News
Catch up on the latest news from The Ideas Fund!
28 February 2025
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.
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18 February 2025
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.
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30 December 2024
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.
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13 November 2024
Valuing Lived Experience in Research: A Q&A with Sally from Inspire Women
One of the projects we work with at The Ideas Fund is Inspire Women, an Oldham-based organisation that supports women with their mental health. We spoke to organisation founder Sally Bonnie about their community, how they’ve had to reinvent themselves after losing their centre during COVID-19 and the importance of valuing lived experience in research.
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10 October 2024
How peer research can have a big impact for local communities: A Q&A with Melody from Garelochhead Station Trust, and Christian from Men Behaving Dadly
Melody and Christian sat down with us to talk about their experiences of doing peer research in their communities, as part of The Ideas Fund. Melody is part of Garelochhead Station Trust, a charity that supports veterans, their families and the wider community in a rural community in Scotland. Christian is from Men Behaving Dadly, a group that supports Dad’s in Oldham to connect with their children through play.
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12 August 2024
Introducing The Ideas Fund Impact Framework
In our recent announcement about the The Ideas Fund being extended for a further three years, we shared that the next phase of our work will include an increased emphasis on gathering evidence and sharing best practice about community-led partnerships with researchers.
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02 July 2024
Harnessing the power of exercise for addiction recovery: A Q&A with Gary from ARC Fitness
One of the projects supported by The Ideas Fund is ARC Fitness, an organisation based in Derry, Northern Ireland, that offers practical support for people struggling with addiction and promotes healthy and sustainable recoveries through exercise and positive lifestyle choices. The project collaborated with two researchers, Dr Leanne Doherty and Dr Clare Puddifoot from Ulster University to conduct research into gender-specific recovery programmes. We spoke to ARC Founder Gary Rutherford, who told us all about the research, what it’s like being part of The Ideas Fund and more.
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23 May 2024
Using community research to better understand the needs of families affected by Acquired Brain Injury (ABI): A Q&A with P.A.U.L for Brain Recovery
One of the projects supported by The Ideas Fund in Hull is Supporting Family Members Affected by ABI (Acquired Brain Injury), led by the group P.A.U.L for Brain Recovery. We sat down with project lead Leigh and researcher Alex to talk about the project, the benefits of community-led research and how they’re using their findings to improve services for families affected by brain injury.
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27 February 2024
How community-led research is improving understanding of youth mental health in Shetland: A Q&A with Shannon from OPEN
Over the last few years, OPEN has collaborated with researchers on a number of projects aiming to better understand youth mental wellbeing in Shetland. We recently sat down with Shannon Boston, one of the peer researchers involved in the projects, to hear more about their experience of doing community-led research.
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29 January 2024
The Ideas Fund: In Conversation: Three researchers share their experiences of collaborating with community-led projects
Following the recent ‘In Conversation’ between James and Anna on their experiences collaborating with researchers, we invited three academic researchers to share their experiences of collaborating with community-led projects funded by The Ideas Fund.
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11 December 2023
Beyond projects: nurturing healthy systems
Read a summary of our latest learning conversation, focused on supporting systems change
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29 November 2023
The role of the broker
We recently explored the role of the "broker" in community/researcher collaboration with Will Hunter and Lewis Hou, and share some of our reflections here.
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