ISD

The Innovation Fund is designed to support new educational approaches, unique community projects and cutting edge technologies, laying the foundations for a more effective, innovative and cohesive civil society response to hate and extremism in the future.

We particularly encourage new partnerships and initiatives from organisations that may have never worked on projects in this space. ISD will provide training and skills support to awardees where necessary, as well as a robust evaluation framework to measure impact.

The funds will be disbursed through two rounds of grant giving.

Round 1 Awarded Projects

ArtReach (Trust)
Creating Communities. Through art, discussion and workshops, this project aims to integrate the refugee and asylum seeker (RAS) community in Portsmouth with previously established communities and combat the rhetoric of hate crime that has become prevalent in the city.

Asian Mums Network
Internet Safety Awareness. Through training and interactive online resources this project will ensure mothers, grandmothers and parents, in London and Manchester, will know how to safeguard their children against grooming, exploitation and radicalisation.

Association for Real Change, in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University and Petroc College
Get SMART (Social Media Awareness and Resilience Training). A user-led awareness and training project for people with learning disabilities, which will help to keep them safe from grooming via social media.

Communities Inc, in partnership with Nottingham Muslim Women’s Network, Base 51, Vernon Community College
Stand by Me. Through training ambassadors and a nation-wide social media campaign, the project will harness the power of the bystander to provide new actions to respond to hate crime.

Global Education Derby
Create the News. Through workshops and production of short films, this schools-based project will work with children to explore multiple perspectives and the nature of propaganda. The outputs will form the basis of an online resource that schools can use in the curriculum to build resilience to extremism.

HOPE not hate
Project Counterbalance.  This project will identify hateful content on social media using bespoke software tools. Once identified, counter narrative content will be created and disseminated through various channels.

Limehouse Boxing Academy, in partnership with England Boxing
KO Racism. Young people will be brought together in boxing workshops with a twist – each session will include open discussion about racism and prejudice.

Mother and Chlild Welfare Organisation
British Somalis Against Extremism and Hate Crime. This project will facilitate workshops, seminars and presentations in the West London Somali community challenging extremism/hate crime and radicalisation narratives. Films produced from these workshops will be shared online for further dissemination.

Paddington Arts
Faith, Identity and Belonging. Through prose, poems or photographs, young people will address themes discussed by two speakers with extremist pasts. Prizes will be offered as an incentive to the best entries.

Praxis Community Projects
Who Do you Think We Are? A series of podcasts produced by and for young people and will be produced by Brighter Futures (Praxis’ young migrants’ group). Through presenting positive, varied and unexpected identities of young migrants, the series will challenge hate and racism amongst young people.

The Challenge Network
Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA). A mobile-based game in which players take the role of a young person from a different background and help that character make choices using a ‘Snapchat’ style interface. The game stories and characters will be co-created with NCS (National Citizen Service) graduates and reflect challenges and decisions that different young people face in daily life.

The Open University, in partnership with Demos
Virtual Inclusion: Tackling Hate and Extremism in the UK Using Virtual Reality Technology. Through three 10 minute 3D, multi-user VR experience young people will be able to experience first-hand the “lives” of people from socially excluded communities. This project will pilot using virtual technology to combat extremism among vulnerable young people.

Youth Cymru and My Genderation in partnership with Mess up the Mess Theatre, Wales Millemium Centre
“Trans*Form Youth Action.” Through a theatre, film and education, the project will provide positive counter-narratives to hate, based on young trans people’s experiences.