1. Skip to main content
  2. Skip to left side bar
  3. Skip to right side bar
  4. Skip to footer

RSS Subscribe to the Research Department RSS Feed

Finding Research Funding

The process of finding research funding for counselling and psychotherapy research takes time and commitment. There are not any specific funding bodies for counselling and psychotherapy research which means that if you are looking for research funding you will need to undertake a detailed search, along with quite literally a trawl through information on funding bodies to find those that match your research topic.

There is not one quick solution to finding the best funding match, however, there are a range of sources and tips that can assist you in the process of this task. The information provided here aims to point you in the right direction in starting to find research funding and includes the following links/information:

  • A BACP Information Sheet was published in December 2008 titled ‘Finding research funding in counselling and psychotherapy’. This offers guidance on how to tackle finding research funding, along with a listing of key sources that are worth looking at in the first instance. This information sheet is free to members and costs £2.50 for non-members. Call the book orders department on 01455 883300 or click here for more information,

  • The most useful resources for finding charities that offer funding are the Directory of Social Change’s Trustfunding Directory (this directory lists all publicly registered funding charities) and RDInfo (this is a Department of Health initiative that offers updated alerts on a range of funding opportunities). The attached article (from Therapy Today October 2006) gives detailed information on both of these resources.

    pdf file RDInfo-TT-Oct-06
    pdf file RDInfo-TT-Oct-06.pdf
    Size: 0.16Mb
    Click the link above to begin downloading

  • BACP seed-corn research grant offers £5,000 on a yearly basis to encourage a new piece of counselling and psychotherapy research. Please click here for further information. http://www.bacp.co.uk/research/seed_corn.php

  • Other funding opportunities are listed in the current funding opportunities . Because the scope of research questions in counselling and psychotherapy is so vast the funders listed in the database will not necessarily match all research questions in counselling and psychotherapy. However, along with the other main funding resources available, they should help in finding some relevant research funding bodies. If you have a funding opportunity you want to include in the research database please forward further details to joanne.pybis@bacp.co.uk

  • The research funding resources section lists links to other useful research funding guidance.

Finally, when trying to find research funding it takes time, both in terms of searching for funders and writing applications. It is also common for an application to be unsuccessful several times before it ‘strikes lucky’, so always take any feedback from unsuccessful applications, apply again and don’t give up.

Best of luck in any finding research funding endeavours.