Grants of up to £4 million will be available for research teams worldwide to carry out interventions in the UK and/or Africa that explore the use of physical activity, sleep rhythms and daily light exposure.

Wellcome has announced a new Mental Health Award call to support research teams aiming to develop more precise and effective early interventions for anxiety and depression in young people aged 10-18. The call, which will open on 13 April 2026, will fund projects that build on existing mechanistic evidence and test interventions targeting circadian rhythms and/or physical activity, with a particular emphasis on scalable approaches. The geographic focus of the award is on interventions for young people in the UK and Africa.

The award seeks to address a key gap in youth mental health research: while interventions involving sleep timing, sleep quality, light exposure and physical activity – ranging from aerobic exercise and walking programmes to dance classes and app-based activity tools – are already known to be accessible and cost-effective, the underlying mechanisms driving their impact remain insufficiently understood. Applicants will therefore be required to design well-powered randomised controlled trials or equivalently robust causal studies to investigate pathways of efficacy, whether biological, psychological, environmental or social. Proposals must also clearly articulate how the core components of the intervention are expected to produce therapeutic benefit. Wellcome places strong emphasis on the integration of lived experience expertise and expects teams to be multidisciplinary, drawing together specialists in trials, mental health science and circadian or physical activity research.

The scheme will offer awards of between £1 million and £4 million for projects lasting three to four years.

Applications are open to teams based anywhere in the world except mainland China, although the funded intervention must take place in the UK and/or Africa. Further eligibility details for applicants and collaborators will be confirmed at the launch of the call in April, with an information webinar to be held on 28 April 2026.