Imperial College London has identified Home Black students as underrepresented in its undergraduate student population. It has therefore committed in its Access and Participation Plan to double the intake of Black heritage students by 2025. Access and participation plans set out how higher education providers such as universities will improve access to, success during and progression from university, specifically for groups that are underrepresented.

The Outreach Seed Fund for Recruiting Black Students* will support students at the College to develop and deliver Outreach initiatives targeted at engaging Black UK students with our research and education to inspire the next generation of Black UK students to make a successful application to the College.

The Outreach Seed Fund for Recruiting Black Students is open to Imperial students only. 

*This includes Black or Black British- African, Black or Black British- Caribbean, Other Black Background, Mixed- Black African and White, Mixed- Black Caribbean and White, or Other Mixed background (including Black African, Black Caribbean or Other Black background).

Seed Fund details

Aims of the Fund

The Imperial Seed Fund for Recruiting Black Students has been introduced to:

  1. Provide the opportunity for more Imperial role models to engage with pre-university Black African and Black Caribbean students in order to support students from this demographic, who are underrepresented at the college, to explore STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) opportunities and pathways.
  2. Encourage and enable a wider range, and greater number of, Imperial students to develop and deliver new outreach initiatives.
  3. Enhance the diversity of student-led outreach initiatives across Imperial and increase the number of student-led approaches to Outreach.
  4. Engage current Black students and encourage them to create and execute meaningful initiatives to help increase their sense of belonging at the College.

Funding available

A total of £5,000 is available this year from the Access and Participation budget.

This will be used to support projects that show innovative, two-way, creative approaches to:

  • engage Black students with Imperial’s research,
  • demystify STEM pathways and career opportunities,
  • and help students picture themselves studying at the university.

The application form, guidance, desired outcomes and eligibility criteria outlined in the rest of the document still apply to these projects.

Up to £5,000 will be awarded in 2021/2022.

Timeline

Closing date for applications

Tuesday 19th April 2022

Project delivery phase

May - July 2022

Project completion and final reports due

Sunday 31 July 2022

How to apply

Please follow this link to complete the online Application Form: Outreach Seed Fund Application Form. Please also read the Outreach Seed Fund guidance notes. The link to both of these can also be found on the top left of this web-page.

One supporting document is allowed per application (no more than one page in length) that either provides images or diagrams, or provides details of a previous similar project, to help illustrate your proposal.

Please completed the online Application Form and submit any supporting documentation (if any) to outreach@imperial.ac.uk.

For any questions, please contact h.jama@imperial.ac.uk.