£1.5 million search for innovative ideas in Wales

3 Apr 2013 04:20 PM

A £1.5million pound search is on for brand new ideas in Wales that have never been tried anywhere else in the UK.

The Big Lottery Fund has yesterday launched the third round of its BIG Innovation programme which will invest money into projects that seek to find new solutions to address emerging and existing social problems.

The Big Lottery Fund (BIG) is committed to bringing about real improvements to communities most in need but recognises that existing ways of meeting need do not always work and that some needs are new with no ways of addressing them.

John Rose, BIG’s Director for Wales, said: “Many organisations want to develop new ways of addressing needs but they often lack the staff and financial resources to try out new ideas. Trying out something new also carries risks – it may only partially work or it may not work at all.

“In the current economic climate, being innovative is challenging, especially if there is no guarantee of success. This is why we launched BIG Innovation in Wales. It can help turn people’s big new ideas into a reality.”

The Big Lottery Fund will make grants of between £20,000 and £1 million. The deadline for applications under round three of the programme is 2pm on Friday May 17, 2013.

BIG is interested in applications from a broad range of sectors and organisations to allow the “best and truly innovative” ideas to be identified and funded. It will consider an idea as being new if it hasn’t been tried anywhere else in the UK and will fund local, regional or national projects as long as at least 75 per cent of the people who will benefit live in Wales.

Other key requirements include a demonstration that the project is new and innovative, extensive consultation with people interested in the work and other service providers, thorough research to identify needs and demonstration of working with local regional or national organisations to make the best use of expertise.

Projects already funded by the programme include £489,143 to Swansea University in 2012 to enable them to run the Wales-wide Interactive Health: Student Sex Workers project. The money has seen the launch of a project to promote learning and understanding about student sex worker needs and associated issues and to provide them with an innovative sexual health service. The project will provide student sex workers, who live and work in Wales, with advice and support and will sign-post them to local services. The project will also provide sexual health information and best practice guidance for Welsh Universities and local services.

In January this year, Cyrenians Cymru Cyf received £793,893 to provide the Community Horse and Pony Scheme’ (CHAPS), a new community-run equine centre in Swansea which aims to tackle issues around urban horse tethering and abandonment whilst involving and supporting the unemployed, substance misusers and disengaged youth in the community.

Big Lottery Fund Press Office – Ben Payne: 02920 678 224
Out of hours contact: 07500 951 707
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030
Textphone: 0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the
website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Notes to Editors

In Wales, the Big Lottery Fund is rolling out close to £100,000 a day in National Lottery good cause money, which together with other Lottery distributors means that across Wales most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004. It was established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to Good Causes. As a result, over £28 billion has now been raised and more than 383,000 grants given out across the arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.