← The Grant Desk (interactive)

Tech and Infrastructure Grants in the UK

Currently 3 active tech and infrastructure grants, fellowships and residencies open to applicants in the UK. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Almost every entry is funded; a few notable unpaid open calls and festival submissions are included as clearly flagged exceptions. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.

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Open calls

  1. Alpaca Festival 2027: Open Call for Pattern-Based Performances, Workshops and Talks (Sheffield, UK)

    Pattern Club (Alpaca Festival) · Sheffield, UK, with some talks and activities online. Open internationally, but only national (UK) travel is covered, plus a small budget for European train travel. · Deadline: 01 Nov 2026 · Award: Performances: artist fee plus national travel expenses. Workshops: artist fee, materials expenses and national travel expenses. Fee amounts are not yet confirmed (tight budget); additional costs may be covered on request. International travel is not covered beyond a small European train budget. Conference talks: no fee or expenses, in-person speakers get a free festival weekend pass and lunch on 6 and 7 May. No application fee.

    Alpaca is a festival and conference on algorithmic patterns in the creative arts, run by the non-profit Pattern Club in Sheffield. It brings together live coders, weavers, braiders, origami makers, musicians and other practitioners who make patterns by procedure, and it welcomes contemporary algorithmic art that is human-authored. THEME (talks): making languages and notations for making patterns, with unexpected interpretations welcome. WHAT YOU CAN PROPOSE: live performances, hands-on workshops, and roughly 20-minute conference talks; accepted abstracts (max two pages) are published open access with a DOI and may be invited into an edited volume. WHAT YOU GET: performers receive an artist fee plus national travel; workshop leaders receive an artist fee, materials and national travel. The organisers state they cannot confirm fee amounts at this stage and may cover extra costs on request; international travel is not covered apart from a small European train budget. Talks are unpaid: in-person speakers get a free festival pass and lunch on the conference days. EXCLUSIONS: submissions focused on generative AI or unsupervised pattern generation by LLMs. APPLICATION: via the online form at calls.alpaca.cc; questions to contact@alpaca.cc. DEADLINE: 1 November 2026.

  2. British Council Travel Grant Fund (film and XR, rolling)

    British Council, supported by BFI National Lottery funding in partnership with BFI NETWORK and the BFI International Fund · Open to UK-based filmmakers and XR creatives (UK residents or citizens, aged 18+). Grants fund travel to international festivals, showcases, labs and co-production forums worldwide. · Deadline: Rolling / undated · Award: Varies by strand: short and feature film festival grants GBP 150 to 1,500 (typically up to GBP 750); XR travel-only grants GBP 150 to 1,500; large XR grants GBP 1,500 to 5,000; lab grants capped at GBP 6,000; co-production forum grants capped at GBP 2,000. Free to apply.

    The British Council's standing Travel Grant Fund helps early to mid-career UK filmmakers and XR creatives represent their work abroad, build networks, reach new audiences and raise the international profile of new and emerging UK film and immersive talent. Supported by BFI National Lottery funding in partnership with BFI NETWORK and the BFI International Fund. WHAT IT FUNDS: travel to attend international film festivals, showcases, training and development labs, and co-production forums, across five strands: short film festival grants, feature film festival grants, interactive/XR grants (including VR, immersive storytelling experiences and installations), lab grants and co-production forum grants. AMOUNTS: short and feature festival grants GBP 150 to 1,500 (typically up to GBP 750); XR travel-only grants GBP 150 to 1,500; large XR grants GBP 1,500 to 5,000; lab grants up to GBP 6,000; co-production forum grants up to GBP 2,000. WHO CAN APPLY: UK residents or citizens aged 18+; applicants can be directors, producers or writers attached to the selected project. KEY CONDITIONS: the festival, lab or forum must appear on the British Council's Key Lists of eligible events, and the project must be registered on the British Council's UK Project Database. DEADLINE: rolling, no fixed deadlines; submit at least two weeks before the event starts (retrospective applications for past events are not accepted). Free to apply.

  3. ILIAD Intensive: Foundational AI Alignment Program (London and Berkeley)

    ILIAD · In person at LISA in London, UK, and in Berkeley, California, USA. Five days a week, 10am to 6pm. · Deadline: Rolling / undated · Award: No tuition. USD 5,000 travel and housing allowance per participant, plus office space at the venue and lunch and dinner five days a week. Cohorts of 15 to 30 participants. Participants arrange and pay for their own travel and accommodation out of the allowance.

    The ILIAD Intensive is a four-week, full-time, in-person program for mathematically strong researchers interested in foundational AI alignment, running in London (at LISA) and in Berkeley. It runs five days a week, 10am to 6pm, in cohorts of 15 to 30 participants. CURRICULUM, across five clusters: Alignment (decomposing the alignment problem, pretraining, post-training and deployment, reward learning); Learning (deep learning theory, singular learning theory, training dynamics); Abstractions, Representations and Interpretability (mechanistic interpretability, natural latents); Agency (reinforcement learning, decision theory, agent foundations); and Safety Guarantees (debate, steganography, the limits of interpretability). MONEY: no tuition is charged. Each participant receives a USD 5,000 travel and housing allowance, office space at the venue, and lunch and dinner five days a week. Participants book and pay for their own travel and accommodation out of the allowance. ELIGIBILITY: a strong mathematical background, typically graduate-level study or a completed degree in mathematics, physics or theoretical computer science, though mathematical maturity is weighted more heavily than specific credentials. Research experience, general competence and motivation are also assessed. Prior machine learning or alignment experience is not required. DEADLINE: no fixed closing date is published. A single application covers several upcoming programs and applicants indicate their preferred dates and locations; applications are being accepted for the October 2026 and November 2026 cohorts. HOW TO APPLY: through the application portal at iliad.ac/apply. Questions to contact@iliad.ac.

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