Funding conditions and eligibility

Funding conditions

• Research outputs must be relevant to the conservation of UK woods and trees.
• Research must address one or more of the three grant research themes.
• Research must aim to address a specific evidence gap and produce tangible outputs within the project timeframe. Applicants are required to consult www.conservationevidence.com to indicate how their project will fill an existing evidence gap.
• Research must be a discrete project, or a discrete part of a larger project.
• Before submitting an application, investigators should discuss any requirements to include access to data or sites belonging to the Woodland Trust with the appropriate member of Woodland Trust staff and receive feasibility approval.
• Small Research Grants will be awarded with a single payment, upon agreement of a research grant contract between the Woodland Trust and project investigators (in agreement with English and Welsh contract law).
• The primary investigator agrees to reporting research outcomes of the project via researchfish®.
• The primary investigator will provide a written final report of the results of the research project to the Woodland Trust within two months of the project end. The final report should contain the results of the research, an outline of how the grant was utilised for the research and details of planned or completed outputs, such as scientific peer-reviewed papers.
• The Woodland Trust contribution must be acknowledged in any publications, outputs or publicity relating to the project.

We will consider funding

• Discrete work packages of larger grants/projects, if the Woodland Trust contribution funds a recognisable and isolated part of the project
• Investigators located inside and outside of the UK (in agreement with English and Welsh contract law)
• Empirical and modelling approaches
• Practical conservation work designed to scientifically test or trial a management intervention
• Direct research project costs, such as: project-specific research assistants (including primary investigators if not on permanent, full-time contracts); reasonable travel expenses and sustenance to support fieldwork or key activities (including reasonable adjustments not covered by another source, e.g. Access to Work); small items of equipment; consumables; and reasonable research project dissemination activities (e.g. conference attendance and webinars).

We will not fund

• Establishment of long-term data-collection or projects exceeding 24 months
• Isolated practical conservation work where there is no intention to answer a research question or learn from observations
• Indirect or directly allocated research project costs, such as: publication costs; solely travel expenses; items of equipment costing over £2,000; overheads; investigator full-time salary offset or replacement costs; and training/skills development (unless directly needed to undertake research, such as training volunteers to conduct fieldwork).