Tap into the power of 'if'
The Ideas Fund is a grants programme run by the British Science Association and funded by Wellcome, which supports more equitable community-researcher collaboration with a focus on mental wellbeing
Sharing the value of community-led research partnerships
Since we funded our first mental wellbeing projects in 2021, we’ve learned a lot about the impact that community-led collaboration with researchers can have. We’re now working closely with some of these projects to really build the evidence around the types of impact these partnerships are having.
Read more about our Evidence Building Grants
Our story so far
We’ve tested ways of funding projects flexibly, using a place based approach that prioritised supporting ideas with potential from groups embedded in their communities. We’re now focused on working alongside our group of funded projects to understand how our approach, and their community-researcher partnerships, create change at individual, organisation and systems levels.
Read more about our journey so farLatest
Learning together – notes from our Evidence Building grantholder meet up
We recently announced our Evidence Building Grants. These are our reflections from getting the group together online to talk about learning.
The Ideas Fund awards £1.73m to community mental wellbeing projects
Thirteen projects have been awarded a total of £1.73million to continue and extend their work, alongside researchers, improving the mental wellbeing of local communities. The new grants, called Evidence Building Grants, will help projects strengthen and expand their work, whilst gathering learning about the impact that can be achieved when communities are supported to lead work in partnership with researchers.
Creating Community Through Circus: A Q&A with Cath from In Your Space Circus
The Ideas Fund is proud to support In Your Space Circus, a circus school and performance company based in Derry, Northern Ireland, that is supporting older people to have fun, develop new skills and build community through circus. We spoke to Company Director Cath about their work and their experience of The Ideas Fund so far.