Cancer Grand Challenges | 2025 call
Event details
| Date | 18.06.2025 |
| Category | Call for proposal |
Aim: Cancer Grand Challenges is a global funding platform founded in 2020 by Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute in the US to support and accelerate high-impact cancer research and translational discoveries for public and patient benefit.
The programme seeks to catalyze a focused multinational, interdisciplinary research effort, bringing together new thinking, innovation, technology and expertise - including from non-traditional disciplines - in a way that is not already happening.
The 2025 Call for Applications is now open and is inviting Expressions of Interest against seven new grand challenges:
Duration: project specific
Eligibility: Teams must be international in nature, with no more than 70% of the activity (and funding) being based in a single country. There is no requirement for teams to be led by, or comprise team members, who are based in the UK or US. Teams should include one Team Lead and up to seven Co-Investigators. Applications are welcomed from teams working across a breadth of disciplines, including but not limited to: the biomedical sciences; software development and technology; engineering and physical sciences; and behavioural, health, population and social sciences.
How to Apply: EOIs will be submitted through Cancer Research UK’s grants management system, Flexi-Grant. Before receiving access to the EOI form, the team lead must submit a short eligibility questionnaire. Full information available here
Deadline Expression of Interest: 18 June 2025
Further information
The programme seeks to catalyze a focused multinational, interdisciplinary research effort, bringing together new thinking, innovation, technology and expertise - including from non-traditional disciplines - in a way that is not already happening.
The 2025 Call for Applications is now open and is inviting Expressions of Interest against seven new grand challenges:
- Challenge 1: AI-human collaborations in cancer - to develop interdisciplinary AI agents that can generate novel cancer research hypotheses and design research plans for them to be experimentally validated.
- Challenge 2: Cancer avoidance - to understand the mechanisms by which certain high-risk populations or the extremely aged are resistant to developing cancer.
- Challenge 3: The dark proteome - to understand and exploit the dark proteome for cancer therapy.
- Challenge 4: Mechanisms driving mutational signatures - to identify the insults responsible for unexplained mutational signatures.
- Challenge 5: The nervous system and cancer - to understand the dynamic interactions between the nervous system and cancer.
- Challenge 6: Rewiring cancer cells - to develop and apply novel ways to rewire cancer cells to their disadvantage.
- Challenge 7: TME dynamics - to develop methods to identify the functional role of the tumour microenvironment over time.
Duration: project specific
Eligibility: Teams must be international in nature, with no more than 70% of the activity (and funding) being based in a single country. There is no requirement for teams to be led by, or comprise team members, who are based in the UK or US. Teams should include one Team Lead and up to seven Co-Investigators. Applications are welcomed from teams working across a breadth of disciplines, including but not limited to: the biomedical sciences; software development and technology; engineering and physical sciences; and behavioural, health, population and social sciences.
How to Apply: EOIs will be submitted through Cancer Research UK’s grants management system, Flexi-Grant. Before receiving access to the EOI form, the team lead must submit a short eligibility questionnaire. Full information available here
Deadline Expression of Interest: 18 June 2025
Further information
- More information about the program is available here
- The application portal can be found here
- For any other questions, please contact the Research Office
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Contact
- research@epfl.ch