Small grants can be useful to test out collaborations as much as ideas
Top tips:
- Pilot grants can function as a way to fund a specific element of a larger bid that failed
- And then act as a building block toward a more robust version of the larger failed bid
- Pilot grants do not have to be individual projects, they can and should feature collaborations
- Small grants are not ‘lesser’ versions of large grants; the requirement for originality in particular is just as strong
The British Academy’s scheme of Small Research Grants, which has been supported by the Leverhulme Trust since 2012, is the academy’s most popular in terms of applications received and number of awards made.