Darwin Plus People & Skills Round 14 (2026): Historical Reference for Grants up to £100,000

Darwin Plus People & Skills Round 14 (2026): Historical Reference for Grants up to £100,000

Status of this round

Darwin Plus People & Skills Round 14 is closed. The official programme page states that applications to Round 14 are now closed and records its deadline as Monday 7 September 2026. The official page and the linked Round 14 guidance do not announce a later People & Skills application round. This page is therefore an archive of the closed round, not an invitation to apply. Check the official programme page for any future announcement; there is no confirmed next-round deadline to report.

The scheme is part of Darwin Plus, the UK Government’s programme for environmental outcomes in the UK Overseas Territories. Defra runs the programme, with applications administered by NIRAS through the Biodiversity Challenge Funds. Darwin Plus People & Skills was previously called Darwin Plus Fellowships. It supports training, education and professional development that help people in the Territories build the knowledge and skills needed for long-term environmental work.

Round 14 offered grants of up to £100,000 for projects lasting up to 24 months. This was funding for a defined development activity and its benefit to the Territory, rather than personal scholarship funding detached from an environmental need. The design was expected to connect the beneficiary, a responsible Lead Organisation, a relevant Territory and a clear natural-environment outcome.

Round 14 facts

These dates and limits describe Round 14 only. The deadline remains in the metadata because this page is a historical reference; it must not be read as an active deadline.

What the grant was for

The scheme aimed to increase environmental capability in UK Overseas Territories by funding professional learning with a credible route to lasting use. The official guidance gave a broad set of eligible activity types. These included relevant Master’s or associate degrees, including online and remote study; training placements and internships; attendance at conferences and workshops; trainers travelling to a Territory to deliver a course; remote learning; exchanges between Territories; targeted training; and practical fieldwork training or field courses. Other activities could be considered where the proposal justified their fit.

The common thread was practical transfer of knowledge or technology. An applicant needed to explain what the beneficiary would learn, why that expertise mattered in their Territory, and how the work would contribute to a long-term environmental result. Depending on the proposal, budgets could include academic fees, travel, monthly subsistence and host-organisation expenses, as well as other costs permitted by the programme’s finance rules.

Mandatory employer training was excluded. If an organisation required a course as a normal part of someone’s job, that was a core organisational cost rather than a People & Skills activity. Round 14 also required a project to fit within the grant’s duration and start-date conditions. An attractive course or qualification alone was not enough: the project had to demonstrate its environmental relevance and the value of the beneficiary’s future contribution.

Who could be involved

Applications had to come from a Lead Organisation. Individuals could be the beneficiaries of training, but could not apply as the grant-holding applicant. The Lead Organisation agreed to the programme terms and conditions and held responsibility for the grant’s finances, reporting and governance. A Project Leader was responsible for delivery, risk management and financial control. Both the Lead Organisation and Project Leader could be based in any country; the guidance strongly encouraged leadership from an organisation in the relevant Territory. If the Project Leader did not work for the Lead Organisation, the application had to explain the arrangement and how accountability would work.

The beneficiary could be one person or a group. Eligible beneficiaries included nationals of a UK Overseas Territory and long-term residents. The guidance defined a long-term resident as a person who had lived in the Territory from which they were applying for at least five years. For a Territory without a permanent resident population, someone with an existing relationship to that Territory could be considered. Where international travel was part of the plan, the guidance advised applicants to consider whether necessary visas were likely to be obtained.

Darwin Plus covered all UK Overseas Territories. The Round 14 guidance listed 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, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, and the Turks and Caicos Islands among the non-ODA Territories. Montserrat, Pitcairn and its associated islands, and St Helena and Tristan da Cunha were listed as ODA-eligible Territories. The guidance explains that funding allocations differ by Territory group, so applicants needed to check the relevant provisions where a project involved more than one Territory.

Russian organisations were ineligible as Lead Organisations or partners and could not be involved through matched funding. More generally, projects were expected to engage relevant in-territory partners, stakeholders and Territory governments. The beneficiary’s participation in developing and carrying out the learning plan was important: the fund assessed whether the work was collaborative and whether the new capacity would be useful after the grant.

