About the grant
The grant will fund practice-led teams to co-design and deliver inclusive public engagement, with a key emphasis on cross-pollination, experimentation, and relationship-building. Successful projects will be vibrant sites for innovative practice, team building, and knowledge exchange that cut across sectors, disciplines and functions, generating connections beyond the grant.
We are looking for proposals that demonstrate the potential of a fresh team to build a deep collaboration leading to innovative engagement activities. We expect vibrant and novel activities to emerge from collaborations and teamwork enabled by the grant. What you plan to do together doesn’t need to be fully formed at the point of application, but proposals should include compelling opportunities for interactivity and direct engagement with public audiences.
Grant details and how to apply
You will need to form a project team, convened by a lead applicant who must be a researcher in a Higher Education Institution (HEI) or a UKRI-recognised Independent Research Organisation (IRO), and would be responsible for project managing the grant. The project team must include new working partnerships, and we hope to see novel and unexpected proposals for collaboration. Project teams must be composed of researchers, professional services staff and non-HEI partners, with specific conditions noted in the grant guidance document.
Funding of up to £10,000 is available. The amount funded must be matched at 25% by the lead applicant’s institution, either directly or in kind. We anticipate making up to 6 awards in this year’s round of funding.
The deadline to apply for the Collaboration and Innovation Grant is Tuesday 26 May, 5pm.
Piloting the grant
Over the last six months, the grant has been piloted with two projects that have tested various elements of the grant and resulted in a set of reflections and learnings that have directly informed the funding application. The two pilot projects are underway in London and in Fife, Scotland, with one exploring the theme of Walking, Power, and Inclusion, and the other centred on Community Gardening.
Photo: Pilot participants at Forgan Arts. Credit: Lorna Powell
Photo: Alisa Oleva and Saira Niazi at Whitechapel Gallery. Credit: Lorna Powell
Why take part?
Pilot participants have shared with us that collaborating outside of their usual professional ecosystems has been enriching, generative, and refreshing. There has also been positive feedback about the grant’s flexibility and openness, which has allowed for new ideas to emerge.
This grant is an opportunity to collaborate with people from different institutions, from the cultural and community sector, and build new relationships that could lead in exciting, unknown directions. We hope the grant will generate vibrant ideas for experimentation, becoming a springboard for further collaboration among project teams.
Successful teams will join a community of practitioners who are pushing the public engagement landscape to be more interdisciplinary, ambitious, socially engaged and forward-looking.
Find out more
Sign up to our application webinar, taking place on 9 March at 3-4pm to ask any questions and hear from pilot participants about their experiences.
Please read the full application guidance to find out more about grant priorities, full eligibility criteria and what we’re looking for in applications. For any questions or comments, get in touch with the CPEP team at [email protected].
Being Human Festival 2026 is now open for applications
The call for applications for Being Human 2026, taking place 5-14 November, is now live with funding grants available.
Being Human is the UK’s national festival of the humanities. Each year humanities researchers and staff from universities and research organisations around the UK are invited to take part in the festival by organising a public engagement event or activity. This year’s festival will take place with the theme ‘Crossroads’.
The deadline to apply for Being Human Festival funding is Thursday 16 April, 5pm.
Sign up to the application webinar on 25 February, 11am-12pm, to find out more.