What is the Seeds for Success Fund?
ECRI understands that securing funding is crucial to researchers, and we want to give postdocs the possibility of exploring new ideas. The Seeds for Success Fund aims to provide postdocs with the means to work on a research project independently from their PI which will provide preliminary data for a fellowship application.
We are delighted to announce that the 2027 call for applications is now open.
We will fund up to £5,000 per project. All funds must be spent by 31 July 2027. This is a great opportunity to use your 10 development days. We strongly encourage you to discuss your participation in this call with your PI and/or line manager
Timeline
- Application deadline: 17:00 on Friday 04 September 2026
- Outcome: successful applicants will be notified by the end of October 2026
- Mid-year reports: 03 May 2027
- Final reports: 24 September 2027
- All funds need to be spent and accounted for by 31 July 2027.
Please ensure that you read the Guidelines-for-Applicants_Seeds-for-Success-2027.pdf before submitting your application form.
To apply, please complete the Template for the Seeds for Success Application 2026-2027 and submit your application online: Submit your Application
If you have any queries about your application, please read the FAQs below or email ecri@imperial.ac.uk
Guidance & FAQs
All information on eligibility and criteria is available in the Guidelines for Applicants document: Guidelines-for-Applicants_Seeds-for-Success-2027.pdf
Can I spend Seeds for Success on software licences and training? Or leadership training?
The money can be spent on learning courses for specific software that's needed for a project. It could also be spent for personal development programs such as lab leadership for postdocs, however you may wish to check out our leadership development offer before including that into your budget. You could include attendance at one of our sessions as part of the plan for your project. Our main goal with these funds is to help you gain some preliminary data or proof of concept, materials which could be used to support a fellowship or other funding application, so you should bear this in mind when planning your project.
My contract ends before 30 September 2027. Can I apply?
Priority for these funds will always go to people who will be at Imperial throughout the period. This is because we are aiming to support people with a fellowship application after the grant. The projects for Seeds for Success should provide preliminary data or proof of concept or similar which can be used to build a submission for further funding, and for Wings for Ideas to develop a commercial offer. If your PI or line manager can email Anna Seabourne (a.seabourne@imperial.ac.uk) by the application deadline stating that your contract will be extended and to what date, feel free to submit an application.
I’m an ICRF/IRF, can I apply?
Unfortunately, ICRFs are not eligible for Seeds for Success. The whole purpose of this fund is to help postdocs develop preliminary data/proof of concept to help them develop a fellowship application. As you are already funded in a fellowship, you can’t apply. Wings for Ideas is open to those with independent funding.
Also, see our funding pages for a list of alternative sources. If it’s small pots you are after, take a look at the Alternative Guide to PG Funding. Despite its title, it’s basically a database of alternative (and sometimes quirky!) sources - charities, small foundations, trusts, and more.
Does the Seeds for Success include participatory action research/elements of PPIE (Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement)?
Yes, any and all types of research are welcome. NB if you are involving patients/members of the public, please bear in mind timelines for ethics approval and/or make it clear that the research is possible under an existing ethics application. NHS ethics approval timelines in particular can be very lengthy, so make sure that this is covered in your application. The proposed project could be entirely PPIE-based - if it will provide proof of concept or preliminary data towards a future grant or fellowship application, then yes, this is an eligible use of the funds.
Most awardees are from medicine or biology - are engineering projects eligible?
There are no restrictions or even preferences for particular subject areas, so yes, engineering projects are most welcome!
Who can be listed as a collaborator for Seeds for Success? The guidelines state "none of whom must be independently funded". Can they have an academic role (assistant professor, etc?), or if they are more senior with e.g. access to facility/sample that you're interested in?
You can’t have funded collaborators, but you can have ‘hosts’, i.e. people who will give permission for you to use their equipment, lab space, resources and/or on whose expertise you can draw should you need it.
The main idea of the fund is to help you develop your independent area of research, something you can use to start building a long-term career in an area that is different from you supervisors/current PI etc. We don’t allow funded collaborators as they already have their career/fellowship/salaried role and should be accessing other funding sources to progress with their research. We want to ensure that this is your project, not just supporting existing work, and this restriction is one of the key ways to demonstrate this.
