What is Civic Connections?

Civic Connections provides a central platform and process to deliver funding calls linked to the University’s civic mission as set out in our Vision and Strategy 2030 (internal link only). This funding platform was created to reduce the burden on staff and students applying for calls and to simplify the application process.

Civic Connections is managed centrally by the Public Engagement team, but individual calls are managed by the team responsible for the funding.

Upcoming funding calls

The next funding calls are:

• Participatory Research Fund: deadline 15th December 2022

Previous funding calls include:

• Temple Quarter Engagement Fund 2019-22. This was established before the creation of the Civic Connections platform and directly informed its development. Although it is no longer running, details of the fund and the projects it has supported are available.  

Other civic engagement funding calls

Some internal funds that are relevant to the University’s civic mission are managed separately. You may be advised that one of these is a more appropriate funding source. These include:

• Brigstow funding, which supports early stage, co-produced research projects and other activities that that involve the participation of communities, artists/creatives and academics from different disciplines focusing on what it means to be human in the 21st century; this is managed by the Brigstow Institute
• Policy Support Fund (internal link only), which supports research, activities and knowledge exchange around policy engagement; this is managed by PolicyBristol
• Impact Acceleration Accounts (internal link only), which enables researchers to bridge the gap between research outputs and significant economic, social and/or cultural impact; this is managed by Impact Development

Working with partners

We strongly encourage applications to be collaborative and include external partners (e.g. community organisations, policy-makers, local businesses etc) and that their contributions are appropriately costed in the project. However, all applications made via Civic Connections will need to be led by a University of Bristol staff member or student (with supervisor support).

Application and assessment process

All projects applying to funds managed under the Civic Connections platform will apply via a Microsoft Form. Projects will need a fully costed and approved Worktribe costing as part of the application. Specific guidance will be available for each call.

Assessment criteria will be clearly stated in the guidance for each call. Decisions for each call will be made by a panel of relevant staff, with oversight provided by the University Civic Engagement Committee who will receive reports on funding outcomes.