We’re pleased to announce over £2.3 million in Programme Awards for twelve ambitious projects with the potential to create lasting change in poverty and trauma in Scotland.
This latest round includes a diverse mix of initiatives - from research into equitable childcare to testing new ways to widen access to higher education.
Our Programme Awards are designed to back work that is bold, innovative, and built to last - supporting projects with the potential to make a significant and sustained impact on the root causes of poverty and trauma in Scotland. This could include:
- Development and feasibility awards – work to develop good ideas with strong potential for change at scale, including work to build partnerships and participation to design and deliver good ideas.
- Test and demonstration awards – work to test and demonstrate new approaches to services and work that can reduce poverty and trauma in Scotland.
- Research focused on change - we are not a research funder but we will fund research where it can clearly and demonstrably connect to action to deliver change.
- Advocacy, policy, campaigning and influencing projects – to change policy, practice, attitudes and behaviours.
Unlike our rolling responsive funds, which run all-year round, we host time-limited open calls for our Programme Awards which will publicly invite applications around a particular focus. Meanwhile, through our discovery and relationship building work across the Trust, we also have the ability to co-develop potential projects with a strong likelihood of achieving big change that lasts.
A full list of our latest awards can be viewed below:
Award in focus
Education Endowment Foundation
Test & Demonstration; influencing
£649,000 over 3 years
The project will pilot the use of evidence-based resources and capacity-building support to improve how schools decide how to spend attainment-related funding, especially Pupil Equity Funding (PEF). The goal is to ensure that investments made in classrooms across Scotland are driven by what works, leading to more effective support for pupils experiencing poverty.
By strengthening the use of evidence in schools’ decision-making, the project hopes to:
- Improve the impact of spending on pupil outcomes
- Encourage more strategic, data-informed practices
- Build a culture of continuous improvement in the education system
The pilot focuses on two key areas: developing evidence-based resources, including a web-based toolkit, to help schools implement effective strategies for closing the attainment gap, and building capacity among educators and decision-makers through training and support to integrate evidence into planning and funding decisions.
"It’s great to be partnering with The Robertson Trust to support schools in Scotland in making the most of their attainment funding, in particular to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds. By providing accessible, evidence-based resources and practical support, we’ll help teachers and school leaders make decisions that have a real and lasting impact on the pupils who need it most.”
Chris Paterson, Co-Ceo, Education Endowment Foundation
What our team says:
“Through our Education Pathways theme, we’ve consistently heard that schools and third sector organisations face challenges in identifying and investing in what works, and in learning and spreading that across the rest of the school and system.
“This project speaks directly to that need. It aims to work with practitioners in Scotland to identify where further evidence is most needed and ensure that useful, accessible resources are available across the system. It’s a strong example of the kind of work our Programme Awards are designed to support - initiatives with the potential to lead to big change that lasts on poverty and trauma, in this case, for children and young people in Scotland.”
- Abertay University
Test & Demonstration
£280,729 over 3 years
What is the potential change this work could lead to? This award,Abertay+ Scheme: Reimagining Admissions Criteria, aims to ensure fair access to higher education by removing barriers and supporting student success for under-represented students through student success coaching. By supporting those with potential to benefit from a degree, this project aims to create a more equitable student experience and pathways into degree programmes through compassionate approaches.
- The Brilliant Club
Test & Demonstration
£260,000 over 2 years
What is the potential change this work could lead to? This work aims to reduce local inequalities in access to higher education by empowering parents and carers to become agents of change. It seeks to build strong community networks in two areas of disadvantage, with potential to influence both local practice and wider systemic change. - Edinburgh Napier University
Test & Demonstration; Influencing
£275,000 over 3 years
What is the potential change this work could lead to? This work has the potential to shift how Scotland’s post-16 education system supports students who’ve experienced poverty and trauma. By tackling the underlying policies and practices that act as barriers, it aims to reshape institutional cultures so they’re more inclusive, trauma-informed, and focused on wellbeing - helping more students to succeed and contributing to national Fair Access goals. - Carnegie Trust for Universities in Scotland
Development; Research
£100,000 over 4 years
What is the potential change this work could lead to? This award is to fund a partnership project between The Robertson Trust and the Carnegie Trust for Universities in Scotland. The project will provide a clearer picture of Scotland’s fair access landscape - highlighting gaps and overlaps, and delivering a baseline from which current practice can be better understood, and key improvements identified. By taking a national, system-view of fair access activity in Scotland it aims to enable funders, researchers, practitioners and policymakers to identify opportunities to work collectively across sectors to drive progress towards a more equitable higher education system in Scotland. - Education Endowment Foundation
Test & Demonstration; Research; Influencing
£649,000 over 3 years
What is the potential change this work could lead to? This project could lead to a strengthening of how teachers, schools and the wider system access and apply evidence in their decision-making. By building an evidence hub and developing a network of national advocates, it has the potential to work with a changing education landscape in Scotland to help to embed a culture of evidence-informed practice across Scottish education. - Inspiring Scotland (intandem)
Test & Demonstration
£131,250 over 9 month (extension to existing award)
What is the potential change this work could lead to? The original award enabled Inspiring Scotland to expand intandem, the national mentoring programme for children and young people looked after at home, to include 8-14 year olds living in kinship care arrangements across Scotland.The award has made a big difference to the lives of young people living in kinship care, with 93% of young people reporting that having an intandem mentor had helped them manage relationships with friends and staff at school. - University of Glasgow
Feasibility and Development; Test & Demonstration
£200,000
What is the potential change this work could lead to? Through development of an app and online platform focused on promoting best practice in fair access, it is hoped this project could lead to more effective partnership working to drive fair access to university on a national scale.
- Centre for Research in Social Policy, Loughborough University
Development
£30,346
What is the potential change this work could lead to? This work aims to develop a project to shape a more inclusive and realistic understanding of the extra costs disabled people face. It will explore the development of a holistic needs/costs-based model, drawing on a consensual budget approach, to look at needs and costs across conditions. If successful, it could pave the way for work to drive more accurate, flexible, and fair policies and support systems, including for those with complex or multiple conditions. - Homeless Network Scotland (Fair Way Scotland)
Test and Demonstration; Influencing
£207,000 for one year (extension of existing award)
What is the potential change this work could lead to? This work has the potential to demonstrate and evidence a new, more humane approach to ending destitution for people with no recourse to public funds - supporting the case for systemic change in UK immigration policy and how it is implemented in Scotland. - Simon Community Scotland
Test & Demonstration
£86,912 for nine months (extension to existing award)
What is the potential change this work could lead to? This award is for a nine month extension to our existing support for the delivery of Safe in Scotland. Safe in Scotland is the largest provider of accommodation for refused asylum seekers in Scotland and provides casework and cash support alongside homes. - University of York
Research; Influencing
£30,000 for one year (extension of existing award)
What is the potential change this work could lead to? By amplifying the voices of parents and carers with lived experience of poverty, this work could influence more informed and compassionate policymaking. Through storytelling, data, and creative collaboration, it aims to shift narratives and drive systemic change that better reflects and responds to real-life challenges. This is an uplift to the existing award which will increase capacity for the project team to engage in intensive and targeted engagement with the UK Government’s Child Poverty Strategy.
- Scottish Women's Budget Group
Research; Influencing
£87,975 over two years
What is the potential change this work could lead to? This work could lead to a more equitable and accessible childcare system by identifying how current funding and implementation affect families on low incomes - especially women. By highlighting gaps and opportunities through gender budget analysis and lived experience, it aims to inform improvements that make quality childcare more affordable and inclusive.