Grants
The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre is a non-profit, and independent research centre. While we are primarily self-funded by providing access to the Cambridge Structural Database and related software, we also use grants to fund some of our work. These allow us to continue our charitable mission; to advance structural science for the public benefit.
Here we detail grants we have received to support our research and development efforts.
Contact us here if you’d like to collaborate with us on research or grant applications.
We also support the scientific community by providing sponsorship, awards, and FAIRE grants. Learn more about these on the relevant pages:
Grants Supporting Our Research and Development
CERSI for the Digital Transformation of Medicines Development and Manufacturing
This new £1m research project to realize the transformative potential of digital technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) in medicines development and manufacturing will run from February 2025 to January 2026.
Funded by Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, the 12-month Centre of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI) project has ambitions to advance regulatory processes by integrating cutting-edge digital technologies.
The consortium is led by led by CMAC (a medicines manufacturing research centre at the University of Strathclyde) and delivered in collaboration with a consortium of partners including an academic institution (De Montfort University), a research organisation (The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, The CCDC), global pharmaceutical companies including (AstraZeneca UK Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer) and a leading digital technology company (Siemens).
The project will develop and showcase a framework that ensures the accuracy, robustness, quality, and suitability of digital tools, enabling their confident use by both industry and regulators. Through leveraging existing relationships and forging new partnerships with global pharma companies, technology and software/solution providers, SMEs, biotech, technology vendors, leading academic networks and international innovation centres, this network will drive UK and international regulatory policy and practice in the sector and re-position regulation as an enabler of growth, able to adopt new, innovative approaches and regulatory models/pathways for patient benefit.
Learn more about the CCDC Solid Form Health Check
DPN-MED: Digital Plug-and-Produce Network for Sustainable Medicines Development and Manufacturing
Pharmaceutical manufacturing emissions are 55% higher than those from automotive, with current processes generating up to 100 kg of waste per kilogram of product. Addressing this Grand Challenge (GC) requires a robust consortium to position the UK as a leader in sustainable and innovative medicines production, delivering substantial economic, societal, and environmental benefits.
The grant from Innovate UK (Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing: Expression of Interest) covers January to June 2025 and will establish a collaborative consortium to shape the GC. The focus will be to engage stakeholders from the pharmaceutical ecosystem to participate in six dedicated working groups, covering areas such as consortium building, use case development, digital plug-and-produce test beds, distributed digital infrastructure, sustainability by design, and skills development. Through workshops, the consortium will gather input to co-create the GC roadmap, with a full proposal outlining key milestones, deliverables, and performance indicators.
DDAP
The Digital Design Accelerator Platform to Connect Active Material Design to Product Performance, awarded by Innovate UK as part of the Manufacturing Made Smarter initiative. This project ran from 2020 to 2022.
External partners included AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Perceptive Engineering, University of Leeds, University of Sheffield, and the University of Strathclyde.
This accelerated the development of tools to analyse particle behaviour, now available in our CSD-Particle software.
Learn more about CSD-Particle
Knowledge Transfer Partnership: VisualHabit
Awarded by InnovateUK as part of the Knowledge Transfer Partnerships intiative. This project ran from 2020 to 2023.
BioChemGraph
Awarded by the BBSRC as part of the BBR fund intiative. This project ran from 2020 to 2023.
Learn More
DIDCOM-FP
Digital Design of Complex Materials for Formulated Products was awarded by Innovate UK as part of the Industrial Strategy Fund (ISCF) Manufacturing Made Smarter Challenge. This project ran from 2020 to 2022.
PSDI
The UK Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure project (PSDI) is aiming to connect experimental and computational resources to enable more effective reuse of data by researchers in the physical sciences. This will include the development of a platform that can connect across existing data infrastructures to enable data from different sources to be combined for use in AI and other computational workflows. It will also provide support and guidance that will help ensure FAIR management and publication of future physical sciences data collections.
In 2022, the CCDC contributed to the PSDI Pilot through provision of CSD-Theory to support a case study focused on materials discovery and by providing a report on the role of structure in physical sciences data management – you can read the report here.
Learn more about CSD-Theory
