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Programme Overview
The Engagement Grants Programme offers grants of up to £3,000 for organisations to conduct outreach and engagement projects that will connect archives with their communities in places across England and Wales.
Our engagement grants are often responsive to cultural events and days of national importance. Each opportunity is advertised on our website, Twitter and Jisc mailing list.
Programme context
As part of our leadership role for the archives sector in England and Wales, and to deliver Archives Unlocked, the Government’s vision for archives, we provide grants for skills, innovation and engagement in the archives sector.
Our approach to our leadership role is a collaborative one: supporting partnerships and working to encourage a sustainable and innovative sector. We want to prepare the archives sector for the future in an uncertain world. We will invest in:
- the skills of the archives sector workforce
- research to lead innovation in technology and archival practice
- engagement to connect archives with changing societies in places across England and Wales
Each year we look for applications that are accessible, inspiring and inclusive for audiences. Projects can be based at your archive service or involve outreach work with your collections.
Current Round
2025-26
The theme for the current application round is ‘Belonging’. By collecting records relating to our shared past and present, archives play an important role in helping people feel a sense of belonging.
Archives can help people understand how they belong to communities around them now as well as how they are part of collective histories, continuing traditions, sharing similar experiences and building on the progress of those who came before them. Archives can foster a sense of belonging in various contexts, from helping a whole community or town feel a joint sense of pride in their place through to helping individuals to feel at home within a group, organisation or country.
We are asking applicants to consider their collections and devise creative ways to use these records to engage with new and existing audiences, exploring ideas relating to ‘Belonging’.
Previous Rounds
2024-2025
The theme for the previous application round was ‘Community’. We asked applicants to consider their collections, and how they could use them to engage with new and existing audiences and in new and creative ways, to explore ideas relating to ‘Community’. Whether that be communities formed around place, practice, interest or circumstance, we wanted to see applications that reflected the way in which communities connected and united us, and did so in a way that is inclusive of all.
Archives have an important and unique role in bringing people closer together to explore stories of people, places and events that have defined our shared history.
2023-2024
Applications to the first round of Engagement Grants were based on the idea and concept of ‘Place’.
You can read about all awarded projects on our Current and Past projects pages.