Previous years' winners
|
Name |
Department |
Project |
|
Angus Clark |
Bioengineering |
Development of a Low-Cost, Size-Adjustable, Paediatric Prosthetic Foot that Grows with its User |
|
Robin Murphy |
Brain Sciences |
Naturalistic stimuli for indexing episodic memory effects of brain stimulation |
|
Zi Wang |
Bioengineering |
Need for Speed: Revolutionizing Computational Cardiovascular MRI Through Multimodal AI |
|
Rabeea Maqsood |
Bioengineering |
Developing heart rate variability biofeedback protocol using the COM-B model |
|
Tom Smith |
Life Sciences |
CLEAR: Community-Level Ecological Assessment via Real-time sequencing |
|
Aleksandra Gruevska |
Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction |
Spatial mapping of cellular senescence in chronic liver disease |
|
Name |
Department |
Project |
|
Andre Ohara |
Chemical Engineering |
Modulating the postbiotic effects of Saccharomyces boulardii through integrated OMICS approaches and synthetic biology (PostBioeng) |
|
David Carreno Yugueros |
Infectious Disease |
Engineering live-pathogen biosensors to spatiotemporally monitor host-pathogen interactions |
|
Sarah Dixon Smith |
Bioengineering |
AI & Archives: An Innovative Approach to Longitudinal Health Data |
|
Floriane Tissot |
Department of Life Sciences |
Cancer associated fibroblasts and leukemic cells dynamics in the bone marrow: towards the development of new therapeutic targets. |
|
Despoina Chrysostomou |
Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction |
Leveraging the microbiome to predict therapy outcomes in gastro-oesophageal cancer. |
|
Mingzhu Cai |
Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction |
Investigating Nutrient-Sensing in Gut Hormone Secretion Using Human Duodenal Organoids |
|
Name |
Department |
Project |
|
Maria Valdivia Garcia |
Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction |
Fluorescence interface for single-cell analysis |
|
Stefania Maneta Stavrakaki |
Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction |
Deciphering metabolic adaptations driving ovarian cancer drug resistance |
|
Vishwas Mishra |
Life Sciences |
Investigating the long-term effects of diarrhoeagenic infections on IBD susceptibility |
|
Cheng Ouyang |
Institute of Clinical Sciences |
Uncertainty quantification for trustworthiness in machine learning-driven MRI reconstruction |
|
Davia Prischich |
Department of Chemistry |
Synthetic photomorphogenesis: using light-regulated molecules in developmental biology |
|
Name |
Department |
Project |
|
Biancastella Cereser |
Department of Surgery & Cancer |
Oestrogen regulation of clonality in the human mammary gland |
|
Joel Luke |
Physics |
Probing the Stability of Organic Photoelectrodes using in situ electrochemical Raman Spectroscopy |
|
Marcus Yio |
Civil and Environmental Engineering |
Transforming London Clay into low carbon cements |
|
Nina Moderau |
Department of Surgery & Cancer |
Bioink development for macrophages to mimic breast cancer microenvironment |
|
Name |
Department |
Project |
|
Beth Pennycook |
Institute of Clinical Sciences |
Characterising the regulation of meiosis by CDKs through single cell in vivo imaging |
|
Carol Sheppard |
Infectious Disease |
The influenza RNA polymerase host protein interactome |
|
Eszter Csibra |
Bioengineering |
Engineering specialised protein nano-factories for biotherapeutics |
|
Jackie van Dael |
Surgery & Cancer |
Novel analysis methodologies for safe communication in remote consultations |
|
Lucia Lombardi |
Chemical Engineering |
Artificial synapses for studying neurodegenerative diseases |
|
Maria Paraskevaidi |
Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction |
Blood-based spectroscopy for the screening and diagnosis of ovarian cancer |
|
Marieke Hoekstra |
Brain Sciences |
Imaging temperature in brain models |
|
Matyas Daboczi |
Chemical Engineering |
High efficiency solar hydrogen generation by integrated perovskite-organic photoelectrodes |
|
Nathan Gemmell |
Physics |
Single Photon Level Quantum Imaging with a Commercial CMOS Camera |
|
Ruth Reid |
Infectious Disease |
A rapid diagnostic to distinguish between bacterial and viral infections |
|
Wenzhuo Cao |
Earth Science and Engineering |
Rate-and-state friction – Capping the maximum induced earthquake in geothermal systems |
|
Name |
Department |
Project |
|
Ali Mohammed |
Dyson School of Design Engineering |
Hassle-free degassing – an enzymatic approach to oxygen free environments |
|
Amy Switzer |
Infectious Disease |
A novel regulator of bacterial population structure |
|
Claudia Contini |
Chemical Engineering |
Developing a minimal model system of motile artificial cell |
|
Flurin Eisner |
Physics |
Low cost solar-to-fuel energy conversion using organic heterojunctions |
|
Giulia Tarantino |
Chemical Engineering |
Drug Delivery – elucidating API-carrier interactions and release mechanisms |
|
Maria Weinert |
Brain Sciences |
Mini Brains for the Science of Ageing |
|
Pavani Cherukupally |
Chemical Engineering |
Antimicrobial sponges for wastewater disinfection |
|
Roya Haghighat-Khah |
Life Sciences |
Human gene expression from swabs implicated in COVID-19 disease severity |
|
Valerie Soo |
Institute of Clinical Sciences |
The biological fitness of penicillin-binding protein mutants |