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2025 Research Grant Opportunities

In 2025 Pankind will provide funding competitive and strategic opportunities throughout the calendar year. Our next grant opportunity will be competitive grants across the early detection and new treatment schemes. 

In 2025, we are making 2 strategic changes to our competitive Grants Program:

• The New Treatment Grant has been split into Innovation and Accelerator, to cater for both emerging and more developed research. 
• Only one application per institution may be submitted for each scheme.

See details below:

2025 Research Grants Timeline

Note: Submissions will not be accepted after 5pm (AEST) on 28 July 2025.

2025 Grant Categories

→ Early Detection Innovation Grant

Funding available: $100K grant for 1 year. 

The Early Detection and Diagnosis Grant will provide funding to Australian researchers to:

• Encourage new strategies, approaches and methods to detect and diagnose pancreatic cancer earlier
• Support innovative ideas that have the potential to impact early detection or earlier diagnosis, but may not have extensive preliminary supporting data
• Answer key feasibility and proof-of-concept questions and arrive at critical project inflection points in an accelerated time frame
• Support established and/or early career researchers to develop preliminary data and attract additional funding in subsequent years 

Criteria for funding: 

• Applications should demonstrate solid rationale and extensive planning 
• Proof-of-concept or exploratory data to demonstrate the feasibility and rationale for your research questions should be detailed sufficiently
• Applicants should propose an innovative idea that extends beyond incremental improvements to existing technologies
• Projects focused on cancer prevention rather than early detection and diagnosis are not in the scope of this scheme
• Applicants must disclose any potential overlap with other current or pending research funding

Eligible projects may include, but are not limited to: 

• Computational tools, machine learning approaches or large language models to generate actionable insights 
• Imaging studies
• Repurposing or adapting tools and methods from other diseases
• Approaches aimed at enhancing current standards of care
• Investigation of high risk individuals or groups
  
• Only one application per institution may be submitted for each scheme
• International collaborations are encouraged if the PI is located in Australia.
  
  

→ New Treatment Innovation Grant

Funding available: $100K grant for 1 year.

The New treatment Innovation Grant will provide funding to Australian researchers to:

• Carry out projects at an early stage that will accelerate innovation of treatments, diagnostics or quality (including standard of care) to pancreatic cancer patients 
• Support innovative ideas that have the potential to impact treatment or diagnostics, but may not have extensive preliminary supporting data 
• Answer key feasibility and proof-of-concept questions and arrive at critical project inflection points in an accelerated time frame 
• Support established and/or early career researchers to develop preliminary data and attract additional funding in subsequent years 
• Accelerate research translation

Criteria for funding

• Applications should demonstrate solid rationale and extensive planning 
• Proof-of-concept or exploratory data to demonstrate the feasibility and rationale for your research questions should be detailed sufficiently
• Applicants must disclose any potential overlap with other current or pending research funding
• Where applications have multiple AI’s, the role of each co-investigator must be outlined and justified 
• Only one application per institution may be submitted for each scheme
• International collaborations are encouraged if the PI is located in Australia

These projects should explore innovative solutions that have the potential to significantly advance the therapeutic field.

→ New Treatment Accelerator Grant 

Funding available: $300k grant over 2 years, focused on accelerating treatments from the lab to clinic for pancreatic cancer patients.

The New Treatment Grant will provide funding to Australian researchers to: 

• Carry out developed projects that will significantly accelerate treatments to a clinical stage for pancreatic cancer patients 
• Contribute to advancing the translation of research from the lab to clinical studies or practice; accelerate the translation of promising therapies to clinical application 
• Contribute to innovative projects that require resources to advance critical milestones
• Extend previous or existing work for a new treatment, scaling up existing research 
• Grow capacity in pancreatic cancer research in Australia
• Improve survival from pancreatic cancer in line with our mission to triple survival by 2030

These projects should focus on more developed solutions that have the potential to move to clinical studies and make a significant impact on advancing the therapeutic field.

Criteria for funding

• Projects which are well developed, part of a larger program of work may be suited to this scheme
• Pilot or preliminary data should be developed and detailed as relevant to the application 
• Where applications have multiple AI’s, the role of each co-investigator must be outlined and justified 
• Only one application per institution may be submitted for each scheme
• International collaborations are encouraged if the PI is located in Australia

Eligibility

Pankind will only fund projects where:

1. Only one application per institution may be submitted for each scheme. 
2. The administering institution agrees to the terms and conditions of funding as outlined on this page and in Pankind’s Research Funding Agreement. Please note amendments to the agreement terms are generally not accepted, so please ensure the agreement is reviewed prior to submitting your application.
3. The application has been submitted using Pankind's Grant Application Form (will be available early in 2025). 
4. The grant applicant (Principal Investigator) resides in Australia.
5. The grant applicant’s administering institution is an Australian organisation.
6. The applicant is the Principal Investigator on no more than one application across all grant categories.
7. The applicant and research team members are each funded at a maximum of 1 full-time equivalent.
8. If, at the time of application you currently hold a Pankind grant as a Principal Investigator, your grant will finish within the current calendar year. Please note we reserve the right to alter or withdraw our offer of award if you do not fulfil the requirements of your currently held grant.
9. Biotechnology, pharmaceutical or other relevant companies may apply for funding, however, if successful Pankind may vary the terms of funding. 
10. Grantees will be required to present the results of their research at a future event or special session to be held by Pankind.
    
    

Essential Documents

Application templates are provided to assist with planning, but please note that all submissions from 2025 onwards will take place through an online portal under development. Use the templates only as a guide for planning, no soft copies of applications will be accepted. 

1. Pankind Funding Agreement 
2. Early Detection and Diagnosis Grant 
3. New Treatment Innovation Grant
4. New Treatment Accelerator Grant Application
   
   

In 2025 an Early Detection Grant will be named the Marianne Allan Pancreatic Research Grant in honour of Marianne Allan. Marianne and Ross Allan are dedicated to helping improve outcomes through detecting pancreatic cancer earlier.

Learn more about them and their incredible contribution here.

Grant Assessment Criteria 

All applications will be assessed by the Scientific Advisory Panel and selected experts, according to the following criteria:

1. Investigator team capability
2. Novelty of the project. The novelty of concept, originality, and innovation
3. Impact. Potential to improve pancreatic cancer survival
4. Quality and feasibility. Scientific quality and feasibility of the proposed project and/or rationale
5. Budget

Read our Conflict of Interest Policy.