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 new BACP Information Sheet will be published shortly titled ‘Finding research funding in counselling and psychotherapy’. This will offer 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 will be free to members and will cost £2.75 for non-members. If you want to be updated when this information sheet is available please email kaye.richards@bacp.co.uk

• 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.

  RDInfo-TT-Oct-06 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 research funding database . 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 kaye.richards@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.