Funding opportunities for engagement and impact

Funds to support engagement and impact activities based on LSE research and expertise, as well as evaluation and evidence

 
Supporting knowledge exchange throughout the research lifecycle

Funding opportunities for engagement and impact (or KEI) activities at LSE will be listed below. Internal funding opportunities are primarily supported by LSE's Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) allocation.

Please contact the research engagement and impact team if you'd like to discuss any form of research engagement and impact activity. You can also subscribe to Research Briefing to receive a monthly update from LSE Research and Innovation

Internal Funding

Central internal funding schemes for researchers

LSE internal funding schemes support the full research and innovation lifecycle, including seed funding of impact. In 2025/26, applications will be open twice a year: 

Autumn deadline: Friday 10 October 2025 (drafts by Friday 26 September)
Spring deadline: Friday 10 April 2026 (drafts by Friday 27 March)

Please get in touch at least 2 weeks before the final deadline to discuss your application. Email research.engagement@lse.ac.uk.

Engagement and partnerships fund - projects up to £15k for up to 1 year

This scheme aims to fund communication, dissemination, and other engagement activities with non-academic audiences, or scope and develop emerging connections for engagement and collaboration, or grow existing relationships into more strategic and sustainable ones. Successful proposals will articulate plans to identify and engage new audiences, or establish/develop collaborations and partnerships, in ways that create pathways from ongoing or completed research to impact and downstream benefit.

Please click HERE for guidance on making an application to the Engagement and partnerships fund. 

Impact fund (formerly KEI large bid fund) - projects up to £15k for up to 1 year

This scheme aims to fund projects that develop, grow, and strengthen pathways to non-academic impact of all kinds with clearly identified collaborators, partners, and/or beneficiaries. Projects will outline convincing plans to develop, evaluate, and/or collect evidence of impacts and must be demonstrably connected to ongoing and completed research. Anticipated impacts may be in local, national, or international contexts.

For this scheme, there is the potential to apply for larger and longer projects in order to contribute to a REF impact case study in development. Please contact research.engagement@lse.ac.uk to discuss projects that may require additional resource.

Please click HERE for guidance on making an application to the Impact fund. 

Innovation fund

This scheme aims to fund novel and ambitious innovation activity based on LSE research and early-stage impact, that seeks to translate research into new products, processes, and services for a target audience or customer. Successful proposals will have ideas for innovative products, processes, and services, or the development of innovation pathways and evidence, and business and commercial skills.

Please click HERE for guidance on making an application to the Innovation fund.

Engagement and impact funds for Departments

Departmental research engagement and impact allocations are renewed annually (subject to the continuation of HEIF funding). Funding for 2025/26 must be spent by 31 July 2026 and will be awarded on the following conditions:

  1. Departments will be offered up to £5,000 of funding towards strategic research engagement and impact activities, which advance either their own engagement and impact goals (in line with their REF environment statements) or with the wider Research for the World strategy. Funding should therefore focus on activities that would benefit the department as a whole, rather than individual academics. (See suggested areas below).
  2. Funding will be made available subject to approval of plans by the Research Engagement and Impact team (via Louise Jones, research.engagement@lse.ac.uk). The team will work with departments to develop and support plans.
  3. At the end of this period a short report on spending will be required. Funding will not be made available for future years unless the report has been submitted.

Suggested areas

  • Use of funding to update departmental websites or content used to engage external audiences with LSE research including research films, animations, infographics.
  • Activities to build partnerships or connections with relevant external groups, e.g. businesses, policy makers, heritage sector, local communities, schools.
  • Activities to support the development of impact case studies for REF 2028.
  • Activities and initiatives that involve students with research engagement and impact, connecting research impact, teaching and the student experience.
  • Training in skills required for effective engagement and impact in your discipline, if not covered by the central training programme.
  • Funding to support monitoring and evaluation of research engagement and impact across the department.

PhD engagement and impact funds 2025/26

A competitive funding pot for PhD students looking to increase the chances of their research having an impact through engagement with non-academic audiences. Termly deadline for applications for projects up to £5k, lasting up to 1 year. Applicants can only receive funding for one engagement project during their PhD research.

Please send expressions of interest to research.engagement@lse.ac.uk. The Research Engagement and Impact team will work with PhD candidates to develop their ideas and complete an application form - this process will likely take a few weeks, so please allow sufficient time. Before submission, applications have to be supported by PhD supervisors. Applications are then considered and approved by a panel of reviewers. Decisions are made by the end of the term of application.

Autumn Term deadline - Friday 24 October 2025

 

External Funding

External funding opportunities for impact and engagement projects will be included here, contact your Research Development Manager if you are considering applying for any of these schemes.