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New Horizons: Driving Social Change for People and Places to Prosper fund

The ‘New Horizons Fund’ will focus on the major challenges facing our local communities, advance knowledge, and strengthen partnerships with people and places we are connected to.

This programme of work centres around our mission of promoting a more just and equal society in our region of York and North Yorkshire.

Working closely with our local community, this is an important and timely portfolio of work that will drive forward the impact of research to support social justice and ultimately improve people’s lives in York and North Yorkshire.

Research Addressing Local Priorities

Connecting to local priorities, the call specification focuses upon the following priority areas:

  • Health inequalities, particularly children and young people's mental health. 
  • Housing and the built environment, including net-zero transitions and major developments such as York Central. We are particularly interested in what these mean for individuals and communities in York, and how they might support social justice within the city. 
  • Poverty and the cost of living crisis, including economic justice and community wealth building/distribution within the city and wider region.
  • Intergenerational systems of support, place-based storytelling and community action.
  • Devolution and regional forms of inclusive economic, social and political participation - in particular, how we ensure that communities are the beneficiaries of changes in local governance.

Across the five-year programme, annual calls for funding will be available at three levels to support different types of work, from small-scale community projects to major regional initiatives:

  • Up to £3,000 for small-scale community-based work.
  • Up to £30,000 for mid-size collaborative research.
  • Up to £150,000 for major, long-term regional projects.

Full call guidance and application details will be published at the end of February 2026 when the call opens.

All projects funded through this scheme must involve collaboration with colleagues based in SBS, alongside partners from other faculties, schools or departments where appropriate. We particularly welcome proposals that bring new perspectives or extend engagement beyond existing networks, and we encourage applications from researchers whose work aligns with the Fund’s key priorities.

For further enquiries please contact: new-horizons-spru@york.ac.uk