Our phase one grantees
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).
Centric Lab
Mission
Centric Lab aims to provide support to grassroots community groups, prototyping ways to use scientific evidence to articulate the health-based injustices felt by many communities.
Background
Centric Lab and Clean Air Southall & Hayes (CASH) joined forces in 2018 after they noticed a gap between health protection policies and lived experiences of people in their communities.
They are creating a toolkit for a justice-led Health Impact Assessment, working with communities to acknowledge the lived realities of marginalised communities to identify risks to communities’ health, wellbeing, and resilience.
Culture Access CIC
Mission
Use the lived experience of disabled individuals as data to enable companies and councils to promote wider participation and inclusion of disabled people.
Background
Culture Access CIC is a disabled led organisation that has held successful workshops for disabled residents in Greenwich, with the most recent event aiming to support and improve wellbeing.
They conduct research into improving accessibility for disabled people in the community, having analysed transport access, city circulation, British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter availability, and support staff availability.
Generations Working Together
Mission
Breaking down barriers through intergenerational dialogue to create resilient, safer communities that are safe to grow up and grow old in.
Background
This project aimed to explore the impact of intergenerational relationships on perceived fear of crime, ageism, empathy, and social connections between people of all ages, through participatory research in Glasgow.
JustLife
Mission
To create change through increasing knowledge and understanding of intersectional experiences of emergency and/or temporary accommodation (E/TA).
Background
People living in E/TA are often treated as a homogenous group, leading to services that are neither safe nor effective and, in many cases, can be actively harmful.
Justlife conducted peer research in Brighton to access the knowledge held by the diverse E/TA community in an ethical, effective, and genuinely empowering way. The project co-developed a methodology best suited to carry out intersectionally-aware research on community experiences of E/TA. This research serves to better inform the necessary changes in service delivery for these initiatives.
MadLab
Mission
Empower young people in Greater Manchester through effective digital skills training that leads to high-quality job opportunities.
Background
The Covid-19 pandemic widened access to online and hybrid learning opportunities, but major national and regional initiatives have failed to increase the skills and, therefore, job prospects of Greater Manchester residents – particularly young people.
MadLab is developing a youth-led research centre to harness the skills and experiences of young people, and mobilise them to articulate and address the challenges they are facing through this system.
Own Merit CIC
Mission
Evidencing a resettlement model for prison leavers that empowers them and reduces homelessness and reoffending, supporting people to rebuild their lives after prison.
Background
Own Merit CIC Co-Founders, Darryn Frost and Steve Gallant, met when using a Narwhal tusk to tackle a terrorist on London Bridge in 2019.
They set out to work with prisoner communities to hear their stories, understand their experiences, listen, learn, and ambitiously work with them to pilot an accommodation solution tailored to their needs.
Many prison leavers become homeless within 3 months, and prison leavers made homeless are over 50% more likely to reoffend within a year, according to Ministry of Justice data. This initiative aims to help residents become self-sufficient and better prepared for a crime-free and healthier future.
Torbay Community Development Trust
Mission Aiming to empower residents of Torbay through a participatory research project focused on enhancing wellbeing and community resilience.
Background Amid increasing use of the term ‘community resilience’ in health strategies and plans, this project addresses the need to recognise and clarify its meaning and adaptability. Existing research on community resilience is rooted in disaster relief, and lacks wellbeing perspective. To address this gap, this participatory research project engages Torbay residents to define and improve community resilience on their terms and on issues that matter to them.
Environment and sustainability
Across the UK, there is increasing focus, work, and action to promote a more sustainable environment. This category supports community groups that are creating knowledge about the social, health, environmental, and economic impact of climate change on their communities, and using their knowledge to take action to improve their environment in a sustainable way that will benefit the planet and people’s lives.
Children in Wales
Mission
Children in Wales are empowering young peer researchers to investigate how climate change affects youth in terms of health, education, opportunities, and social lives.
Background
Children in Wales is committed to prioritizing children’s perspectives and including them in their work, breaking down age and location barriers that prevent young people’s views and ideas from being heard.
Through the formation of forums centring young people’s voices, they are contributing to community research environment and sustainability issues.
Climates Hebrides CIC
Mission:
Climates Hebrides CIC aim to support community involvement in climate change efforts within the Outer Hebrides, through interactive participatory mapping activities supported by creative practice.
Background:
The Outer Hebrides must adapt to increase resilience to the local impacts of climate change. This project addresses the need for climate adaptation planning through developing and trialling tools and approaches to strengthen the communities local knowledge base on climate impacts, to inform meaningful collaborative adaptation action.
It collaborates with diverse groups through strategic partnerships to amplify the project’s impact, driving climate-resilient actions informed by local perspectives.
Cobra Collective CIC
Mission
Promote the importance of community food-growing (CFG) in food security and sustainability, conducting community-led research and knowledge exchange to empower people to tell their stories and influence local policy makers.
Background
This initiative aims to develop and trial tools and approaches to strengthen local knowledge on CFGs and contribute to community research on environment and sustainability issues.
Through strategic partnerships with diverse groups and collaborations with universities, Cobra Collective CIC uses participatory visual storytelling methodology to engage with and capture under-represented stories about CFG initiatives before they disappear. The purpose being to empower people to tell their own food growing stories, for ‘decision makers’ to engage with and then act on.
Global Grooves
Mission
Develop a sustainable model of energy generation and consumption in Mossley, encouraging community engagement and collaboration.
