A small number of grants are available to UK registered charities, Community Interest Companies and universities for new, high quality research projects that explore the consumer harms faced by diverse and disadvantaged communities and/or identify innovative solutions to these harms.
Which? is widely regarded as the UK’s leading consumer protection agency. The Which? Fund, which has a total budget of £75,000, seeks to address the consumer harms experienced by diverse and disadvantaged communities, by funding specific, strategic projects, with the potential to benefit large numbers of people by changing policy, regulation or practice.
Which? explains that consumer harm takes many and varied forms, and is often difficult to spot. Consumer harms include:
- When choices are complicated, making it hard for consumers to find the option that is right for them, or to make an informed decision.
- When businesses take unfair advantage of consumers, for example using information they know about certain people to charge them more than others or where it’s so hard to resolve problems and complaints that consumers end up out of pocket, and
- When poor safety standards or criminal scams put consumers in physical danger, or cause stress, financial losses or other emotional harm.
Which? Is looking to fund specific, strategic research projects which, by generating evidence, have the potential to benefit large numbers of people by changing policy, regulation or practice. Please note that the Which? Fund is not suitable for funding service delivery projects.
Funding is available for:
- Projects that explore consumer harms experienced by diverse and disadvantaged communities, such as women, people living with disabilities or health conditions, low-income households or members of diverse ethnic communities.
- Projects that explore harms experienced by diverse and disadvantaged communities in digital markets, where information asymmetries, malign online choice architecture, automated decision-making, AI interfaces, dynamic pricing and other characteristics of digital markets can place consumers at a distinct disadvantage, and some groups may face greater detriment than others.
Projects should:
- Develop partnerships and encourage collaborative working to provide a more powerful voice for all UK consumers.
- Identify evidence-led, pragmatic solutions to consumer harm, and
- Improve understanding of consumer harm affecting diverse and disadvantaged communities, including novel harms in digital markets.
There are no minimum or maximum grant award levels. The total grant budget available is £75,000 from which, if the pattern of previous years is to be repeated, should support up to 5 high-quality projects.
Projects should last no longer than 12 months. Partnership proposals are welcomed, provided the lead agency is a UK-registered charity, a not-for-profit Community Interest Company (CIC) or a UK university.
The application process has two stages:
- Stage 1 - an Outline Application must be submitted by 5pm on Monday 16 September 2024.
- Stage 2 – applications shortlisted from Stage 1 will be invited to complete a Full Application between Monday 21 October and a final deadline of 5pm on Friday 12 December 2024.
Further information, guidance, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and details about how to apply can be found on the Which? website.
To request an Outline Application form for a Stage 1 application, please email funding@which.co.uk