About the Fund

The Warwick Institute of Engagement (WIE) is seeking to support current staff and students to develop ongoing strategic relationships with local, regional, national and international public partners. In time, these relationships will lead to co-production of, and collaboration in, research projects, innovation programmes and strategy, as well as collaboration on the discussion of research outcomes and the co-organisation of public engagement events.

Awards of up to £3,000 will be available, to support activities that focus on building new, or strengthening existing, relationships, with local, regional, and national community partners, groups or organisations.

The fund runs twice yearly. The first call opens in the autumn term (October to December) with funds allocated for spend from January to June and another call in the spring term (April to June) with funds allocated for spend in the full following academic year from August to June.

Please note that since August 2023 we have been operating a 2 strike policy for no shows at our externally led masterclasses. If you book a masterclass and do not attend without cancelling your place 7 days in advance you will receive a strike. After 2 strikes we will no longer allow you to book for our masterclasses, and you will be barred from applying to this fund until the following academic year.

Relationship building/strengthening could include:

• Developing a sense of reciprocity between individuals in the University and groups within the community
• Developing an understanding of each others’ perspectives, aims and objectives.
• Identifying areas of importance to a community or a group where they feel the University could help create positive impact.
• Developing ideas that could become funded co-produced or collaborative projects.
• Identifying ways in which the University could support communities beyond specific projects.
• Exploring ways in which communities and groups could work together with the University to create impactful actions that create social benefit.
• Exploring ways in which communities and groups could work with the University to collaborate on the discussion of research outcomes and co-host public facing events

Support

We run support sessions to provide an overview of the fund, how the application process works, and how you can find potential external partners to work with. These sessions are an opportunity to ask questions of the judging panel and learn about opportunities for more support before the submission deadline.

Our next support session is scheduled on Thursday 24th October 10am - 11am.

You can also access the recording from the last session held in May 2024

How we review applications

Applications are reviewed and scored by a panel comprised of the Chair of our Co-production Learning Circle, select team members from WIE, and some of our Regional Fellows. They will assess all applications against the criteria set out here. In the event of a conflict of interest an alternate reviewer will be used.

Successful applications will be selected at the start of December and July and you can expect to hear on the outcome mid way through the same month.

Successful Applications

If you're successful in your application you will receive a project code to spend the fund from. You must spend by the end of the Financial Year (31 July) or the money will no longer be available. We may need to set this deadline earlier to allow us time to reallocate underspend. We are unable to roll over funds. You can find the terms and conditions of the fund here

Successful awardees will need to submit a report (by close of financial year of award) covering:

• activities conducted to build/strengthen the relationship
• full budget report on monies spent
• statement from the external partner reflecting on the activities
• statement on immediate next steps (set against their desired outcomes from their application form)

Additionally, you will also need to commit to inform WIE of new activities with their partner and provide an annual return to WIE on the status of the relationship they built/strengthened for 3 years after funding. You can review our reporting template hereLink opens in a new window