Background
This research project explores the necessary shifts in knowledge and power to create a more sustainable energy model, which addresses the damaging effects of climate change.
Through workshops, and engagement with participants from local communities; including gardeners, councillors, engineers, and IT consultants, this project has gathered knowledge to increase engagement with environmental sustainability initiatives.
Homebaked Community Land Trust
Mission
Homebaked CLT aims to create a community-led and area-based retrofit programme, in partnership with local authorities, that addresses the lack of quality and affordability in housing.
Background
Homebaked CLT was created by local people in response to the failures of top-down regeneration. Fuel poverty in their area is double the national average, with homes in the lowest 20% of domestic energy efficiency. They have worked with five community anchor organizations and have engaged locals through public-facing events, 1-1 conversations, and surveys to raise awareness of the benefits of retrofit.
Surrey County Council
Mission
The ‘Climate Connections’ project aims to empower Muslim women and girls in Surrey, centring overlooked voices, and establishing a replicable model for underrepresented groups’ engagement in research.
Background
The project focuses on building research capabilities amongst Muslim women, to engage their communities in qualitative peer research. Through co-designed research activities with a group called the ‘Ecowarriors’, this initiative creates knowledge by Muslim communities in north Surrey about their perspectives on climate change, which may challenge existing perceptions of minority ethnic attitudes to nature, climate change and green space.
Westcountry Rivers Trust
Mission
To upskill and empower communities to achieve clean and healthy waters by putting people and communities at the heart of citizen science, enabling them to identify specific outcomes they wish to see and create action to improve local water quality.
Background
Climate change and drought is a serious concern across the South West, impacting the environment, community, and the economy. Public interest in water pollution has also intensified with media coverage of the issues. Westcountry Citizen Science Investigations (CSI) addresses shortfalls in Government-funded monitoring by empowering communities to collect data, track pollution and take action over poor water quality. This project puts the power in community hands, identifying key questions they want answered.
Open category
As an open fund, we invited applications from communities whose innovative ideas sat outside the two core themes, but still demonstrated plans and methods to build stronger community connections in research and innovation.
Camden Giving
Mission
Address the ongoing impact of structural racism in Camden and Birmingham, aiming to support residents to play an active role in research and learning about their local areas.
Background
This project showcases a new, evidence-based, innovative approach to identifying levers for systems-wide change at a place-based level. By working with older and younger generations to develop a shared, inter-generational understanding of the root causes of racial inequity, this initiative is highlighting and addressing issues and racial inequality to foster more inclusive and equitable communities.
Devon Community Foundation
Mission
Foster connections between local food producers and vulnerable residents in North Devon through community research. Address food insecurity, and empower the community to voice concerns, share ideas, and collaborate with food producers.
Background
This project emerged in response to high rates of food insecurity in North Devon, to bridge the gap between the region’s food producers and locals.
Focusing on young rural residents and foodbank users, the project facilitates farm visits, interactive sessions, and cooking sessions to engage the community with local produce and address issues around food access and quality. Future expansion aims to increase impact across North Devon.
Groundswell
Mission
Groundswell aims to develop and test a trauma-informed approach to peer research, helping research institutions to better-support people with lived experiences of homelessness.
Background
This initiative explores ways of making research safer and more supportive for researchers with experience of homelessness. Through scoping out trauma-informed approaches to peer research that could equip research institutions to better support researchers, both psychologically and practically.
Northern Ireland Youth Forum
Mission
By promoting a youth-led approach to research and activism, the Northern Ireland Youth Forum (NIYF) empowers young people to lead research and lobbying activities, based on the pillars of Rights, Research and Social Justice.
Background
With young people comprising one-third of the population in Northern Ireland, the NIYF recognizes the need to address their systemic disadvantage and disenfranchisement.
Through a range of youth-led research projects, the organisation has enabled high-impact participation at strategic levels. A ‘Speaking Truth to Power’ subgroup, facilitated by the NIYF, has provided training and workshops on research methods, social justice, and identifying key issues, allowing young people to analyse data and put together a youth manifesto for change.
The Shoebox Enterprises CIC
Mission
‘Community Conversations’ employs an innovative, asset-based approach to to build citizen participation and address inequalities in Norwich, aiming to shape a shared infrastructure for community research, and drive holistic progress towards equality and well-being.
Background
Community Conversations is a pioneering initiative responding to inequalities within Norwich’s designated target areas: Mile Cross, North Earlham, and Mancroft. Community Connectors uncover residents’ passions and needs through events, social media, and engagement techniques, reaching diverse groups, including marginalized communities. By amplifying voices, they enable collective action and evidence-based collaboration.
Starting Point Community Learning Partnership
Mission
This initiative addresses the discomfort of intrusive research questions in communities by promoting self-driven exploration, aiming to shift from passive research subjects to empowered community researchers.
Background
Using innovative tools and technology, the project uses participatory research methods to collect insights and create actionable recommendations for community development. Through surveying and analysis of insights, a 12-point guide to what matters people in Woodley was developed.
Wakefield Libraries
Mission
Testing how a community research network can integrate with public services to shape district approach to heritage collections; leading to ideas of how to improve access through conservation, digitisation, volunteer-led, or crowdsourced transcription projects.
Background
The project explores the integration of a community research network with public services to shape heritage collection strategies. It investigates historical documents to reveal truths about events, using workshops and expert engagement. The initiative empowers communities to own their history, fostering cohesion, skills, and pride, ultimately enabling wellbeing and fairer futures.