CARICE Seed Funding Call 2026 – Outcome & highlights

We received 23 high quality applications, reflecting the innovation, creativity and interdisciplinary strength of ageing research across King’s and our partner institutions. Although we were able to fund 10 outstanding projects, the panel was impressed by the overall calibre of submissions, and the centre are sorry that funding did not allow us to support all the applications on this round. We encourage applicants who were not funded this time to apply again to our next seed funding call later in the year.

Scope of the research funded on this round

The selected projects collectively reflect innovative and interdisciplinary efforts to understand and enhance resilience in ageing. This year’s applications spanned diverse global and local contexts—from rural Ugandan communities to large-scale, data-rich cohorts such as the one provided by ZOE PREDICT 3—and explored multiple determinants of biological and functional resilience.

Research themes included diet, menopause, metabolic ageing, physical performance, and the real-world use of modern weight-loss therapeutics. Several projects addressed molecular and cellular mechanisms such as inflammaging, cell‑cycle arrest, microbiome–metabolite interactions, clonal haematopoiesis, and senolytic activity using cutting-edge proteomic platforms. Others focused on digital health, remote multisystem monitoring, and community engagement, underscoring the need for approaches that are inclusive, translational and grounded in real-world lived experience.

How to Strengthen Applications for Future Calls: Our Insights

Several applications proposed strong ideas but required clearer feasibility, methodological detail or alignment between hypotheses, analyses and anticipated outcomes. Some lacked defined pathways to impact, plans for scaling beyond pilot work or details on how findings would translate into future external funding. In some cases, training, early career researcher development or collaboration roles were insufficiently articulated. Others would have benefited from clearer interdisciplinary integration, more detailed participant or data considerations, or better justification for expertise such as nutrition or intervention specialists. These proposals were promising and would be highly competitive with strengthened structure and clearer deliverables.

Although some of these projects were not approved in this round, we want to emphasise that the seed funding process is also an opportunity for growth, development, and constructive learning. CARICE is committed to supporting researchers at every stage of their career, and we encourage applicants to seek feedback to refine their ideas or potential project applications so they can succeed in future calls.