedicine  
  • Engineering  
  • Physics  
  • Statistics   
  • Mathematics  
  • Informatics  
  • Computer and Data Sciences   

We will accept applications from independent early career researchers to established senior researchers.  

Applicants are not required to have previous experience within cancer research, but cancer expertise within the team is strongly encouraged, and a clear link between the proposed project, children's and young people's cancers, and the generation of data and/or data resources is required. 

Scientific Remit 

This scheme builds on our research strategy that’s putting discovery at the heart of the research that we fund, the foundations of the Research Data Strategy and identified challenges facing the children's and young people's cancer community, such as collection of routine clinical data and linkage across datasets. Applications to this Award can include both the creation of new data and/or the use of existing data, development of data tools, consent and governance methods, or analytical approaches. The Award may also support the creation of new collaborations/consortia.  

Research areas that could be considered include, but are not limited to:  

  • Generating or uniting research data to characterise and identify key features of critical biological differences between children's and young people's cancers and cancers in adults, with the potential of discovering novel druggable targets and pathways to develop more effective children's and young people's cancer-specific treatments.    
  • Data-driven approaches using genomic data to understand the penetrance of germline mutations in children's and young people's cancers.  
  • Generating or uniting research data to exploring lead time bias in relapse and improved prediction (e.g. based on machine learning approaches) of high-risk children's and young people's cancer patients.  
  • Generating or uniting long-term quality of life data in survivors of children's and young people's cancer with their treatment data in order to be able to guide treatment with long term impact in mind. 

You can apply for up to £250,000 through a Data for Children’s and Young People’s Cancer (D4CYP) Pilot Award. Funding lasts up to 24 months. The Award can:

  • fund pilot experiments to generate new data and associated running costs.
  • support cleaning, annotation, curation, linking or storage of existing data, as well as facilitation of data sharing.
  • cover the cost of travel and meeting organisation between existing and new collaborators.
  • cover the cost of relevant training courses or visits to other labs to learn new techniques which would strengthen data science skills. 

How to apply to this scheme

Application process 

*Applications are now closed*

  1. You have the option to contact the Cancer Research UK office for an informal and confidential discussion of your proposal. We will advise you on eligibility (this is not compulsory; however, it is highly recommended).  

  1. You can open an application through our Flexi-Grant system. Please ensure you complete all online sections of the application and upload the required documents. 

  1. Following submission, applications will be considered by an external Expert Review Panel who will make recommendations to Cancer Research UK’s Scientific Executive Board, who will make the funding decisions.

 

Before you begin your application

You must read: 

An Expert Review Panel comprised of researchers with relevant children's and young people's cancer and data science expertise will judge your proposal on:   

Scientific excellence and novelty – all applications should be based on a strong scientific rationale and seeking to address a research question in children's and young people's cancers. Where experimental work is proposed, the experimental design must be robust and include novel and innovative approaches to data collection, use and re-use.   

Children and young people’s cancer relevance – value of the proposed work in advancing the understanding of children's and young people's cancers, their detection, treatment, and/or outcomes. Applicants should identify how the proposed work addresses key research and data challenges facing the children's and young people's cancer community.  

Legacy of data, data tools, and data sharing – successful applicants will become part of a Cancer Research UK-supported network of funded children's and young people's data-driven cancer researchers and therefore proposals should detail plans how they will create and share data, data tools, or other resources that will benefit the wider international children's and young people's cancer research landscape.      

Excellent team and collaborative environment – suitability and feasibility of the Lead Applicant/s and supporting researchers to carry out the proposed research with access to the resources and facilities required for the successful fulfilment of the award. It is important to demonstrate the added value of the proposed collaboration and the individual contributions, as well as the steps taken to ensure effective collaboration.   

Resources requested – the cost requested in an application should be the direct costs of the research and reasonably justified in line with the plan of the proposal, be that experimental plans, data access or curation, or relating to collaborative travel or training, leveraging existing resources where appropriate. 

Cancer Research UK contact details

For questions regarding the Research Data Strategy, please contact Dr Alexis Webb (alexis.webb@cancer.org.uk), Research Programme Manager for the Research Data Strategy 

For questions regarding the Children's and Young People's Cancer Research Strategy, please contact Dr Laura Danielson (laura.danielson@cancer.org.uk), Children’s and Young People’s Cancer Research Lead 

Please refer to the 'How to apply to this scheme tab' for further details for the current funding round. 

Our research data strategy

Collage image of woman working on tablet, patient receiving an infusion, screen with a scan. Blue background with small pink, blue and grey dots.

Our new Research Data Strategy will unleash the potential of data science to help build a better future for people affected by cancer.

Read our data research strategy

Disability and accessibility support

We offer additional support for grant applicants and grant holders who are disabled or have a long-term health condition. 

Read our guidance

Statement of Intent for Children’s and Young People’s Cancer Research

Cancer Research UK for children and young people logo

How we intend to support researchers to drive progress in children’s and young people’s cancer research.

Read more

Events and conferences

We know how important opportunities for networking and collaboration are, and we run a number of events for our funded researchers and the wider cancer research community. These include our flagship international conferences in the priority fields of early detection, brain tumours, lung cancer and oesophageal cancer.

Browse upcoming events