The new Community Knowledge Fund is making grants worth between £10k and £100k available to community groups and organisations around the UK to support them to play a stronger role in research and innovation. Funds will help develop and test new ideas and approaches to creating, sharing and using the knowledge held within communities to make progress on local and national challenges. 

Involving communities more meaningfully in research and innovation has many benefits: it encourages conversations and helps spread knowledge, it builds new relationships and ways of working, and it increases understanding of what is important to people.

However, there’s often a disconnect between the institutions leading research, and the people and community groups who are working to create change in their communities. There is work to do to bridge the gap and strengthen the connections between communities and the research and innovation system.

By tapping into the creativity and knowledge that exists within communities, the Community Knowledge Fund will support community groups and organisations to find new solutions to local and national challenges by uncovering knowledge and turning great ideas into action.  Funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and delivered by The Young Foundation, the Fund will provide a total pot of £950,000 to support up to 34 grants to grassroots community groups and organisations across the UK.

Communities will be able to apply for grants of £10k to develop their initial ideas, create the right conditions for research and innovation, and begin early testing. They will then be able to apply for additional funding of £50k to £100k to further test and grow their ideas in Phase 2. Alongside the funding, you will take part in a learning programme, coaching, workshops and events that will connect you to a wider network of grantees, organisations and stakeholders relevant to your work.  

The Community Knowledge Fund is an open fund, meaning we’re interested in hearing what matters to you and what ideas you have. We are also particularly interested in two areas, one is ‘environment and sustainability,’ and the other is ‘community safety and resilience’. These themes were selected by communities across the UK, through work done by The Young Foundation and UKRI to uncover the areas that matter most to people across the country.

To be eligible for the Community Knowledge Fund, applicants should be working to address one of the following themes:

• Community safety and resilience
  Community safety is about supporting people to feel safe. It is about how local individuals and community groups come together, drawing on their local resources and expertise to support themselves and each other to build resilience in their community. Safety was the single biggest issue that mattered to UK communities – cited by one fifth of participants in the Institute for Community Studies report Safety in Numbers (2020).
   
• Environment and sustainability
  Across the UK, there is increasing focus, work and action to promote a more sustainable environment. We’re keen to hear from community groups that are creating knowledge about the social, health, environmental and economic impact of climate change on their communities and how they are using their knowledge to take action to improve their environment in a sustainable way that will improve people’s lives and the planet.
   
• Open category
  As an open fund, we invite communities to tell us about the innovative ideas they have that might sit outside our two core themes. Community groups and organisations applying within the open category are invited to tell us why the funding and support package will help them focus on a particular challenge that matters most to them and demonstrate that their idea reflects the ambitions of the fund to build stronger community connections to research and innovation. 

 What next? 
1. Review the open call to find out more about the fund and application process.  
2. Sign up for pre-application online workshops  on Wednesday 5th October at 5pm – 6.30pm to get a deeper sense of the fund, ask questions and meet other applicants who might be working on similar challenges. 

The expression of interest window closes at 11.59pm on Monday 7 November 2022.

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