About
The Nuffield Foundation is an independent charitable trust that funds research, encourages innovation, and supports the use of sound evidence to improve lives. With a strategic focus on creating a fairer, more inclusive, and more prosperous society, the Foundation is investing £150 million over five years to address urgent social and economic challenges. Its priorities include education, welfare, justice, science and technology, and climate change. The Foundation also operates research centres including the Ada Lovelace Institute, Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and Nuffield Family Justice Observatory.
Funding Opportunities
Strategic Fund
The Nuffield Foundation's Strategic Fund supports new, transformative ideas that are capable of anticipating and addressing the most significant themes and developments shaping the UK public policy agenda. With up to £15 million available, the Fund invites proposals that respond to one or more of five priority questions set out in their Strategic Review. These are major grants, typically in the range of £1-3 million each, designed to combine rigorous research with a clear focus on impact. The Foundation is particularly keen to fund multidisciplinary work as well as experimental and innovative approaches with the aim of improving people's lives in the UK. Projects should be original and ambitious, confronting the scale and urgency of the UK's biggest social and economic challenges. The Fund expects proposals to address priority areas including building a prosperous and fair society, creating an inclusive society, ensuring science and technology work for people, developing climate policies that promote fairness, and building effective and trustworthy institutions.
Racial Diversity UK Fund
The Racial Diversity UK Fund (RDUK) supports research on racial diversity within the UK, focusing on understanding the barriers and pathways to a racially just and inclusive society. The fund was launched in 2024 to investigate why some of the UK's differential racial outcomes persist while other disparities have closed, and to explore what works to end racial disparities. The programme is funded by an endowment that supports work relating to the Commonwealth, with interest in the future of UK society as shaped by its colonial past, specifically by the migration of people from former British colonies to the UK. The priority theme for the autumn 2025 application round is migration, arrivals, and legacies. Areas of interest include how colonial legacies shape the UK's racially diverse future, patterns and experiences of migration and settlement, impacts of migration on communities, demographic projections, and rights and routes to residency and citizenship. The fund welcomes applications proposing any methodological approach, including applied methods and participatory research. The Foundation particularly encourages applicants from diverse backgrounds and racially minoritised communities, and strongly encourages partnership applications that bring together researchers and communities to explore challenges and develop solutions. Research funded is expected to contribute to understanding, public debate, policy and practice on tackling racial inequalities, discrimination and disadvantage, and to map pathways towards a UK that is comfortable with and reaping the benefits of its growing racial diversity.
Main Grants (Research, Development and Analysis Fund)
The Nuffield Foundation's Main Grants fund (the Research, Development and Analysis Fund) offers funding for research projects that address one or more of the Foundation's five interconnected priorities and aim to improve lives in the UK. The fund supports research that addresses critical questions around building a prosperous and fair society, promoting inclusion, ensuring science and technology work for people, developing climate policies that promote fairness, and maintaining effective and trustworthy institutions. Applications are accepted through a two-stage process with deadlines twice a year in Spring and Autumn. The fund seeks proposals that demonstrate relevance to priority questions, clear impact pathways, strong conceptual frameworks, rigorous methodology, appropriate team expertise, and value for money. Grants typically range from under £300,000 up to £500,000, with exceptional cases considered up to £750,000. Projects usually run from six months to three years.
At a Glance
- Total Funding Opportunities
- 4
- Active Now
- 3
- Source Domain
- nuffieldfoundation.org
Catalog Data
This funder profile was automatically extracted from grant listings. Information may be incomplete.
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