Darwin Plus People & Skills Round 14: Up to £100,000 for Two Years of Training, Degrees and Placements for UK Overseas Territory Nationals, Closing 7 September 2026

Darwin Plus People & Skills Round 14: Up to £100,000 for Two Years of Training, Degrees and Placements for UK Overseas Territory Nationals, Closing 7 September 2026

Conservation in the UK Overseas Territories has a recurring staffing problem. A Territory of a few thousand people may hold globally significant seabird colonies, endemic plants found nowhere else, or reef systems that dwarf anything in UK waters — and a government environment department of three or four staff to look after all of it. When the one person who can run a seabird census leaves, the census stops. When a marine officer needs a formal qualification to sign off on survey data, there may be no budget line anywhere in the Territory that covers it.

Darwin Plus People & Skills exists for that problem specifically. It funds people rather than projects-about-people: a Master’s degree, a training placement with a UK institution, a Territory-to-Territory exchange, a trainer flown in to run a course locally. Grants run up to £100,000 for projects lasting up to 24 months. Round 14 opened on Friday 8 May 2026 and closes at 22:59 GMT (23:59 BST) on Monday 7 September 2026.

The scheme was previously called Darwin Plus Fellowships. Defra renamed it to make clear that it is not restricted to academic careers — a ranger, a fisheries officer or an NGO field coordinator is as much the intended beneficiary as a prospective PhD student.

Key Details at a Glance

What the Grant Actually Pays For

Darwin Plus People & Skills is aimed at building capacity through training, education and professional development. The guidance gives an explicitly non-exhaustive list of activities that may be eligible:

• Academic qualifications, including Master’s degrees, associate degrees, and online or remote degrees
• Training placements and internships
• Travel to and attendance at conferences and workshops
• Funding for trainers to travel to a Territory to deliver an agreed training programme
• Remote or online learning
• Territory-to-Territory skill share and exchanges
• Targeted training courses
• On-the-ground fieldwork training and field courses
• Other opportunities, where there is clear justification

On the cost side, People & Skills accepts categories that other Darwin Plus schemes do not. Alongside the costs allowed across the wider programme, eligible costs here can include monthly subsistence, host organisation expenses, travel costs, and fees for academic qualifications, depending on the nature of the application.

There is one firm exclusion worth checking your idea against before you write anything: Darwin Plus will not cover training that an organisation requires of its staff and which would be considered mandatory, and therefore a core cost. Statutory health and safety refreshers, mandatory boat handling certificates required by an employer, and similar obligations belong in the employer’s budget. The scheme funds the step beyond what the job already requires.

Who Can Apply, and Who Benefits

The distinction between the applicant and the beneficiary matters here more than in most schemes, and misreading it is a fast route to an ineligible application.

Applications must be made by a Lead Organisation, not by an individual. The Lead Organisation accepts the Biodiversity Challenge Funds Terms and Conditions and takes on management of the grant, its finances, reporting and governance. A named Project Leader carries responsibility for delivery, value for money, risk and financial control. Both the Project Leader and the Lead Organisation may be based in any country, though Defra strongly encourages projects led by an in-territory organisation. Where the Project Leader is not employed by the Lead Organisation, the application must explain why, and show they can be held accountable for the project.

The beneficiary is the person or people being trained. Beneficiaries must be Territory nationals or long-term residents. A long-term resident is defined as someone who has lived in the Territory from which they are applying for at least five years. For Territories without a permanent resident population — the British Antarctic Territory, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the British Indian Ocean Territory — individuals who can demonstrate an existing relationship with that Territory may be considered. Support is available for a single individual or for a group.

All UK Overseas Territories are in scope. The non-ODA Territories are Anguilla, Ascension, Bermuda, the British Antarctic Territory, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The ODA-eligible Territories are Montserrat; Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands; and St Helena and Tristan da Cunha. Defra now splits Darwin Plus funding across separate internal allocations depending on whether a Territory is ODA-eligible, which shapes what kind of work can be funded where — read section 1.2 of the guidance carefully if your project spans both categories.

One further restriction applies across all Biodiversity Challenge Funds: Russian organisations are ineligible to be a Lead Organisation or partner, or to be involved in any way, including as a source of matched funding.

The Strategic Alignment Test

Darwin Plus is not a general capacity-building fund. Every application has to land inside a specific policy frame, and Round 14 tightened this.

