FAQs

We answer your questions.

Busy motorway traffic at sunset

Who can apply for a grant?

 

  • Read the Guidance to Applicants on the Grants pages of our website.

  • Grant applications go through a thorough panel assessment process, so we are unable to discuss whether an application will qualify for a grant. See the guidance on our website for all grant criteria. We also hold a webinar and we offer 1:1 sessions with our Grants Team for each grant round where you can discuss your proposal.

  • The eligibility questionnaire has been designed to select and carefully identify applications that do not meet the criteria for the programme and to avoid projects devoting time and resources on ineligible applications. If you think you may have made a mistake or misunderstood any of the questions, please try again. We cannot see what answers you have provided so we are unable to advise which one(s) may have caused an issue.

  • You need to be legally constituted and not for profit. Schemes or initiatives proposed should be for charitable activity, for public benefit and in line with our priorities. There must be a governing document with a clause describing their purpose and a dissolution clause. This clause should show that you are a not-for-profit organisation by confirming that any assets remaining after all debts are paid will be given to another not-for-profit group with similar aims. This document should also include details of your management committee.

    When you make an application through the online portal there is an eligibility questionnaire, which has been designed to select and carefully identify applications that do not meet the criteria for the programme and to avoid projects devoting time and resources on ineligible applications. We have examples on our website of the range of organisations we’ve funded large grants and small grants.

  • Your organisation must be legally constituted to apply for one of our grants. We do not fund individuals or sole traders.

    Grant applications include an eligibility questionnaire as part of the application process. See the Grants pages on our website for more information about eligibility.

  • Our grant-giving has to be of benefit to road users in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to be in accordance with our charitable objectives. We are unable to consider applications from overseas in our funding rounds.

    However, there is lots of useful information about innovative projects that we have funded and their results on our website and you can also follow us on X for updates about projects and research.

    There may be an international organisation that can help you, so it is worth looking on the internet for those. For example European Transport Safety Council or FIA Foundation or Global Road Safety Partnership.

  • Our Small Grants programme is focused on practical projects rather than research. Universities can apply in partnership with another organisation in order to achieve practical outcomes.

Do you fund?

 

  • We understand that a lot of neighbourhoods and schools want to implement road calming measures and need signage, but The Road Safety Trust is not the right organisation to approach for help with this as we cannot provide grants for this purpose.

    Our grants are for new innovations and pilots or trials. This could include expanding successful trials across a new area, and/or the evaluation of new initiatives. Projects should have the potential to be scaled up across other areas and, potentially, the UK as a whole. Many road calming measures have already been tested, evaluated and scaled up across the country.

    We have limited funds for the whole programme. As such, we are unable to fund general road calming schemes, as this is potentially something all areas could apply for and extend us beyond our funding capacity.

    You may find local agencies such as the Community Safety Partnership of use. Guidance and resources produced by the road safety charity, Brake, may also be helpful. This includes support with making a case to local authorities for the introduction of measures. Your local authority should have a person responsible for road safety that you can talk to and they may be able to signpost you to useful local contacts as well. Alternatively, charitable trusts or local businesses may be prepared to help fund this.

  • Our grants are for new innovations, pilots and trials. This could include expanding successful trials across a new area, and/or the evaluation of new initiatives or existing initiatives where the evidence base is weak. Projects should have the potential to be scaled up across other areas and, potentially, the UK as a whole.

    See the Grants pages on our website for more information about our grant criteria.

  • We do not fund projects that focus on reducing pollution as the primary aim, although we recognise the links with road safety. You may wish to look into ‘green’ or educational grants of some kind.

  • We have already funded, or are currently funding, school-based projects. Our resources are limited so we are unlikely to fund more of these schemes unless they are particularly innovative and/or show strong potential for national roll out. If you are planning to pilot an Active Travel scheme locally, which has already been piloted elsewhere, then that is not likely to be funded.

What is available and when?

 

  • This information is on the Grants pages on our website. Keep an eye on our website and follow us on X for further updates.

    The cut-off point is 5pm and the portal will close at that time. Applications are only considered after the closing date.

    Applications go through a thorough, methodical panel assessment after the closing date.

    Assessment timescales differ for each grant round and guidance on decision timescales are on the website page for the relevant round, which can be accessed via the Grants pages of our website.

    Final approval for grants is via The Road Safety Trust Board.

  • Large grants: £50k - £500k

    Small grants: £20k - £50k

  • Staff costs directly related to the project are eligible for funding. Please see our Guidance to Applicants on the Grants pages of our website for details of costs we do not fund.

  • You can apply for the cost of external support with monitoring and evaluation. You can also apply for funding to train staff in Road Safety Monitoring and Evaluation. As an indication of what we might fund - you could include the costs of up to two days training.

    Organisations that provide resources and training include:

    Road Safety GB – provides links to results of recent research, as well as practitioner training.

    RoSPA – produced a guide to evaluating road safety education, training and promotion activities including a useful tool-kit.

    Road Safety Observatory - provides summaries and reviews of research on a wide range of road safety issues, along with links to original road safety research reports (please note: this is no longer being updated).

    Agilysis – provides technology and data tools and solutions including webinars.

    National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) Charities Evaluation Services - provides free tools and guidance on evaluation, learning and impact measurement.

    Inspiring Impact – provides a set of free tools and resources designed to help voluntary sector organisations with impact measurement.

For applicants

 

  • Application forms are often tweaked to customise for the theme but you will find an Application Workbook when rounds open in the Grants section of our website, which will give you the questions we ask and word counts so that you can prepare in advance of submitting via the application portal.

    We usually hold an information webinar and offer 1:1 appointments for each grant round to help potential applicants to prepare their bids.

  • You need to use the ‘Returning Applicants’ link in the Online Portal.

  • These can be found in the Grants section of our website.

  • All projects should have other sources of funding, either cash or in-kind. This contribution can come from the applicant or other partners. There is no set or optimal amount of match funding. The assessment takes into account overall value for money and considers various factors, including other sources of funding.

  • Some funding for third parties can be included in your application and there are examples of this in other projects we have funded.

  • If a budget is based on well thought out estimates, that would be acceptable.

  • Small Grants opens for applications again in Spring 2024. Decisions are usually around 3 months after the closing date.

    Large Grants opens again in Autumn 2024. The Autumn round will have a theme in 2024. Decisions are usually around 4 months after the closing date.

  • You will need to provide VAT registration documents and a Bank Statement to enable payment of the grant. There is also a Grant Identity and Documentation Form to complete if you are awarded a grant.

General road safety

 

  • Details of all the projects we have funded and their outcomes are on our website. Our role is as a grant funder and we do not give further advice on specific aspects of road safety. Try the Road Safety GB Knowledge Centre and the Road Safety Observatory (NB the observatory is no longer being updated)

  • The Road Safety Trust’s role is to fund new initiatives and research by not-for-profit organisations with the aim of making our roads safer. We are not able to follow up complaints or reports about concerns on the road.

    If you are concerned about road safety in your area, for example speeding or dangerous parking, please contact your local authority. The charity Brake has information and resources to support communities who wish to lobby or campaign for local road safety measures.

  • We are a grant funder so we do not contract for services directly and we cannot endorse anyone in particular.

    It may be worth contacting Road Safety GB. There is a list of experts under 'Help & Advice' on their website and they may be able to guide you on what to consider when choosing an organisation or company for this purpose.

  • The courses run by the National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme (NDORS) restrict attendance to those who have offended.

    You could try IAM RoadSmart or RoSPA who do advanced training for drivers. Alternatively, some commercial companies do fleet training and may have other public facing courses. Local authorities have some responsibility to provide road safety education and guidance as well.