Archive Resilience Grants
The National Archives’ Resilience Grants programme has been designed to support archive services, organisations with archives, and archives networks to be adaptable, resilient and sustainable, creating lasting solutions that enable them to respond to change, and contribute to communities and the economy. The Resilience Grants programme invites archives services, organisations with archives and archive networks throughout the United Kingdom to apply for resilience-building projects of up to £20,000, with no minimum level of funding required. It is a one-stage application, completed through an online application form.
- Opening date: (Midnight)
- Closing date: (Midnight)
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Summary
The National Archives’ Resilience Grants programme has been designed to support archive services, organisations with archives, and archives networks to be adaptable, resilient and sustainable, creating lasting solutions that enable them to respond to change, and contribute to communities and the economy.
Archives Resilience projects could include (but are not limited to):
proposals that would lead to increased organisational stability, including long-term organisational, financial and strategic planning
increased staffing capacity and enhanced skills
reduced costs
increased income
improving capacity to develop, care for and enrich collections, physically and digitally
ensuring that collections are safely preserved, including digitally
work on diversity, equity and inclusion
responses to climate change, such as developing energy-efficiency within an archives service
strategic development of existing archive networks or establishment of new networks with a clear strategic focus
Each applicant is likely to have different needs and approaches to building organisational resilience. To help organisations tailor their proposals to their own challenges and opportunities, we ask that applicants make use of the Archives and Record Association’s Archives Service Resilience Indicator Tool, which is designed to provide archive services with a quick methodology for assessing resilience, and identifying gaps or areas for development.
You may also wish to investigate Archive Service Accreditation, the UK standard for good practice across archives services. A Resilience Grant and/or the Resilience Indicator Tool could be used as preparatory actions for an Accreditation application, and have been designed using the same standards and frameworks.
You can download the Archives Sector Resilience Indicator and guidance notes from the Archives and Records Association.
To apply for a Resilience Grant, please complete an online application form.
If you have any questions about Resilience Grants, please contact us via email: archivegrants@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Eligibility
The Archives Resilience grant programme is open to all eligible archives organisations with archives (including heritage organisations) and archive networks in the United Kingdom. We cannot fund organisations based in the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or whose collections are held outside of the United Kingdom.
The programme is open to all public sector bodies, not-for-profit organisations including registered charities, and for-profit organisations including business archives.
We use the definition of an archive collection as given within the Archive Service Accreditation Scheme:
“Materials created or received by a person, family or organisation, public or private, in the conduct of their affairs and preserved because of the enduring value contained in them or as evidence of the functions and responsibilities of their creator, especially those materials maintained using the principles of provenance, original order and collective control; permanent records.”
Society of American Archivists
If the archive is not currently accessible for public use, the organisation must have the intention to make the collection freely accessible to the public in the future.
The organisation must employ or have access to professional support from an archivist or similarly qualified professional.
There is no restriction on past applicants applying, however repeat applications are no more likely to receive funding, and you are strongly encouraged to speak to The National Archives’ Grants and Funding Office before submitting a second application for the same project. There are no restrictions on institutions submitting an application for a different project than was previously assessed.
Where appropriate, archives are encouraged to propose partnership projects, and applications from archive networks and consortium applications are particularly welcome in this programme.
Objectives
The National Archives’ Resilience Grants programme has been designed to support archive services, organisations with archives, and archives networks to be adaptable, resilient and sustainable, creating lasting solutions that enable them to respond to change, and contribute to communities and the economy.
Dates
Resilience Grants run on a biannual programme, with the application period opened twice per year.The schedule for 2024-2025 is as follows:
Round 1
Opens: 16th June 2025
Closes: 18th July 2025
Panel: August 2025
Round 2
Open: 24th November 2025
Closes: 15th January 2026
Panel: February 2026
How to apply
Resilience Grants have a one-stage application process, completed through an online application form.Applications will be assessed against the following criteria:
Need
Impact
Delivery and management
Knowledge sharing
For further guidance on our assessment criteria, please see: Resilience Grants – Assessment GuidanceEach application will be scored numerically against the criteria above, according to the following scale:
1 - Poor
2 - Low
3 - Good
4 - Excellent
5 - Outstanding
Applications are assessed by a panel of archival and heritage experts, selected from within and outside of The National Archives, and including representatives from the British Records Association and the Business Archives Council.