Projects must show clear and measurable outcomes against at least one of the four broad Darwin Plus themes:

• Biodiversity — improving and conserving biodiversity, slowing or reversing loss and degradation
• Climate change — responding to, mitigating and adapting to climate change and its effects on the natural environment and local communities
• Environmental quality — improving the condition and protection of the natural environment
• Capability and capacity building — enhancing capacity within the Territories to support the environment in the short and long term

Projects must also support delivery of the UK Overseas Territories Biodiversity Strategy (OTBS), published in 2025. In practice that means demonstrating outcomes against at least one of the OTBS’s six common Goals, and against at least one relevant national priority from the OTBS chapter for the Territory concerned. Applications addressing something that has emerged since the OTBS was written must say so and justify why it is a priority — normally with a supporting letter.

You are not expected to hit all themes, goals and priorities. You are expected to name the specific ones you hit, and to be able to show measurable outcomes against them. A People & Skills application that says a Master’s degree will “build capacity” without naming the Territory priority that capacity serves is doing half the job.

How Applications Are Assessed

People & Skills is a single-stage process. There is no expression of interest and no invited second round — what you submit on 7 September is what gets scored.

Applications are assessed by the Darwin Plus Advisory Group (DPAG), a body of independent experts in biodiversity and the environment in the Territories, which scores proposals and makes funding recommendations to Defra. The scheme-specific criteria for People & Skills are:

• The project will result in substantial transfer of knowledge and/or technology to the Territory relating to one of the four themes
• The project is collaborative, involving the beneficiary and the Lead Organisation at all stages, including development of the application itself
• It will contribute, directly or indirectly, to long-term strategic outcomes for the natural environment in the Territories
• Where appropriate, it will raise awareness of the worth of natural resources and encourage their sustainable use
• It will be of high quality and scientific — or other appropriate professional — excellence
• It will leave a legacy, through real and lasting impact on the beneficiary’s capacity to help their Territory meet long-term environmental outcomes
• It is additional — outputs will not cut across work funded through other mainstream environmental or research programmes, and research in particular must address a neglected or undervalued area
• It is, wherever possible, innovative and distinctive, showing a new approach rather than covering old ground, and identifying how outputs will be badged with the Darwin Plus name and logo
• It demonstrates good value for money, judged on both the results of the beneficiary’s work and the benefit to the Territory’s capacity

Scoring runs on a 0–6 scale. A 6 means the project meets all criteria with the majority met to a high standard. The guidance marks the indicative scoring threshold of competitive applications between 4 and 3 — a 4 is described as meeting most criteria, often to a good standard, and likely to contribute to Darwin Plus objectives; a 3 is described as acceptable but with design issues the team would be advised to review. Aiming for “acceptable” is aiming below the line.

Supporting Documents and Common Rejection Traps

The guidance is unusually blunt that administrative errors get applications thrown out. Applications may be rejected as ineligible if they are incomplete, use an incorrect or unofficial template, exceed stated page or word limits, miss supporting evidence, or do not support work in a Territory.

For People & Skills specifically, the required supporting material includes:

• Cover letter — on headed paper, two sides of A4 maximum, uploaded as a single PDF. It should refer to the application rather than duplicate it, and should not smuggle in information that belongs in the form.
• Budget — on the correct Biodiversity Challenge Funds Excel template for grants under £100,000.
• Safeguarding policy — the Lead Organisation’s policy and associated policies, submitted as a single PDF.
• CVs and job descriptions — one side of A4 per person for all key project staff named in the form, merged into a single PDF (job descriptions where a post is vacant).
• Letters of support — from the Lead Organisation, the beneficiary or beneficiaries, the beneficiary’s employer, and the Territory government. Details of any dialogue with the relevant Governor’s Office are optional.
• Risk register — not required at application stage for People & Skills, though you may be asked for one if funded.
• Optional extras — a map, theory of change diagram and/or list of references may be submitted in a single combined PDF, no more than five sides of A4 in total, with no hyperlinks. Exceeding that makes the application ineligible.

A counter fraud, bribery and corruption policy and an ethics policy are not required upfront but must be available on request. Everything is uploaded through Flexi-Grant in PDF or Excel, in English, with a signed PDF signature attached. Submitting unrequested material will detract from the application or cause rejection outright.