Policy fit and quality

Round 14 proposals had to align with at least one Darwin Plus theme and support the UK Overseas Territories Biodiversity Strategy. The guidance asked applicants to explain how outcomes would contribute to at least one of the strategy’s common goals and a relevant national priority for the Territory or Territories concerned. Where the work responded to a priority that had emerged after the strategy was prepared, the case needed explanation and appropriate supporting evidence.

The People & Skills assessment looked for substantial transfer of knowledge or technology to the Territory, collaboration between beneficiary and Lead Organisation, and a contribution to long-term natural-environment outcomes. Assessors also considered professional or scientific quality, the potential legacy for the beneficiary and their Territory, and value for money. The proposal was expected to be additional to work already supported by mainstream environmental or research programmes. Research activities in particular needed to address an area that had been neglected or undervalued.

Applicants could strengthen a proposal by describing the beneficiary’s role in shaping it, the skills gap being addressed, and the practical work those skills would support. A credible legacy might include improved monitoring, stronger environmental decisions, new local training, or the ability to sustain technical work that otherwise depended on outside expertise. Those examples are planning considerations, not guaranteed outcomes or additional programme rules.

How the closed application worked

Round 14 used a single-stage application process. Before applying, prospective Lead Organisations were directed to read the Round 14 People & Skills guidance, Finance Guidance, Flexi-Grant Guidance, privacy notice, Biodiversity Challenge Funds terms and conditions, and the programme’s artificial intelligence policy. The Darwin Plus site also linked to a draftable Word version of the application form and to budget spreadsheets. The official page specified choosing the budget template according to whether the requested grant was above or below £100,000.

Completed applications were submitted through Flexi-Grant using the relevant official forms and templates. The form had to be fully answered and in English. Required supporting evidence had to be attached, and the application had to be signed with a PDF signature uploaded through the portal. Round 14 submissions are no longer being accepted; the steps below describe the requirements of the closed call for reference.

The guidance listed the following supporting items for People & Skills:

• A budget on the correct Biodiversity Challenge Funds Excel template.
• The Lead Organisation’s safeguarding policy and associated policies, combined into one PDF.
• One-page CVs for key project staff, or job descriptions for unfilled posts, merged as a single PDF.
• Letters of support from the Lead Organisation, each beneficiary, the beneficiary’s employer and the relevant Territory government.
• Optional supporting material such as a map, theory-of-change diagram or references, combined into a single PDF of no more than five A4 pages, without hyperlinks.

A risk register was not required when applying for People & Skills, though it could be requested if the project was funded. A counter-fraud, bribery and corruption policy and an ethics policy did not have to be attached upfront, but needed to be available if requested. Applicants were warned that incomplete submissions, missing evidence, unofficial or incorrect templates, breached word or page limits, and work that did not support a UK Overseas Territory could be rejected as ineligible. Unrequested material could detract from the application or lead to rejection.

Assessment and later rounds

Eligible People & Skills proposals were assessed by the Darwin Plus Advisory Group, whose members included environmental and Territory experts. The panel considered programme priorities, expected impact and technical quality before Defra made award decisions. The guidance described detailed criteria rather than a formula based only on the amount requested. A persuasive proposal had to connect its training plan to an environmental need, show how the beneficiary and organisation would work together, and explain the benefits expected for the Territory.

The guidance expected Round 14 results before the end of December 2026. Successful projects could start within the published window, from 1 April 2027 to 31 December 2027, with flexibility intended to accommodate learning schedules. These are historical Round 14 planning details, not a new funding window. The programme page says the current round is closed; it does not provide a confirmed date for a subsequent People & Skills round.

Unsuccessful applicants were to receive feedback and could submit a revised project in a later round, subject to the resubmission rules and the guidance applicable at that time. A resubmission for the same project was generally limited to one occasion unless exceptional circumstances or substantial changes applied. Since no later People & Skills call is announced on the official page, prospective applicants should wait for a published call and use its current instructions rather than relying on Round 14 templates or dates.

Official source

• Darwin Plus People & Skills Applications — official scheme page, closure status, grant maximum, Round 14 opening and deadline, submission route and linked resources.
• Round 14 Darwin Plus Guidance for Applicants — official guidance for project requirements, beneficiary eligibility, eligible costs, assessment and supporting evidence.
• Flexi-Grant application portal — application platform used for the closed round.

For programme questions, the official guidance listed [email protected]; for portal issues, it listed [email protected]. The contact routes and materials above are retained for historical context. They do not imply that Round 14 remains open.