Thank you to everybody who applied to the sixth round of the Academy Ignition Fund. The deadline for applications was on Friday 5th December 2025. We recently let applicants know whether they had been successful (with or without conditions) and, assuming that the conditional offers are converted to firm offers, the success rate for this round was 36%.
Applications were assessed on a range of criteria which were set out in the call guidelines and we’d like to offer our general feedback for those who were unsuccessful:
- The Ignition Fund is closely linked to the development of the Academy and, as such, proposals need to reference how the award aligns with the aims of the Academy. The best applications not only provide a compelling justification of the need for the funds, but also demonstrate the direct impact the applicant hopes to have on the Academy should they be funded. It should also be noted that the Academy has different aims to those of the Vivensa Foundation and applications that do not address this point will not be considered.
- In general, some applications were quite hard to read and lacked clarity, specifically, the ageing-related focus, context or need was not apparent. If the proposed work is novel, then the reasons why should be clearly stated. If it is not novel, then an explanation as to why this additional work is required should be provided. We would always advise asking others to review the final draft of your application, to pick up on these sorts of issues, before submitting it.
- When reviewing applications, the panel considers the feasibility of the proposed work. Successful applications specified exactly what the funding would be used for, and who exactly would be carrying out that work, especially when the proposal formed part of a larger programme. In particular, any other funding / in-kind contributions that forms part of the work should be stated in the relevant section of the application form. In a number of cases, it was also unclear who would be doing the proposed work and the amount of time they would be allocating towards it, because salary costs were not included in the funding request and there was no mention of people’s time in the ‘part-funding / in-kind contributions’ section.
- For applications partnering with community organisations, applicants should ensure that the organisation fully understands their role and that they are “expectation managed” appropriately (i.e. they are aware that the proposal may not be funded). In addition, if you are proposing to work with specific communities (e.g. children and young people in intergenerational work or those with dementia etc.), do include your specific experience with working with those groups.
- Where a proposal requests funds for promoting the meaningful involvement / engagement of older people (PPIE) and equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in their work, we would expect that this would be costed in-line with relevant payment guidance. In addition, there were cases when participation in research was being conflated with PPIE.
- For applications requesting travel costs, it was not clear why the travel was required (for example, when compared to online methods of meeting / collaborating). Applicants should ensure that they state exactly why the travel is necessary and provide a full description of the activities that will be taking place during their stay. Applicants should also seek guidance from their institution’s travel policy when costing their funding request.
- With regards to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), some applicants made quite generic statements and missed the opportunity to talk more specifically about how these matters would be reflected in the proposed work. In particular, a number of proposals stated a commitment to ensuring diverse and inclusive recruitment of participants, but lacked information on the mechanisms through which this would be achieved and/or whether the proposed team had the appropriate expertise to achieve this. In contrast, the strongest applications provided specific examples of how matters related to EDI would be embedded into the proposed work and demonstrated that this was resourced.
- One of the Foundation’s principles is to support capacity building in ageing-related research. In some cases where the funds were clearly supporting the development of a specific researcher (for example, to support work to develop a research question for an application), assessing the application was difficult as there was very little information on the person and/or work the funds would be supporting.
- In some proposals we noted that the costs included in the financial summary didn’t always align with the narrative of the application form, or the final amount in the budget breakdown did not match the funding request. It was also sometimes not clear how a specific figure in a budget line had been reached. We strongly encourage applicants to double-check that all figures are consistent and accurately reflect the activities described. In general, the best financial summaries clearly explained the rationale for the costs being requested and provided enough detail to demonstrate that the various activities mentioned in the application were appropriately resourced. It should be noted that funding for conference places where the work is yet to be carried out will not be considered.
- In a few instances we noticed the use of the terms “elderly” and “subjects”. Whilst we didn’t factor this into our assessment, we thought it would be helpful to highlight this and signpost to some useful guidance on these terms. For example, the Centre for Ageing Better’s Age-friendly communication principles advocates for the use of “older person” or “older people” instead of “elderly”. In addition, the term “subject”, used to describe someone taking part in a research study, is now viewed as outdated – with the UK government replacing the term “subject” with “participant” in the legislation that underpins the regulation of clinical trials in the UK. Finally, we would also advocate for the use of the term “seldom-heard groups” instead of “hard-to-reach groups”.
We very much appreciate the time and effort put into developing an application and hope that this feedback is helpful to those who were unsuccessful in finding alternative sources of funding. If you are looking for new networks to assist you, do consider reaching out to members of the Vivensa Academy. Also, do visit the UK Ageing Research Funders’ Forum news page to view other potential funding opportunities.