Commonwealth Climate Resilience Challenge Grants

Theme: Global challenges

ACU Commonwealth Climate Resilience Challenge Grants are awarded to member universities to support initiatives addressing climate resilience.

Open to academic and professional staff, the grants support collaborative work focused on either of the two main strategic priorities of the Commonwealth Climate Resilience Network (CCRN):

Enhancing the climate resilience of universities themselves, and/or
Enhancing universities’ contribution to the resilience of communities, business and government

The grants can be used for a diverse range of projects, workshops and events in areas such as:

Improving learning, teaching, and training for climate change adaptation – e.g. virtual exchange or collaboration, teaching or professional practice collaboration and sharing and co-development of learning materials
Increasing the research capacity of CCRN members in climate change adaptation – e.g. virtual fellowships or collaboration, comparative analyses, research management and uptake capacity building, understanding and documenting indigenous knowledge and resilience practices
Improving institutional resilience policies and practice adopted by Commonwealth universities - e.g. developing tools, training and approaches to support contingency and continuity of operations planning at higher education institutions

To date, the grants have funded a diverse range of climate action projects in universities across the Commonwealth - from sea-temperature monitoring in the coral reefs of Fiji, to integrating indigenous knowledge on climate change adaptation with academia in New Zealand.

What does the grant include?

Four grants of up to GBP 2,500 each are available for staff at ACU member universities to help meet the costs of organising projects that promote the aims and priorities of the CCRN.

This funding is only available for ACU members and we encourage applicants to collaborate with other ACU member institutions to promote further Commonwealth partnerships. We will also accept applications that are led by ACU members, but are in partnership with institutions outside of our network.

Grant applications that allow matching or additional funds from the applicant’s institution will be looked upon favourably.

Grantees are required to submit a short interim report halfway through their project and a comprehensive final report within one month after completing their project. Additionally, any outputs (e.g. toolkits, papers etc.) developed through the grants are to be made available to the CCRN and wider ACU network.

How to apply

You will need to supply an outline of the project and an action plan, including details of what it involves and how it will address climate resilience at your university. The project action plan is requested for a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of 12 months.

Applications have now closed.