Timeline and Money Constraints

The dates for Round 14 are fixed and worth planning backwards from:

• 8 May 2026 — Round 14 opened across Darwin Plus Main, People & Skills and Strategic
• 7 September 2026, 22:59 GMT — People & Skills deadline
• Before end of December 2026 — results notified by email through Flexi-Grant
• 1 April 2027 to 31 December 2027 — window in which funded projects must start

The flexible start window is deliberate and useful: People & Skills start dates can be moved to match academic years, so a beneficiary beginning a Master’s in September 2027 is not forced into an April start. You cannot start earlier than 1 April 2027 under any circumstances.

Two budget realities shape what is fundable. First, Darwin Plus budgets are bound to UK financial years running 1 April to 31 March, and funds cannot be carried between years except in exceptional circumstances — so a budget must be laid out year by year and be realistic about delivery slipping. Second, following the Multiyear Spending Review the UK Government has committed more than £9 million a year to Darwin Plus until March 2029, with funding beyond that date subject to the next Spending Review. Applicants must accept and manage that risk. For a two-year People & Skills project starting in 2027, this is unlikely to bite, but it should inform any commitments that extend past March 2029.

Preparing a Competitive Application

The strongest People & Skills applications tend to share a few characteristics that follow directly from the criteria.

Build it with the beneficiary, not for them. The criteria explicitly require the beneficiary and Lead Organisation to be involved at all stages “including development of the application”. An application written by a UK institution and shown to the beneficiary at signature stage reads exactly like what it is, and the letters of support will not disguise it.

Name the return to the Territory. Legacy is a scored criterion. Assessors want to see what the beneficiary will do with the qualification or skill once they are back at their desk — the survey they will run, the dataset they will maintain, the colleagues they will in turn train. A funded degree with no articulated afterlife is a weak proposal even if the degree is excellent.

Show the employer is committed. A letter of support from the employer is required, and it is the natural place to evidence that the post will still exist, that study leave is agreed, and that the new capability will be used. Vague endorsement letters waste a required document.

Establish additionality honestly. If a scholarship scheme, a research council, or another Darwin Plus grant could fund the same activity, say why this route is different or why the alternatives are closed. Assessors know the other funders in this space.

Be modest and precise about cost. Value for money in Darwin Plus is about the scale and legacy of expected impact relative to cost, not the lowest price and not the largest ask. The guidance is explicit across schemes that no extra weight is given to a proposal seeking the maximum available. A well-justified £38,000 application beats a padded £99,000 one.

If You Are Unsuccessful

Every lead applicant, successful or not, is notified by email through Flexi-Grant. Unsuccessful applicants receive detailed feedback, which is a genuine asset in a programme that runs annually. A revised application may be submitted to a later round, but a resubmission for a particular project is accepted only once unless there is prior agreement in exceptional circumstances or the project has changed substantially. Any resubmission must set out how the previous feedback was addressed, and must follow the guidance for the round it is submitted to, not the round it was originally written for.

If People & Skills is not the right fit, the wider programme may be. Darwin Plus Local offers up to £20,000 for individuals and up to £50,000 for organisations over up to 12 months, with a streamlined application process designed as an on-ramp to the larger schemes. Darwin Plus Main runs from £50,000 to £1 million over one to three years, in two stages. Darwin Plus Strategic runs from £1 million to £3 million over three to five years. Local operates on its own separate guidance and timetable.

Official Links and Contacts

• Scheme page and Round 14 guidance: Darwin Plus People & Skills Applications
• Programme home: darwinplus.org.uk
• Application portal: Flexi-Grant
• Programme and application queries: [email protected]
• Flexi-Grant technical queries: [email protected]
• Defra publication enquiries: [email protected]

Before drafting, read the Round 14 Guidance for Applicants in full alongside the separate Finance Guidance, the Flexi-Grant Guidance, the Biodiversity Challenge Funds Terms and Conditions, and the Biodiversity Challenge Funds Artificial Intelligence Policy — all linked from the scheme page. The programme team asks that applicants work through the published guidance and the Frequently Asked Questions before requesting individual assistance, and calls can be arranged by email where a question remains. With a single-stage deadline on 7 September 2026 and letters of support needed from an employer and a Territory government, the practical deadline for starting conversations is several weeks earlier than the one on the form.