Who can apply?

To be eligible for funding under the Active Universities theme, applications must demonstrate that projects will raise sport participation through addressing specific barriers to participation faced by students enrolled on higher education (HE) courses at universities in England.

The term ‘universities’ includes only the 130 higher education institutions ( HEI s) who receive funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Sport England has a target of getting one million people playing more sport by 2012/13. Sport England wishes 300,000 of these additional regular participants to come from the higher and further education sector. Our aspiration for this themed round is a minimum of 100,000 additional participants from the higher education sector doing three sessions of 30 minutes of at least moderate intensity sporting activity per week.

Your project must contribute to the delivery of this outcome. Applications should demonstrate the opportunities for students to play more sport and how existing barriers to more higher education students taking part in sport and taking part more often will be removed.

We are specifically seeking applications from:

• Universities– a maximum of one individual application can be made per university. This can be made up of interlinked components and can include partnership working with local partners (for example; local authorities, community sports clubs).
• A lead partner on behalf of a group of universities for a national, regional or local project, for example a regional HE body, a county sports partnership, or an NGB , which provides a collaborative approach to improving student participation. Such an application can also include other sport delivery partners. The lead partner can only apply once, but can be a named partner within other group applications.

For clarity, a university can apply once as an individual institution and can apply once as a lead partner for a group application. In addition to this application limit, a university can also be a partner in other group projects. Partners involved in a number of projects should ensure that there are clear differences between the projects, each adding value to HE student sport

This themed round is not designed to support major capital developments and new builds. We are seeking predominantly revenue projects but will also consider combined projects for the purchase of equipment or where minor structural building adaptations can be proved to be essential to enable the delivery of your project. In terms of combined projects, we will prioritise applications which require no more than £30,000 towards the total cost of any minor structural adaptations.

Minor structural adaptations could include improvements to under-utilised facilities such as lighting or flooring, improved storage provision or better access for all HE students to participate in sport.

Please note that we will not fund maintenance works, new builds or refurbishments or gym equipment.

The eligibility criteria provide further information on what will and will not be eligible for funding through the Active Universities themed round