A blog post by Adrian McConnell calling for new grant applications

Written by Adrian McConnell, Chief Executive, CO Research Trust

As we mark 20 years of the CO Research Trust (CORT), working to protect people from the dangers of carbon monoxide (CO), I – as CEO – want to take a moment to invite new grant applications. Whether you are an academic researcher, a public-health professional, a non-profit, a local authority, or a community group — if you have ideas that could help us understand, prevent, detect, or treat CO exposure, we’d love to hear from you.

We’re especially interested in breakthroughs that come from unexpected corners: researchers in related disciplines who may not yet have worked on CO directly, but whose expertise could be translated to CO challenges.

Below, I outline our strategic priorities, reflect on what our funded projects have already shown is possible, and describe the kinds of ideas we are keen to support next.

Our Strategic Priorities: What We’re Looking For

Since 2005 — originally as the CORGI Trust — the CO Research Trust has funded research to shed light on CO exposure, improve safety, and reduce harm.

In our current strategy (2025–2030), we sharpen our focus on a set of interlocking aims. These are not silos — many good proposals will touch more than one.

Reduce the incidence of CO exposure. That means research on prevention—understanding how CO risk factors arise and how to eliminate or mitigate them.
Improve diagnosis capabilities among healthcare professionals. Early and accurate diagnosis is critical — particularly for low-level or chronic exposures that are easily overlooked.
Support development of new treatments and therapeutics. Once CO exposure occurs, ensuring people have access to effective treatments and care pathways matters.
Enhance understanding of low-level CO exposure. Not all CO exposure results in acute poisoning — but even low-level, repeated exposure may carry risks — especially in vulnerable populations.
Improve CO detection where risks cannot be fully eliminated. This includes support for innovations in sensor or monitoring technology, especially in contexts — homes, workplaces, transport, mobile living — where risk remains.

We also maintain focused priorities on certain populations and environments where CO risk is particularly acute:

Pregnancy and early development — understanding risk to pregnant women and developing fetuses, and the potential long-term effects.
People in vulnerable situations — older adults, people with chronic conditions, people living in poverty or in housing where CO risk is elevated (e.g., solid-fuel use, poor ventilation, temporary accommodation, mobile homes, boats, caravans).
Built environment and housing policy settings — e.g., looking at how energy efficiency measures, building design, retrofitting, solid-fuel usage, and regulations influence CO risk.
Detection and technology innovations — supporting sensor development, monitoring systems, or other technological/engineering solutions that help detect CO proactively, or alert in environments where elimination is not feasible.

Our core values guide how we work: we are innovative, cooperative, impact-focused, and evidence-based.

What We Have Funded: Illustrative Examples

To date, CORT has awarded over £5 million to support a wide range of research projects — to academics, universities, social housing associations, local authorities, statutory organisations, charities and beyond.

Some of our recently funded projects include:

A project at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) investigating the pathophysiological effects of environmental CO exposure on the developing cardiovascular system during pregnancy
Research at UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) into aspects of CO exposure — contributing to improved understanding of CO risk.
Work supported at other institutions to examine CO’s interaction with blood coagulation: for example, a study of “CO and Platelets” to explore whether CO exposure affects clotting.
A summer studentship scheme (the “Chris Bielby Summer Studentship Programme”) supporting early-stage researchers studying various aspects of CO exposure — from developmental effects to structural impact (e.g., heart valves and extracellular matrix changes).

Together, these projects illustrate the breadth of work we support: from fundamental biomedical research, to exposure epidemiology, to social and housing-related contexts, to early-career researcher development.

Why We Want “Translation” and Cross-Disciplinary Work — And What That Looks Like

If you’re working in a field not traditionally associated with CO, but your work overlaps with relevant themes — we want to talk with you.

Why? Because CO exposure is a complex, multifaceted challenge. Addressing it effectively often requires bringing together expertise from many disciplines: medicine, public health, epidemiology, environmental science, housing policy, engineering, social science, behavioural science, urban planning, energy systems, and more.

