Scott Mead and The Mead Family Foundation have generously supported the Mead Fellowship Awards since 2013. Scott is a fine art photographer, philanthropist and investor, based in London for over 20 years.
Careers and Employability manage the awards, as part of its work supporting UAL students and graduates to make a living doing what they love.
The Fellowship application process is designed to help all applicants develop their fundraising knowledge and skills.
The Mead Awards team will help you learn and reflect through the application process. We will email a short piece of individual feedback to all applicants, at each stage. This tells you the main points from the shortlisting panel’s discussions and highlights areas you could strengthen in future submissions. It is designed to help you create future proposals, pitches and funding applications.
If you win a Fellowship, the team offers project management support during the time you are completing your project.
By engaging with the resources and feedback, you will be able to:
- Understand the expectations of grant givers
- Describe a proposed arts project, clearly and briefly
- Make a convincing case for who your target audiences are
- Identify the skills and attributes you bring to a project
- Research and write about the benefits of your project (to yourself and your audiences)
- Think about and describe the possible longer-term impacts of your project
If you'd like to find out more about previous awardees, we have stories on the past cohorts:
The Mead Fellowships are committed to reflecting student diversity at all stages of its decision-making processes. As well as being experienced creatives, the panellists and judges we invite to participate are diverse in terms of age, caring responsibilities, disability, race and ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. We're committed to helping to create a diverse cultural sector.
If there are any barriers to your participation, or you have access requirements you wish to discuss, please contact mead@arts.ac.uk in advance, and we'll be happy to talk with you.
Mead Fellowships shortlisting and judging panels (PDF 137KB)
The Mead Fellowships are not scholarships; we do not provide funding for study or course fees, and are not seed funds for setting up a business. For information on these areas see:
Apply
The 2024 Mead Fellowships deadline is Monday 26 February 2024 at 9am (UK).
Mead Fellowships are designed to help UAL alumni develop and launch their creative practice. You can apply with a proposal for any arts project which adds something new to your industry or discipline, and has a positive impact on your own practice.
You can apply for funding of up to £10,000.
Your proposal must be for a single arts project (or piece of research), which will be undertaken independently, after graduation. It must be completed within the period from September 2024 to July 2025.
This must be a new project. It cannot be a continuation of a project you started as part of your course. The project cannot be completed as part of any postgraduate or other courses.
You may apply in your final year of study at UAL, on any of these courses: BA, BSc, MA, MSc, MRes, PgDip or PhD. You may also apply if you graduated from any of these courses at UAL in the previous year.
The awards aren't open to students on UAL Foundation, Short Courses, Diplomas or PG Certs, or anyone currently employed by UAL (with the exception of ArtsTemps).
Your arts project can be in any creative discipline studied at UAL. Projects are selected across these 11 subject areas, and across all UAL Colleges:
- AI, digital and interactive design
- Architecture/interiors, spaces, conservation
- Fashion, design, tailoring, production
- Fine Art, 2D, 3D, photography
- Visual comms, graphics, illustration media, journalism
- Film, TV, animation, sound
- Product, industrial, 3D, jewellery, textiles, materials
- Theatre, design, performance, acting, directing, writing
- Research (MRes/PhD)
- Business/management/enterprise, MBA
- Culture, Criticism, Curation.
Before you apply
Watch our webinars:
- Webinar 1 - Introduction to the Mead Fellowships
- Webinar 2 - Completing Your Application
- Webinar 3 - General Guidelines
Download all the webinar slides as a pdf: 2024 Mead Fellowships Guide for Applicants (PDF 3MB)
Look at our online module Planning Your Creative project (sign into Moodle using your student log in, to access the course)
Online Q&A drop-ins
Got a question? When you have looked at all the guides, feel free to sign up for any of our online Q&A drop-ins, to ask your questions:
Application process
Stage 1
Deadline 09:00 (UK time) on Monday 26 February 2024.
1. Download the 2024 Mead Fellowships application (Word 162KB)
2. Upload your completed Project Proposal form here
20-30 applications will be shortlisted to go through to Stage 2.
Stage 2
20-30 shortlisted applicants are invited to complete a fuller proposal.
Stage 3
The Mead Fellowships Judging.
The Mead Fellowships Judging is on 28 June 2024. Finalists give a short presentation about their project. This is followed by a brief Q&A session with the Mead Awards judges.
What can Mead Fellowships be used for?
All costs must be related specifically to the project.
For example, your project may require purchases such as:
- Art materials and making costs (including fees for engaging extra artists/makers)
- Professional development and training
- Specialist expertise and advice
- Software, web hosting, web design costs
- Licences and permissions
- Small items of equipment
- Promotional and marketing costs, printing
- Exhibition space, venue hire
- Language-related costs (for example translation services)
- Travel and related costs (note: overnight accommodation is only permitted where absolutely necessary)
- Essential books and publications.
Fellowships might be used for:
- Workspace/studio rental
- Subsistence allowances (you will have to prove that this is absolutely essential to the completion of the project).
The awards cannot be used to pay for:
- Tuition fees*
- Living expenses*
- Capital purchases (for example major equipment, vehicles, property ownership)
- Elective study, degree placements and/or internships.
Applicants are required to provide a strong case for their whole budget.
Winners will have to provide evidence of where the award has been spent.
* For information about fees and grants see Student Fees and Funding.
General Fellowship guidelines
- Applications are open to individuals irrespective of their nationality or country of residence.
- The awards are not open to students on UAL Foundation, Short Courses, Diplomas or PG Certs.
- You cannot apply if you are currently employed by UAL (with the exception of Artstemps).
- Please note recipients of the AHRC Scholarships are not eligible to apply, due to the terms and conditions set out by AHRC.
- Only 1 application is permitted per named applicant. However, applicants can be named as part of a team in another submission.
- Fellowships cannot be used to complete a project which was started on a UAL course (but your proposal may be for a totally new project which is a development on previous projects).
- At each stage, the judges’ decision is final and correspondence will not be entered into.
- Late or incomplete applications will not be considered.
-
Photograph of a lady holding a lamp
Meet Mead Fellowship winner, Zula Rabikowska
Zula Rabikowska is a London-based photographer who was awarded £9,990 for their project Nothing but a Curtain in 2020 and was interviewed in 2022.
-
Meet Mead Fellowship winner, Annie-Marie Akussah
Annie-Marie was awarded a Mead Fellowship in 2018 and interviewed in 2019. Some recurrent subjects within her work are identity and belonging within the context of inter-African migration.
-
Tim Boddy,
Meet the Mead Fellowship winner, Tim Boddy
London-based photographer Tim Boddy used a Mead Fellowship to explore how spaces function in relation to the LGBTQ+ identity in 2020 and was interviewed in 2022.