Funding opportunities, upcoming grant calls and related guidelines
As part of the HRB’s continued commitment to PPI we are now launching a call to support a further phase of the PPI Ignite Network from 2026 to 2031. This grant will run over 60 months and will provide funding of €1.84M for the PPI Ignite National Office €0.5M per Lead Site
Collaboration to address research priorities to inform policy-making for the Department of Health
The HRB has a strong track record of supporting collaborative research networks in key policy areas, and the Collaborative Research Networks scheme is a competitive funding mechanism designed to support networks in Ireland that bring together interdisciplinary teams to address key health and social care challenges. The scheme funds networks that demonstrate strong governance, meaningful […]
ILCT supports research that address questions relevant to the improvement of patient care, health of the public and health services.
The Conference and Events Sponsorship Scheme aims to create an opportunity to host health-research related events, workshops, or conferences in Ireland.
The HRB is participating in the ERDERA Joint Transnational Call 2025 to support Irish researchers to engage in transnational collaborative research in the field of rare diseases under the call entitled “Pre-clinical therapy studies for rare diseases using small molecules and biologicals – development and validation”.
The Health Research Board (HRB) is participating in the ERA-NET NEURON Joint Transnational Call 2025 to support Irish researchers to engage in transnational collaborative research in the field of neuroscience under the call entitled “Interdisciplinary approaches to the neuroscience of pain”.
The HRB is participating in the JPND Joint Transnational Call 2025 to support Irish researchers to engage in transnational collaborative research in the field of neurodegenerative diseases under the call entitled “Health and social care research with a focus on the moderate and late stages of neurodegenerative diseases”.
The HRB is supporting Irish researchers to engage in transnational collaborative research in the field of health and care systems research under the call entitled “Better care closer to home: Enhancing primary and community care”.
The HRB is participating in the ERA4Health Joint Transnational Pilot Call in multi-country investigator-initiated clinical studies (IICS) on ‘Fostering Pragmatic Comparative Effectiveness Trials in Non-communicable Diseases’ (EffecTrial).
The aim of the AICC scheme is to support innovative, dynamic, and collaborative cross-border and trans-Atlantic cancer research and innovation within the 3 key AICC priority areas, to benefit all-island cancer patients.
Increasing collaboration between United States of America (USA), Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland researchers
Research projects that address a specific need within the Irish health or social care system
The aim of this scheme is to provide HRB funded researchers with an opportunity to seek supplementary funding for integrated knowledge translation (iKT) activities not covered in the original award that will maximise the potential impact of the research findings on policy or practice or communicate research and research findings to the general public.
The aim of this scheme is to provide HRB funded researchers with an opportunity to seek supplementary funding for integrated knowledge translation (iKT) activities not covered in the original award that will maximise the potential impact of the research findings on policy or practice or communicate research and research findings to the general public.
The aim of this scheme is to provide HRB funded researchers with an opportunity to seek supplementary funding for integrated knowledge translation (iKT) activities not covered in the original award that will maximise the potential impact of the research findings on policy or practice or communicate research and research findings to the general public.
Funding for established collaborative research networks to build on and extend their work.
The overarching aim is to develop talented and skilled health and social care researchers during the postdoctoral stage of their research career, particularly emphasising an ability to apply research evidence to improve healthcare and health policy and reduce the gap between research findings and clinical practice and/or health policy.
Short research projects for undergraduate students in a health or social care-related discipline
Supporting excellent doctoral training programmes for future health researchers in the conduct of patient-focused research.
The award will recognise a HRB-funded researcher who has led their research to impact/s on policy, practice, services or the health and social care system.
Supporting health and social care practitioners of any professional background in the Republic of Ireland by facilitating and supporting their transition towards research independence and who can facilitate actionable knowledge in health research.
The overarching aim of the CSF scheme is to provide opportunities for talented health and social care practitioners involved in the delivery of patient or social care, who have a PhD (or PhD equivalency) and wish to pursue a combined clinical and research career.
The ILP scheme aims to support highly innovative and internationally competitive investigator-led projects that can respond to existing and emerging challenges for health and social care. The ILP provides funding for clearly defined research projects in: (i) Patient-oriented research (POR), (ii) Population health research (PHR), and (iii) Health services research (HSR).
HRCI/HRB Joint Funding Scheme aims to fund researchers and research teams to conduct internationally competitive and innovative research in areas of strategic relevance to each individual charity.
Research and/or professional development (between three and six months) in the United States of America (USA).
Research projects employing secondary data analysis that supports policy and practice decision making for health and social care.
