Grant News
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has announced plans for a new £10 million programme to support local projects that aim to prevent violence and abuse against women and girls across the UK.
The Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Prevention Accelerator will strengthen the UK’s ability to prevent violence and abuse by funding and supporting promising grassroots and community-led initiatives. Projects will be tested and, where they are successful, could be expanded or adopted more widely.
The programme will bring together communities and organisations including government, charities, philanthropists and social impact investors. UKRI is the UK’s principal public funder of research and innovation.
The accelerator will form part of UKRI’s wider Safer Streets Mission. It will support the testing of new approaches to tackling violence against women and girls and help build a national evidence base on what works. This evidence will be made available to help successful approaches be used more widely.
Key highlights:
- A UK-wide programme.
- £10 million of UKRI investment.
- A focus on preventing violence and abuse against women and girls.
- Support for grassroots and community-led approaches.
Examples of the types of projects that could be supported include:
- work addressing misogyny and harmful attitudes among children and young people;
- education about harmful online content, algorithms and online abuse;
- initiatives to make streets, public transport and other public spaces safer for women and girls;
- community-designed projects responding to risks identified locally;
- new tools and approaches designed to prevent harmful behaviours from developing; and
- partnerships between communities, charities, local or national government and other funders to test and expand promising approaches.
The programme is expected to launch in 2027. Further information about eligibility and how to register interest will be published at a later date.