Open Grant Calls

Our 2026 grant round will be announced soon. If you would like to receive information about our funding calls please sign up to our mailing list.

We are pleased to announce that we have partnered with the Medical Research Council (MRC) as part of their Clinical Research Training Fellowship Scheme. As part of this partnership, we will jointly award up to one clinical research training fellowship per year. The MRC accept applications throughout the year, see upcoming opening and deadline dates below:

This award is to support clinicians from relevant specialities looking to develop their long-term academic careers in the field of neuromuscular research.

How to apply

The clinical research training fellowships are administered through the MRC. As part of the application process, applicants must choose Muscular Dystrophy UK as a joint funder. For more information on the funding call and how to apply please visit the MRC’s website.

We support events that will facilitate communication and collaboration in the global scientific community to ensure researchers share their knowledge and expertise. To do this the charity is offering three types of conference support grant, as follows.

1. Funding for conference organisers to allow researchers/speakers to attend your conference

Funds will be available for UK-based researchers to attend your conference. Applications are welcome for travel to conferences and hotel costs up to £500 per person for UK based conferences or £1000 per person for international conferences. Funding will be capped at £2500.

2. Conference grants

We will provide funding of up to £2,000 to support the cost of research conferences (scientific and/or clinical) where either the whole event or specific sessions are relevant to one or more of our research aims and priorities. The charity may consider funding above this level in exceptional circumstances; if you are considering this please contact researchgrants@musculardystrophyuk.org in the first instance.

3. Specialist workshop grants

We will provide funding of up to £1,000 to support the cost of small or specialist workshops (scientific and/or clinical), on topics of relevance to one or more of our research aims and priorities. This funding is to support multi-institution events to facilitate knowledge exchange in as wide an audience as possible; single institution events will not be considered for funding.

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• The aims of the event should be in line with our research strategy, and should meet important need(s) of the research community.
• The applicant must be one of the conference organisers and must be part of a formally constituted group or society or an employee of a research institution.
• The event can take place in the UK or overseas. Events taking place overseas must be international in nature. They must include collaborators from within the UK (although the organisers may be outside the UK) unless you are requesting costs for speakers only in which case only the speakers must be UK-based.
• The events should be open to all researchers, clinicians and/or allied healthcare professionals. Grants for closed meetings, organised by invitation only, will only be made in exceptional cases. Such applications must be supported by a statement justifying the reasons for the closed nature of the meeting, which will be assessed on a case-by-case basis by our research team and other advisors of the charity (such as the Medical Research Committee and the Lay Research Panel) if appropriate.
• The organisation and planning of the event must take into consideration the patient voice and, where appropriate, involve at least one of the following: individual(s) affected by the condition, Muscular Dystrophy UK staff and/or healthcare practitioners.
• The event must ensure that early career researchers are prominently represented and wherever possible, have an active role in the event.

These grants are awarded on a first-come-first served basis, provided that applicants meet the eligibility criteria.

If you are interested in applying for a conference support grant, please request a form by emailing researchgrants@musculardystrophyuk.org quoting “conference support grant” in the title of your email. The form contains conditions of the grant and details of how to apply.