Child Development- RESEARCH

RESEARCH FUNDING TOPICS

Our Research Strategy 2024-2027

After 15 years of funding research as a priority, our TWF grantees and partners have been very successful in generating important new knowledge, leveraging more funding and supporting new researchers on independent pathways. Congratulations to them all! However, also in that time, different areas have developed in diverse ways. Some would now benefit from more strategic grants rather than research funding, to support, for example policy, advocacy, and influencing work.

We do not have capacity to manage research funding and more strategic grants across all our areas of interest so in the areas of Dyspraxia and Nutrition, where we already have strong relationships, we will either be looking to build capacity in the area by supporting the research field more globally, or working with projects and organisations that will help with transferring this new knowledge into practice or using their influence to improve policies and outcomes.

Research Calls

We will therefore be streamlining our research calls to focus on:

• Motor Coordination
• Nutrition and the Microbiome
• Physical Activity
• Rolandic Epilepsy

We also have a separate interest in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) which is managed within this portfolio.

Please see our active research calls page for more info on each of these.

This does unfortunately mean that we will be pausing our previous Neurodiverse Brain and Sleep research calls for the time being. We absolutely remain interested in these areas but will not be having an active call for them.

• If you have a research project that is looking at supporting neurodiverse children in the classroom or in improving the support pathways for them in the UK, please pop us an email with a short 1-page summary of your plans (please include rough costings, and main research questions to be addressed). We will get back in touch if we are interested in a formal expression of interest. Unfortunately, since this is not an open call the competition here will be incredibly high so chances of success through this route are likely lower.
  
• For Sleep projects, we will be revisiting our priorities after 2- 3 years with the possibility of switching the current focus on Physical Activity to a focus on Sleep. Unfortunately for now we will not be considering projects solely looking at Sleep and child development.