Guidance and tips
- Please look at our funding strategy, Learning Without Walls: Beyond 2020 , and our Theory of Change to understand more about Ufi, our mission and the beliefs that shape the way we think.
- Join a pre-application grant fund workshop
Hear more about what we are looking for and ask any questions you might have. The workshop also offers the opportunity for networking and small group discussions about your ideas with members of the Ufi team and other applicants. You'll find the dates and times below the key information. - Take a look at our Eligibility Checker to see if your idea could fit
The Eligibility Checker will be published when the call opens. - Read our standard FAQs
- Read our guidelines on technology best practice for achieving scale.
- Review our Grant Terms & Conditions.
These are non-negotiable so please only apply if you can accept them in full. - Take a look at our VocTech Directory
This shows the wider context of the projects we have funded in previous years. - Sign up to our Community Newsletter for more information about VocTech and our work.
- You can also email us with general questions about the fund at info@ufi.co.uk.
Please note that we cannot discuss your specific project in detail during a workshop or by email.
VocTech Activate Application Top Tips
- Think of your application as a hypothesis – what idea are you testing and how will you know if it works?
- Provide evidence of the vocational learning problem you are aiming to solve.
- Tell us why you have chosen this technology. Don’t use technical jargon but explain, in simple language, why do you think the technology provides a good solution to the problem, and why it’s right for your learners/users.
- Describe how you expect the project to produce tangible benefits to learners and employers, and what, specifically, those expected benefits are.
- Tell us which organisations have agreed to take part in the development and testing of the idea. Be clear about how many learners will be involved in user testing.
- Show how feedback from testing with users / customers will be incorporated into the iteration of your idea.
- Explain who you expect the users (learners) and the customers to be and the likely route to market. Be ambitious - but realistic too.
- Focus on quality and effectiveness – tell us how learning design and user experience will be incorporated into the development of your idea.
- Explain the potential to scale the project once Ufi funding has ended, and your thinking on the business model needed to underpin this.
- Explain how Ufi support is going to make something happen that could not otherwise happen, make it happen more quickly or at a greater scale.