Wellcome Trust Arts Grants

Overview

You can apply for funding at two levels:

Small Arts Awards (small- to medium-sized projects - up to and including £40 000)
Small Arts Awards can support the R&D of new project ideas or ways of working, investigate and experiment with new methods of engagement through the arts, or fund or part-fund final production costs of new work.

Large Arts Awards (larger projects - above £40 000)
Large Arts Awards can support all or part of the cost of high-quality, larger scale or ambitious arts projects with significant reach or impact on audiences. This can include the creation of new work, or taking opportunities to increase audience engagement with existing work.

Large Arts projects require a collaboration with biomedical scientists or researchers. For new work, this should be part of a collaborative creative process or, for existing work, in the development of other opportunities for audiences to engage with research.

Please see the application guidelines for details about how this applies to your idea.

Points to consider
Both the Large and Small Arts Award schemes are highly competitive and we are often even unable to fund very good applications.

Developing artistic practice:
High quality, imaginative artistic practice is a key feature of all successful Arts Award applications. We support professional, artist-led approaches to the subject matter that are likely to result in exciting and engaging work and the development of artistic practice.

Applicants often forget to write about the artistic vision, ambition or process behind their proposal, which makes it difficult for the funding Committee to understand or get excited about the activity they are being asked to support.

Projects that don’t lead to the development or delivery of new artistic work are usually ineligible for funding.

Creating new work:
The creation of ‘new work’ can include R&D towards future projects, or the final stages of making and delivering a project in development.

If you are applying for R&D funding, you should try and show us that you have both the capacity and experience to realise the finished piece in future.

For applications requesting funding towards final production costs, your application is more likely to be competitive if you are able to demonstrate a clear delivery or distribution plan. If this involves working with other partners or venues, indications of their support are valuable.

Involving biomedical science:
Arts Awards projects must have biomedical science input into the creative process. These collaborators may be from an ethics, science or history background, but must be experts in the area of biomedical science you are investigating. The most successful and rewarding projects develop responsive, collaborative relationships, with ongoing engagement.

In making decisions, we look for evidence that you have considered what form the collaboration with biomedical experts is likely to take, and that this is appropriate for your project and partners. Due to the competitive nature of the awards, applications that don’t include a confirmed biomedical expert will usually be ineligible for funding.

Reaching audiences:
The strongest applications are able to articulate why a project is likely to be of interest to its audience and how that audience is likely to be targeted.

The Trust is increasingly interested in supporting projects that reach audiences currently underserved by existing arts and science engagement activity.

Application guidelines and further information on preparing your application are included in the “How to apply” section.

Other sources of funding
Projects that have strong science content, but no creative collaboration, may be more suited to a People Award.

Film projects that are not experimental art films and/or are mass broadcast media projects may be better suited to the Co-production Awards or the Development Awards for development costs. Please contact the scheme advisers if you need further information or advice.