GrantRadar

UK Research and Innovation (AHRC)

Attendance and engagement at UK sporting, cultural and heritage sites

AHRC and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) fund one research project to develop data-intensive ways of measuring attendance and engagement at unticketed cultural, heritage and sporting events, activities and locations. It builds on a DCMS pilot that used mobile app, social media, activity and aerial data, and must deliver a working tool deployed in at least one DCMS sector that captures how people engage as well as how many attend. The project lead must be employed by a UK research organisation eligible for UKRI funding. The project can cost £1.1 million to £1.32 million full economic cost, of which UKRI pays 80%, starting on 1 May 2027 for up to 34 months.

Apply on the funder’s site
You could get
£1,100,000 – £1,320,000
Deadline
44 days left
1 December
Effort
Heavy
budgets, references, often several stages

Who can apply

  • Organisations with UKRI standard eligibility; the project lead and any co-leads must be employed and supported by an eligible UK research organisation for the duration of the award (a contract need not be in place when applying, and need not be permanent)
  • The lead must have the skills to lead the project, needs no particular qualification such as a PhD, and does not need an academic research or teaching post: practitioners and evaluation experts are welcome
  • The lead must be primarily based and permitted to work in the UK
  • Co-leads are allowed without limit if each is justified
  • UK business or third sector researchers can join as a co-lead or project partner, funded at 100% FEC, but cannot lead
  • International co-leads are not allowed
  • Government departments and arm's length bodies cannot apply
  • Teams should span a range of UK locations and career stages and must have dedicated administrative support recruited for the project
  • Open to the research communities of all UKRI councils and Innovate UK
  • Demand management does not apply

What it funds

Research that builds on the DCMS pilot Capturing engagement numbers for unticketed sporting and cultural events, addressing:

  • Applying engagement tracking models to a broader range of events, locations and activities, including rural heritage sites
  • Models of engagement as well as attendance, such as dwell time, where people spend time and variation by demographics
  • An operationally deployable model that can be run without significant specialist support in at least one DCMS sector, developed with sector partners
  • Whether more sophisticated machine learning or AI tools can improve accuracy or throughput while keeping transparency, reproducibility and governance
  • A theoretical framework of engagement suitable for data modelling
  • Costs for activities that are clearly justified and aligned with the project aims, including a dedicated administrative resource recruited for the project

DCMS can help broker access to sites (there is a provisional agreement for Science Museum Group sites), but bids must not assume this and must account for access in their design. The project includes monthly check-ins with DCMS, regular dissemination and teach-in sessions, and quarterly advisory group meetings.

What it will not fund

  • Projects focused on activities outside the DCMS remit, except where they usefully inform activities within it
  • Grant extensions (other than a reasonable, justified no-cost extension), continuing similar or existing activities, or conducting further research
  • Activities to develop or extend an existing resource or website
  • Principally academic outputs without adequate arrangements for practical findings and tools useful to DCMS and sector stakeholders
  • Project studentships (funding PhD study)
  • International co-leads
  • Uninvited resubmissions of projects already submitted to UKRI

How to apply

  1. Make sure your research organisation is registered on the UKRI Funding Service (Je-S is not used)
  2. Start an application on the UKRI Funding Service (https://funding-service.ukri.org/OPP1420/apply/1456) and confirm you are the project lead
  3. Answer the questions in the text boxes: summary, core team, discipline classification, vision, approach, applicant and team capability (R4RI format), ethics and RRI, resources and cost justification, project partners, data management and sharing, and Trusted Research and Innovation
  4. Upload the project partners' letters of support as a single PDF
  5. Send the completed application to your research office for checking
  6. Your research office submits the application so that AHRC receives it by 4pm on 1 December 2026

your application, including personal information, is shared with DCMS for assessment. Assessors look for a detailed plan for ethical and secure collection, storage, processing, analysis and disposal of data, including data bought from third-party vendors, in line with UK GDPR and the government Data and AI Ethics Framework. Submitted applications cannot be changed.

Have ready

  • Online application on the UKRI Funding Service
  • Letters or emails of support from each named project partner, as a single PDF in English or Welsh, up to two sides of A4 per partner
  • Data management plan (up to 300 words)

letters of support are not needed from the host, project co-lead or other UK research organisations.

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