The objective of this call is to support efficient, innovative and high-quality natural history studies on rare diseases, which will facilitate understanding of the disease’s or group of disorders’ progression throughout the lifespan of a patient. The goal of these studies is to collect and analyze comprehensive patient data to define targets for future therapies, taking into consideration innovation, safety, and efficacy, and ultimately benefitting patients in the future.
The aim of the call is to establish a number of ambitious, innovative, multi-disciplinary and multi-national collaborative research projects that seek to improve the understanding of the complex and multifactorial pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases by applying multi-OMICs and Big data approaches in order to generate useful information for the diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and drug discovery of neurodegenerative diseases.
The aim of the call is to facilitate multinational, collaborative research projects that will address critical translational questions to improve our knowledge concerning neurobiological mechanisms involved in resilience or vulnerability to environmental challenges in mental health.
The aim of this call is to develop novel strategies and targeted approaches to identify, understand, and modify determinants and mechanisms of diet-related behaviour and physical activity as well as sedentary behaviour, which have the potential to break through the cycles maintaining unhealthy behaviours and lifestyles and to reduce health inequities. The expected results have the potential to improve the health and well-being of socio-economically disadvantaged groups through targeted approaches for a long-term behaviour change in the areas of healthy diet and physical activity.
This call aims to fund research projects developing novel or improving existing strategies, tools, technologies and methods for diagnosis and/or One Health antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance. The results of the funded projects should contribute to improved understanding, monitoring, detection and mitigation of infection and AMR, or optimisation of AMU where efforts to curb AMR will have a global impact on human, animal and plant health and food safety and security.
The Applied Programme Grants (APRO) aim to support a strategic programme of applied research in health and social care that will have an impact on the health and social care of individuals, population health and the health system in Ireland and beyond.
The ambition of this call is to identify and develop innovative solutions that can, in the future, help to relieve the pressure on health and care facilities by informing decision-making and optimising the delivery of health and care services across different settings. The complementarity of inpatient and outpatient care, and the coordination between them needs to be optimised. Organisational innovations, continuity of care across all care levels, integrated care and harnessing the potential of supporting digital technologies provide a multitude of possibilities for such optimization, creating opportunities for health and care systems to reap the benefits of distributed health and care. The proposed solutions should aim to make health and care systems economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable, while keeping people at the centre of the care process.
The overall aim of the RDCat call is to optimise readiness for the planned Rare Diseases Partnership and ensure that research and innovation can deliver better outcomes for rare disease patients in Ireland.
The expected outcome of the call is to improve the efficacy of current detection, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of cancers, through the development of novel approaches based on a better understanding of cancer epigenetics. The specific objectives of this funding opportunity are to stimulate new partnerships between researchers and clinicians and support original, high-quality projects, with significant clinical impact.
Supporting academic researchers at mid-stage of their research career transitioning to research independence and who can facilitate actionable knowledge in health research.
Ensuring high quality evidence support to inform clinical guideline development.
The aim of the call is to support transnational research projects that focus on the improvement of cognitive brain ageing through nutrition and other lifestyle factors. Thereby it enables scientists from different countries to build a valuable collaboration on interdisciplinary research projects based on complementarities and sharing of expertise in the field of brain ageing, its related disorders, nutrition and lifestyle factors. Research projects should gain further insights into the modulation of brain ageing by lifestyle factors and/or pilot test interventions based on the existing evidence in the literature or upscale existing pilot interventions that will help to lower the risk of cognitive impairment manifestations related to a pathological brain ageing.
This call will fund networking activity for leading scientists in the field to establish Working Groups dedicated to the conceptualization of the use of digital technologies in neurodegenerative disease research and clinical practice. The Working Groups should discuss innovative and new ideas, future developments and provide outputs of value to JPND and the broader research community e.g. by establishing guidelines and/or methodological frameworks. The call does not support direct research activities and studies.
The Health Research Board (HRB) and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) are collaborating to support Irish researchers to engage in transnational collaborative research in the field of personalised medicine under the call entitled “Identification or Validation of Targets for Personalised Medicine Approaches (PMTargets)”.
The HRB is participating in the JPIAMR Joint Transnational Call 2024 to support Irish researchers to engage in transnational collaborative research in the field of antimicrobial resistance under the call entitled “Interventions Moving forward to Promote ACTion to counteract the emergence and spread of bacterial and fungal resistance and to improve treatments ”.
Generating evidence to inform policy making in health and social care.
The aim of the AICC scheme is to support innovative, dynamic, and collaborative cross-border and trans-Atlantic cancer research and innovation within the 3 key AICC priority areas, to benefit all-island cancer patients.
The Health Research Board (HRB) is participating in the THCS Joint Transnational Call 2024 to support Irish researchers to engage in transnational collaborative research in the field of health and care systems under the call entitled “Innovate to Prevent: Personalised Prevention in Health and Care Services”.