The School of Advanced Study is pleased to announce two calls for applications for funding grants – one for Being Human Festival 2026, and the Centre for Public Engagement Practice in Arts and Humanities‘ new Collaboration and Innovation Grant. Both grants are open to researchers at universities and eligible research organisations across the UK to collaborate with local community and cultural partners to create exciting and innovative public engagement projects.

 

The grants foreground arts, humanities and social sciences research and encourage novel approaches to public engagement.

 

Just to note, while PhD researchers can’t lead grant applications, they can be part of a team that applies (and every Being Human Institutional Grant needs to include one activity led by a PhD researcher). They can lead an application for the Being Human Festival Event pathway (unfunded). We also thought our public engagement training programme might be of particular interest to PhD researchers.
Being Human Festival
Being Human Festival is the UK’s national festival of the humanities, and runs from 5 – 14 November with the theme Crossroads. The 2026 call for applications offers multiple funding pathways and one unfunded pathway.

 

Find out about Being Human Festival 2026
For questions relating to Being Human Festival, please email beinghuman@sas.ac.uk.

 

Collaboration and Innovation Grant
The Collaboration and Innovation Grant is a new funding scheme, awarding up to ?10,000 for the formation of practice-led, cross-sector teams to facilitate knowledge exchange and collaboration between sectors, from which experimental public engagement activity will emerge.

 

There will be an application webinar on Monday 9 March, 2-3pm, to find out more. Sign up here

Find out about The Collaboration and Innovation Grant

For questions relating to the Collaboration and Innovation Grant, please email cpep@sas.ac.uk.

 

2026 Training Programme

Our training series has been designed to cover some of the key knowledge and skills to help you connect the wider public with your research. This year’s offer includes sessions on working with cultural and community partners, inclusion, and creative engagement. The sessions will be led by expert facilitators with experience in their field, alongside members from the Being Human Festival team. While the sessions are primarily aimed at those taking part, or thinking of taking part, in Being Human Festival, they are open to all. All our training is free of charge, but booking is required. Find out more here