Funding for Involvement and Engagement
Public involvement and engagement activities require a budget. It is strongly recommended that researchers plan for, cost and include an appropriate budget for both involvement and engagement in the grant application.
The School facilitates funding opportunities for involvement and engagement.
OPEN SPCR FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
INVOLVEMENT, ENGAGEMENT AND DISSEMINATION ENABLEMENT FUND [OPEN NOW}
The School for Primary Care Research (SPCR) is launching an Enablement Fund to support SPCR researchers and member departments in expanding their involvement, engagement, and dissemination activities, with the goal of fostering further opportunity for co-production and collaboration and enhancing inclusion and diversity of the public and communities in research.
The fund is open to individuals affiliated with one of the SPCR's nine member departments. We invite those across all career stages to apply, and particularly encourage applications from PhD students and Early Career Researchers.
For this fund we have two streams of funding available to reflect the different type of activities which this fund can support:
- Project-specific activities: Funding is available up to £2,000 for activities seeking to enhance involvement, engagement and/or dissemination activities within a specific project.
- Department-wide activities: Funding is available up to £5,000 for activities seeking to enhance involvement, engagement and/or dissemination activities across a SPCR Member Department (this includes activities which span multiple department projects and/or multiple SPCR member departments)
To further increase opportunities to access this fund, the fund will operate with a rolling deadline with opportunities for applications across three time points in 2025-26.
- Round 1 deadline: Thursday 24th July 2025 by 5pm
- Round 2 deadline: Thursday 23rd October 2025 by 5pm
- Round 3 deadline: Thursday 29th January 2026 by 5pm
Find out more about the fund and how to apply
PREVIOUS SPCR FUNDING ROUNDS
Public Involvement and Engagement Fund (2022 & 2024)
The SPCR would like to contribute to the NIHR’s ambition to develop new ideas to improve public involvement and engagement activities. This funding call is to encourage those from SPCR Member Departments to develop new, or continue existing, relationships with groups, organisations and communities currently under-served by research or health and care in general. Projects and activities need to have a strong link to primary care research and funding can be requested for up to £8,000
This competition is now closed
Engagement and Dissemination Fund
The NIHR School for Primary Care Research (SPCR) has a track record of funding high quality primary care research. As well as raising awareness of primary care research, we are committed to increasing engagement and dissemination activities.
As such, the SPCR is launching a second funding call for engagement and dissemination activities.
Researchers may apply for small bursaries, of up to £800, to engage and disseminate SPCR funded research amongst non-academic audiences. Activities may include public talks, hands-on activities in a community setting, information stands in public spaces or virtual workshops with non-academic professionals. Creativity in the types of activities proposed is particularly encouraged.
This competition is now closed.
FUNDING THROUGH SPCR MEMBERS
Many of the SPCR members have funding opportunities for their researchers for involvement and engagement opportunities:
- Keele University - Funding Opportunities
- Queen Mary University of London - Funding opportunities
- University of Bristol - Public Engagement Seed Fund
- University of Exeter - TREE funding
- University of Oxford - Public Involvement Fund
- University of Oxford - Public Engagement with Research Seed Fund
- University of Manchester - Emerging Engagement and Established Engagement
- University of Southampton - Public Engagement with Research – Development Funding
- University College London - PPIE Small Grants (details at bottom of page)
EXTERNAL FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
The National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) provide a comprehensive list of funders for public engagement.
Other organisations who also provide grants for involvement and engagement activities include: