Get Involved Awards

Get Involved! Research together for sustainable solutions with the Get Involved Awards
2023 Get Involved Awards 

Awards for 2024 are closed and the winners have been announced below. We’re looking forward to the 2025 applications, opening early next year.

Do you have a local issue that needs researching? Have you got a problem in your community that you want to resolve, or an idea to help the city? You can get involved in community research with us!
Community groups, charities and social enterprises can apply to work with University of Plymouth’s researchers, to better understand a problem in their local area and to gain valuable insights. By developing new projects, we aim to build a network of community groups working with academics to exchange ideas and respond to real community challenges for our city.

Get Involved Awards can help communities to:

  • HSolve problems or identify opportunities

  • HCreate partnerships between researchers and communities

  • HSupport community investment in the city

  • HProvide new training and learning opportunities

  • HLink with other like-minded organisations in the city

Projects receive £6,000–£8,000 each paid to their research team to fund researcher and project costs.

2024 Award Winners

Deanna Gallichan profile
Deanna Gallichan with Ivybridge Brewing Company - How do adults with learning disabilities and autism experience the impact of their work?
Using digital storytelling to capture lived experience of inclusive employment. The project aims to empower individuals and provide a thematic analysis of their experiences, enhancing the brewery’s ability to demonstrate its wider social impact.
Alejandro Veliz Reyes profile
Alejandro Veliz Reyes with Whitleigh Community Trust - Modern methods of construction for community building
This initiative will provide hands-on training in modern methods of construction, addressing housing shortages and promoting net-zero transitions. The project will also explore the potential for community-led housing innovation in Plymouth and beyond.
Lawrence Badman-Richards profile
Lawrence Badman-Richards and Penelope Welbourne with Plymouth Highbury Trust - Enhancing positive connections for parents with learning disabilities
This project will use a participatory approach to co-produce research with people with learning disabilities, aiming to make community and statutory services more responsive to their positive parenting potential.
Nigel Jackson profile
Nigel Jackson, Carl D Evans and Mike Sheaff with Citizens Advice – South Hams - Uncovering Hidden Homelessness in Plymouth, SE Cornwall, and the South Hams
This project aims to define and quantify ‘Hidden Homelessness’ (such as sofa surfing, living in vehicles, or temporary accommodations) in the PL postcode area, examining its causes, impacts, and potential solutions.
Sarah Blissett profile
Sarah Blissett with Barbican Theatre Plymouth - Archiving Rebellion
This project will research and document the Barbican Theatre’s significance to its communities, celebrating its legacy and current work. A new performance or audio walk will connect past and present, and create a framework for other community groups.
Ulrike Hohmann profile
Ulrike Hohmann and Rebecca Carter Dillon with Citizens Advice – Plymouth - Impact of the Two-child Limit on families in Plymouth and the surrounding areas
Citizens Advice Plymouth and the University of Plymouth are collaborating to research and propose changes to the two-child limit policy. CAP will gather evidence to highlight the policy's effects on children’s health, isolation, and long-term outcomes.
Alyson Norman profile
Alyson Norman with Livewell Southwest - Headway Plymouth: Hospital Liaison Project
A project evaluating a new Hospital Liaison Service for individuals with Acquired Brain Injury, demonstrating the service’s effectiveness in improving patient outcomes and reducing long-term care costs, enabling ABI individuals to live independent lives.

Previous award winners

2024 marks the third year of inviting communities to apply to work with our researchers to find sustainable solutions to community problems, challenges and new ideas through research. We funded six projects in 2022 and a further eight in 2023, from a range of community partner and researcher partnerships.
2022 Get Involved Awards

What’s the process?

The Get Involved Awards application process follows five key steps to capture the problem or challenge, match researchers to organisations and enable co-creation of research in the city by making funding awards.
Applicants and award winners will be supported throughout the process by the University of Plymouth Public Engagement Team.

The 5-step process

  • .

    1. Send us your completed Expression of Interest

  • H

    2. Expression of Interest checked for eligibility

  • A

    3. Expression of Interest matched to researcher

  • Ç

    4. Co-create application with your researcher and submit to us

  • [

    5. Awards made and project commences

Successful co-created research projects will start in June and will have until the end of January 2025 to complete their project.

Expression of interest

You can now submit an Expression of Interest to solve a problem or address an issue to include the following:
  • Tell us about your community group, charity, or social enterprise (must have a registered PL postcode)
  • What’s your research question, or what would you like to explore?
  • How will it benefit your organisation and the wider community?
  • Expression of interest to be submitted by community group, charity or social enterprise.

Closing date

Closing date for Expressions of Interest: 10pm, 16 February 2024.