Funding to combine design-led interventions with arts and humanities methodologies to make positive contributions to the green transition.
This opportunity seeks to generate new arts and humanities-based approaches and methodologies that harness design to address environmental sustainability, decarbonisation, circular economies, policy design and regenerative practices. Funding will be provided to:
- co-develop interventions with a non-academic partner to assist sustained impact beyond the life of the grant
- engage collaboratively with communities or stakeholders, ensuring relevance and responsiveness to lived experience
- promote green transition-supportive behaviour change, either through deliberative policymaking and (de)regulation or through ‘nudging’
- highlight the value of academic design research in addressing real-world, locally relevant challenges arising along the journey to net zero and a green economy
This call will focus on creating interventions within existing systems. These systems may include, but are not limited to:
- healthcare
- food networks
- governance structures
- financial infrastructures
- other societal frameworks
The funder is particularly interested in projects that approach these systems from a community perspective and use design thinking and creative methodologies to identify leverage points for positive change.
Projects must be grounded in arts and humanities disciplines, drawing on methodologies including, but not limited to, design research, ethnography, and visual arts.
ELIGIBILITY
Applications are welcomed from researchers across all career stages, from early career postdoctoral researcher to established researchers.
Every project must have a non-academic partner. These partners can include, but are not limited to:
- businesses
- public sector organisations
- third sector
- civil society
- community organisations
The non-academic partner should be a relevant stakeholder that is equipped to support the proposed activities and has the capacity to commit to delivering impact. Non-academic partners must be listed as co-investigators provided that they meet the criteria set out in the guidance below.
There are no restrictions on the types of organisations, and any non-academic partner may be involved in more than one application as capacity and strategic alignment allow. However, non-academic partners must declare if they are involved in another UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grant so that AHRC can determine whether it would be appropriate to also apply for this opportunity.
Applications must comprise, and evidence at least 50% design discipline coverage.
The lead research organisation may make a total of two applications for this programme, but each application must be substantively different in both partnership team and project objectives. The project team may participate in only one application for this programme.
VALUE AND DURATION
Awards are worth £150,000-£200,000 and are 9-12 months in duration.
KEY DATES
Call opens: 3 November 2025
Webinar: 18 November 2025 (register here)
Deadline: 29 January 2026
Lates project start date: 1 June 2026
Full details can be found on the opportunity webpage and in the below guidance documents.