Equality and Diversity Innovation Fund (2013/14)

Black and white image showing the Skills Funding Agency's logo

Welcome to the Skills Funding Agency/NIACEdefinition Equalitydefinition and Diversity Innovation Fund projects. The academic year 2013/14 was the fifth year in which the Skills Funding Agency (the Agency) has offered grant funding to education and training organisations to develop and disseminate innovative approaches to equality and diversity.  

When LSISdefinition closed, in July 2013, the Agency appointed NIACE to manage the 2013/14 Equality and Diversity Innovation Fund (EDIFdefinition). EDIF received 243 applications, with a combined value of £3.9 Million. Bids came from all types of providers and all 9 English regions. Forty-one projects were selected and funded until June/July 2014. 

In the Summer of 2014, we held three national dissemination events. For the remainder of 2014, EDIF projects will continue to disseminate their findings and resources to the sector, and they will monitor and report on their impact until at least March 2015. 

Dissemination from day one

Breaking with the familiar approach of projects' receiving grant funding and then the rest of us hearing nothing more until the grand reveal at the end EDIF projects shared their aims, ideas, experiences and progress with the sector and stakeholders here on the equalitiestoolkit website and elsewhere from day one. They held and presented at events, blogged, wrote news stories, made films and used social media to share and disseminate ideas, experiences, draft resources, and progress. Since the EDIF project started in October 2013, the website alone has seen nearly 10,000 visits.

Each project has, at least, one dedicated project page, which doubles as their final EDIF project report. As long as their page and resources were accessible projects had free rein to be as imaginative as they liked in presenting their stories, lessons learned and resources with you. 

What difference did we make? 

As projects came to the end of their funded activity, their focus shifted to:

  • Dissemination of their findings and resources
  • Evidencing the difference they made for learners 
  • Examining whether we had succeeded in creating innovative examples of best practice that can be replicated locally, regionally and nationally and so have even greater impact for learners

Image showing the dates and programme covers for the 3 EDIF dissemination events

We held 3 free annual equality and diversity Summer 2014 dissemination events on 25 June, 2 July and 9 July 2014, where peers, providers and sector stakeholders joined the EDIF projects to learn about the projects and take away ideas for improving their practice. Check out the dissemination event programmes below:

25 June 2014 at Newcastle College:  Page 1 Page 2

2 July 2014 at Stratford-Upon-Avon College: Page 1 Page 2

9 July at Capel Manor College 

At the first of these events, the Skills Funding Agency announced that (following a mainly positive evaluation of the impact of previous equality, diversity, and inclusion funding rounds) it planned to launch a further round of grant funding in 2014/15. 

image showing the Pinterest social media icon The EDIF Summer 2014 events captured for you 

Judge for yourself

The best way to find out what the projects achieved is to explore their web pages using the green navigation buttons below. Judge for yourself what's been achieved so far and join us in working out if we can have a wider impact on the sector.

Fund theme Protected characteristics/ vulnerable groups
Geographical location Provider name (A-Z)
Project Title (A-Z) Type of education/training organisation/service

Image showing Twitter badge of white bird on blue background #EDIFund

Image showing the YouTube social media icon View EDIF projects' films here on the equalitiestoolkit YouTube channel

Image illustrating the landing page for equalities toolkit and the EDIF summer 2014 events board on Pinterest

Previous funding rounds

Case studies from 4 previous funding rounds:

AttachmentSize
DR060A_Newscastle Pg1. final.jpeg555.19 KB
DR060A_Newcastle Pg2.final_.jpeg458.17 KB
DR060A_Stratford_Pg1. Final.jpeg555.46 KB
DR060A_Stratford Pg2. Final.jpeg450.74 KB
Capel Manor Event Guide A3_AW.pdf4.34 MB