You must apply by 12.00pm on Tuesday 20th October 2026.
Please read the How to Apply pages of our website for advice and support before you start.
Eligibility criteria
You can only apply for a Fellowship if you are:
- Living in the UK, including the Channel Islands, or the Isle of Man
- A UK citizen or an Irish citizen born in Northern Ireland*
- Aged 18 or over or will be by 31 December 2026
If you do not meet all three of the criteria, you should not apply.
*You will need a UK passport, or other proof that you are a UK citizen.
Please note, we do not give Fellowships for:
- An idea that will only benefit the applicant, not wider UK society
- An application from more than one person or from a team
- A project that already has, or hopes to have, a large number of funders
- Academic studies, dissertations for undergraduate degrees, degree placements, medical electives, student grants, internships, or courses
- Postgraduate studies, unless they can show wider, practical benefits to others in the UK
- Gap year activities, unless the application is for a stand-alone project that satisfies our criteria
- Art projects that will result only in an exhibition and have no public benefit beyond raising the profile and expertise of the applicant
- Artists’ residencies
- Research for fiction, unless it clearly has a wider public benefit
- Volunteering
How to apply
You can only apply once each year. If you do not get a Fellowship this year, you can apply again in future years.
This is the first stage of our application process. We will email to let you know if you have been longlisted by mid-December 2026.
We will decide who has got through the second stage and is shortlisted by early February 2027. This is when we will ask for more detailed information and a budget.
How we use your information
We are committed to handling your personal data in accordance with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. We do not sell or share your personal data with third parties. We may share anonymised versions of the application data with third parties, but we take steps to remove names and direct identifiers wherever possible. However, please be aware that if you include other information in your application that could indirectly identify you, this may still make the data identifiable to third parties. In such cases, it will be understood that this information is shared with your consent. If you are shortlisted for an interview or proceed to become a Fellow, we would share your data with our partners on the basis of legitimate interest.
We may contact you by post, email, or phone in relation to your application. For more information about how we use and protect your data, please see our full privacy notice on our website.