Dementia Support Line
Strategic funding call: Accelerating Translation in Non-Alzheimer's dementia
This exciting new research initiative aims to unlock progress towards late-stage clinical studies to advance treatments in Lewy body, frontotemporal and vascular dementia.
Growing healthcare inequality
Dementia research hasn’t always been funded equally. There has been a large historical disparity in both the funding available for, and the levels of funding invested in, Alzheimer’s disease compared to other causes of dementia.
One of the clearest signs of this imbalance is the number of active clinical trials across the globe. 192 drug trials are ongoing for Alzheimer’s disease. In comparison, approximately 30 trials are active in Lewy body dementia, vascular dementia and frontotemporal dementia combined.
Without targeted calls to build the evidence, resources and infrastructure needed to advance to late-stage trials, we face a future where breakthroughs transform the lives of people with Alzheimer’s disease while people affected by other dementias are left behind.
The ‘Alzheimer’s Society Accelerating Translation in Non-Alzheimer's dementia’ funding call
While we know promising drug candidates exist for non-Alzheimer’s dementias, we also know without a significant amount of clinical evidence they can’t move to later stages of clinical trials.
That’s why we’re launching a new strategic funding call to give research teams the support they need to build the infrastructure necessary to increase the number of clinical trials in non-Alzheimer’s dementia.
We will be accepting applications for up to £2million to support a research programme for up to 5 years.
The impact of this strategic funding call is wide-reaching and aligns strongly with the UK government strategy and the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme via the Neurodegeneration Initiative, to make the UK a global leader in dementia research by accelerating innovations in biomarkers, clinical trials and implementation.
What is in scope for this funding call?
Research programmes should focus on gathering the preparatory clinical evidence needed to catalyse symptomatic or disease-modifying drugs aimed at treating Lewy body dementia, vascular dementia or frontotemporal dementia - advancing into larger clinical trials.
The evidence needs of different non-AD dementia disease types vary. Applications may focus on one or more of the following areas:
- Establishing well-characterised patient cohorts and defining how they will be recruited to clinical trials. This may include generating new data to inform or strengthen future clinical trial applications
- Identifying research sites with relevant capability to deliver studies or further developing/consolidating new networks for research centres.
- Stratifying treatment selection through systematic and literature reviews.
- Designing trial methodology including statistical analysis preparation.
- Developing trial-ready outcome measures to measure drug efficacy.
This list is not meant to be exhaustive, and applicants should consider carefully the barriers faced in the specific disease(s), and how their programme addresses these. The design and implementation of novel trial methodology such as platforms is within scope for this call.
Unlocking future impact
Applications need to be future focused, with a clear indication of how funding from this call will unlock future impact, particularly for patients and advance the development of symptomatic or disease modifying treatments for the targeted disease into late-stage clinical trials. Applications should also clearly articulate what direct outcomes and impacts will result from the proposed study.
By the end of the programme, it is expected the successful team will have generated the critical high-quality evidence required to apply for large scale, clinical trial funding in the targeted disease area. Examples of follow-on funding include the NIHR’s Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme or LifeArc’s Rare Disease Clinical Trials Programme.
We encourage applicants to include how their proposal will support the development of pipelines for clinical academics within their chosen disease area.
How to apply
The application is a two-stage process. Applicants will be invited to submit a short, outline proposal. Following peer review, successfully shortlisted applicants will be invited to submit a full application. Full applications will undergo further peer and lay review and applicants will be invited to interview before final funding recommendations are made.
Funding recommendations, interviews and peer review will be overseen by Alzheimer’s Society’s non-Alzheimer’s disease dementia advisory board.
The deadline for outline applications is 9th September 2026 (11.59pm).
Specific guidance is available to support applicants applying to this initiative. All prospective applicants must read the applicant guidance before visiting our application portal to start their application.
Get started on your application
We have guidance to support your application to the Accelerating Translation in Non-Alzheimer's disease strategic funding call.
Timeline
- Call opens for outline applications – 8th June 2026
- Further information for applicants webinar – 25th June 2026
- Outline applications submission deadline – 9th September 2026
- Shortlisting – September to November 2026
- Applicants notified of shortlisting outcome – early November 2026
- Call opens for successfully shortlisted full applications – 9th November 2026
- Full application submission deadline – 8th January 2027 (11.59pm)
- Peer and lay review of full applications – January to February 2027
- Interviews completed by end of February 2027
- Funding decisions made by March 2027
Eligibility
We only accept applications for research projects that will take place at UK-based universities, NHS sites or other recognised higher research institutions.
Principal investigators should have a contract of employment with the host university that exceeds the planned finish date of the research by at least 12 months.
Frequently asked questions
Any questions?
Please get in touch with our grants team at [email protected]
Please email [email protected] to receive a link to the recorded webinar.
Yes they can. Unlike on our previous grant management system, it is now possible to list an applicant as a co-lead on OmniStar. Given the scale of the call and the teams, this is something we encourage.
Predominantly yes. At Alzheimer’s Society, we fund grants where the lead applicant and host institution is based in the UK. We are very supportive of international collaboration as part of these projects, however the aim of this call is to establish the infrastructure for UK-based clinical trials in the target disease areas.
Currently yes. We are expecting that the £2m will be awarded to a single project and we are not anticipating splitting up the award into smaller projects at this time. We are exploring partnership opportunities, which means we might be able to make multiple funding decisions if we receive multiple high-quality applications. However, at this moment, we are expecting to award one grant for the full £2m award.
We wanted to be inclusive of Parkinson’s disease dementia in the scope of the call, and this is highlighted in the applicant guidance. The disease types we have chosen are quite broad and we expect the applicants to define the patient groups they will be targeting within the application.
Yes. We expect to see multiple institutions from the applicant team given the large scale of the call. We are supportive of international collaboration, as long as the host institution is UK-based. We want to be able to consolidate and develop new networks of research sites rather than funding a single well-established clinical centre.
The project doesn’t have to be a clinical trial, but it does need to lay the infrastructure ready for a clinical trial application. We are conscious that £2m is not enough for a large-scale clinical trial on its own so we would like to see projects that would generate evidence that is very clearly linked to how it will support the development and enable large-scale clinical trials in the future.
This call was designed with drug-based treatments in mind. We have outlined in the applicant guidance that we would like to see a focus on disease modifying or symptomatic treatments. There would need to be significant evidence for neurostimulation based treatments to show that it’s ready for clinical trial, so alternative treatments are not necessarily out of scope.