The Ideas Fund is a grants programme run by the British Science Association and funded by Wellcome which has brought communities and researchers together to build strong relationships and collaborate on mental wellbeing projects. We made community grants in 2021 and 2022, and continue to support some of these partnerships to create the biggest possible impact for themselves, their organisations and their communities.

You can read about some of these projects in more detail in our first insight report, which captures the learnings and impacts since The Ideas Fund was launched in January 2021. All the projects we support have a focus on mental wellbeing, in its broadest sense. When the Fund was being co-designed we heard clearly that this was a priority for communities, and a good way to make sure new partnerships with researchers would also create real change for the people our funded groups serve.

The Fund sits alongside our other work on community-led collaboration with research to help us try out new ways to build long lasting, impactful partnerships. The British Science Association aims to put communities at the heart of research and innovation. You can read more about our three year goals and our ten year strategy to find out more about why we think it’s so important for communities to have a leading voice in the way research works and the issues it works on.

We run lots of different programmes which support community-researcher partnerships and help us share the voices of people shaping new approaches and perspectives like our Community Led Research Pilot in Reading and Slough, or the Highlands and Islands Climate Change grant programme.

VISIT THE IDEAS FUND WEBSITE