For example:

An engineer working on air-quality sensors — perhaps for indoor pollution broadly — might adapt their sensor technology to meet the specific needs of CO detection (low-level detection, affordability for vulnerable populations, robustness in homes or caravans).
A social scientist studying fuel poverty and energy use might design a survey or intervention to understand how different heating behaviours influence CO risk in low-income housing.
A public-health researcher with experience in prenatal exposures (e.g., air pollution, indoor pollution) could shift focus to CO and collaborate with medical or cardiology researchers to study developmental effects.
A data scientist with expertise in spatial analysis or GIS might map CO exposure risk across regions, combining data on housing types, solid-fuel use, demographic vulnerability — helping to identify ‘hotspots’ for targeted intervention.

We believe that widening the aperture — encouraging translation from related fields — will bring fresh insight, novel methods, and new energy into CO research.

If you have a project concept that doesn’t literally say “carbon monoxide” yet, but builds on related expertise and could be applied to CO risk or detection, we encourage you to get in touch. We are very happy to have an exploratory discussion to see if your idea could fit within our strategy.

What We Are Not Able to Fund — But Why You Should Still Reach Out

To be clear: as with many charities and research funders, there are some things we cannot support. The specifics (from our published guidance) include:

We cannot fund unspecified activities — your proposal must be a specific programme or project, with clearly defined aims and methodology.
We don’t fund general operating costs, capital equipment, sponsorships, or individuals outside the context of formal business/organisation activities.
We don’t provide travel grants, educational funding for individuals, or support for fundraising events, conferences, or professional fees.
The grant must be administered through a UK-based institution (i.e. with a UK-based Principal Investigator).

That said — if you have a strong, well-defined idea and want to explore whether it might fit, we encourage you to reach out before you draft a full application. Often, a short conversation can help shape a concept so that it aligns better with our priorities, increasing your chances of success. We want to help you make the best possible case.

What Makes for a Strong Application (from Lessons Learned)

We try to make the application process as fair and accessible as possible — but competition is steep. As we recently noted, only around 20% of applications submitted to CORT are successful.

Here’s what tends to distinguish proposals that succeed:

Clarity and focus: A good application clearly outlines what you intend to do, why it matters (in relation to our strategic aims), how you will do it, and what outcomes you expect. Avoid vague or overly broad proposals.
Feasibility + innovation: We look for proposals that are ambitious but realistically deliverable. Unexpected ideas are welcome — but you must show that you have the capacity to carry them out (team, methods, timeline, ethical considerations if relevant).
Relevance to CO and public health impact: Proposals should make a clear connection to CO exposure or risk, and ultimately to improving safety, diagnosis, detection, or prevention.
Good presentation — and readiness to engage: As part of our process, shortlisted applicants may be invited to present to the Board of Trustees (“Presentation Day”). Investing time in a polished, compelling presentation pays off.
Commitment to dissemination and impact: We value projects that plan ahead for how results will be shared — through publications, engagement with stakeholders, policy briefings, or community outreach. We support our grant-holders with marketing and dissemination to maximize impact.

A Word to Researchers Outside the Traditional CO Community

If you’ve never worked on CO, that’s absolutely fine — quite the opposite: we want you.

The scope of CO risk is broad, and often intersects with issues like social inequality, housing quality, energy poverty, climate change, and environmental justice. As such, CO research benefits from diverse perspectives and multidisciplinary thinking.

We recognise that experts working on air quality, public health, environmental justice, building design, energy-efficiency retrofitting, sensors, data science, maternal/child health, social housing, epidemiology, — and many other fields — may have insights that are deeply relevant, even if they have never previously thought “CO first.”

If that sounds like you: get in touch. We are very open to early conversations — to explore whether your expertise could be applied in a CO context, and how a grant from CORT might help you do that.

The process

Our current grant period has now closed and we thank all those who submitted an application. We recently held a lecture discussing the grants call and the application process, it is available to view on the website. If you missed this current round, please make sure you are subscribed to our newsletter so you are first to hear about the 2027 application process. You can sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of this page. You can also find links to our social channels where we regularly share news and updates.

Thank You — A Final Note

At CORT, we believe deeply in the transformative power of research — not only to expand scientific understanding, but to shape policy, protect vulnerable communities, and ultimately prevent harm. The work we’ve funded so far demonstrates what’s possible. But the challenge is far from over.

Our commitment over the coming years is to support bold, creative, impactful research. If you have ideas — even if they don’t yet look like traditional “CO research” — we want to hear from you. Because sometimes, all it takes is a fresh pair of eyes, a different discipline, a new method — and a bit of curiosity — to move the field forward in unexpected and powerful ways.

Let’s work together to make CO poisoning a thing of the past.