Career Acceleration Fellowships

Introduction

Call opening in March 2025.

These unique awards provide up to £350K of funding for the most promising early career postdoctoral researchers to pursue their own independent research goals, and accelerate their career trajectories to ultimately ensure they make the biggest impact for men affected by prostate cancer. 
 
These awards are designed to help you build a network outside of your home institution (and ideally outside the UK). It’s your opportunity to establish collaborations and learn new skills & techniques from the best research environments to help you carve out your own niche and become an independent leader in prostate cancer research. 

Remit & Eligibility

Applicants must be at least in their final year of their PhD and have at most 5 years’ post-doctoral experience, as of 1 October 2025. Career breaks will be taken into account.
Clinical researchers are no longer supported through this scheme, but are encouraged to get in touch with the office to discuss alternate routes of funding.
The host institution must be a recognised UK academic institution.
The duration of the fellowship must be between 3 to 4 years and projects must align with our research strategy.
Fellowships must include a collaboration with researchers at another institution, either within the UK or abroad. Physical placements are encouraged, but virtual or other ways to develop collaborations will also be considered. Collaborations should be strong enough for joint publications to be a potential output of this award.
Applicants will need to identify their Primary Mentor at their host institution as well as their Partnering Mentor(s) at the institution(s) they wish to collaborate with prior to submission. We strongly advise that the mentors provide advice for completion of the application.
Applicants can carry out the fellowship on a part-time basis, at a level no lower than 75% FTE.

Funding can be applied for:

• The salary of the Fellow
• Additional laboratory personnel support if required (e.g. laboratory technician time)
• Research consumables (that are direct costs of the project)
• Collaboration costs (including associated travel)
• Conference costs

We will not accept applications that are:

• Intended solely or primarily to fund the purchase of equipment
• From researchers based entirely outside the UK for the duration of the fellowship
• From clinical early career researchers
• Without a collaborative component
• From commercial organisations
• Outside the remit of our Research Strategy

Applications must be made using our online Grants Management System (CC Grant Tracker). Once registered with the system, you will have access to the application form. Further details can be found in the Applicant Guidance Notes.

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Public and Patient Involvement

We encourage applicants to actively involve patients and the public to help shape and deliver their research project from conception to the dissemination of results. The involvement of people affected by prostate cancer can lead to better quality applications and improved outcomes of research, thus resulting in applications that are more likely to receive funding. If you would like support to involve people affected by prostate cancer in your research, we can put you in contact with members of our Patient Representative Network.

Find out more

Application Guidance Documents

We strongly advise applicants to read all the accompanying Application and Finance Guidance Notes as these are specific to the funding round you are applying for. They are there to assist you with the completion of the application form.

Application Guidance Notes

Information on what to include in your CAF application form.

Important Guidance Notes - please read

Finance guidance notes

Funds must be in accordance with our current finance guidance.

Finance Guidance

Funding Terms & Conditions

PCUK Funding Terms and Conditions

Important: Please read

Assessment Process

Deadline: Prospective Fellows must submit their application and make sure that all online declarations and approvals have been completed by the relevant parties before 1pm on 27 May 2025.
Peer Review: Submitted applications will then be subject to external peer review (in line with AMRC guidance). The peer reviewers' comments will be sent to the applicants (anonymously) via our online system.
Shortlisting: Following peer review, applications will be shortlisted by our Fellowships Panel including Patient and Public Involvement Representatives, and applicants will be informed whether they’ve been shortlisted in October 2025.
Interviews: Interviews for shortlisted applicants will take place on 6 November 2025.
Decision and Notification: Final funding decisions will be made in November 2025 after which applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application.