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Mead Fellowships

Three children standing together with their hands around each other
Three children standing together with their hands around each other
Three Cousins by Margarita Galandina

Apply for £3,000 to £10,000 to complete a creative project after graduation.

Open to final year UAL students and 2024 graduates.

Applications open: 2 December 2024.
Deadline: Monday 24 February 2025.

What are Mead Fellowships?

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.

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.

Since 2013, 78 Mead Awards, have been made to students and alumni from 50 different UAL courses, across all UAL Colleges and Institutes.

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 Mead Fellowships cannot be used for any coursework and 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:

Mead Fellowships 2025

  • You can apply for funding of between £3,000 and £10,000.
  • Your project must be completed within the period from September 2025 to July 2026.
  • This must be a new project. It cannot be a continuation of a project you started as part of your course.
  • Your proposal must be for a single arts project (or piece of research), which will be undertaken independently, after your course has finished.
  • The project cannot be completed as part of any postgraduate or other course.
  • Only 1 application is permitted per named applicant. However, applicants can be named as part of a team in another submission.
  • All named team or partners must be UAL students / graduates who fulfil all the eligibility criteria.
  • At each stage, the judges’ decision is final and correspondence will not be entered into.
  • Late or incomplete applications will not be considered.
Who can apply?

Who is eligible?

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 completed any of these UAL courses in 2024.

Applications are open to individuals irrespective of their nationality or country of residence.

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.

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.

Who can't apply

  • You are not eligible if you are on UAL Foundation, Short Courses, Diplomas or PG Certs.
  • You cannot apply if, at the time of application, you are employed by UAL (with the exception of Artstemps).
  • Recipients of the AHRC Scholarships are not eligible to apply, (due to the conditions set out by AHRC).
Before you apply

Read all the guidelines:

1. Watch our webinars:

Download all webinar slides as a pdf: 2025 Mead Fellowships Guide (PDF 2866KB)

2.  Read our online module: Planning Your Creative Project 

To increase your chance of success, read our online learning module Planning Your Creative project (the module is on Moodle in the Careers Toolkit; sign in with  using your student ID, to access).

Students can also access the module via Academic Support.

2024 graduates can access the module via our Graduate Hub

Using this module will increase your chance of success!

In 2023 and 2024, 50% of those shortlisted to Stage 2, and over 70% of awardees used this module to strengthen their proposals.

3. Attend our 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:

(links to sign up for Q&As in 2024/5 will be here on 2 December 2024)

Attending Q&As  is an extra support. You must read the guidelines above too.

How to apply
  • Stage 2: 20-30 shortlisted applicants are invited to complete a fuller proposal.
  • Stage 3: The Mead Fellowships judging.
How the Mead Awards team can help

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. with the main points from the shortlisting panel’s discussions and highlight areas you could strengthen in future submissions.
  • The process 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.

When you engage 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.
What can Mead Fellowships be used for?

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.
  • Fees for people engaged for the project
  • Specialist expertise and advice.
  • Software, web hosting, web design costs.
  • Licences and permissions.
  • Small items of equipment (up to £500 per item, and totalling no more than 30% of the total request).
  • Promotional and marketing costs, printing.
  • Exhibition space, venue hire.
  • Language-related costs (for example translation services).
  • Travel and related costs - up to 30% of the total request (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:

  • Fees - for the applicant or their project team / partner
  • Tuition fees.*
  • Living expenses.*
  • Capital purchases (for example major equipment, vehicles, property ownership).
  • Elective study, residencies, work experience, degree placements and/or internships.
  • Travel and accommodation exceeding 30% of the total request.
  • Items of equipment costing over £500.

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.

  • Black and white headshot of Zula Rabikowska
    Image: Zula Rabikowska

    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.

  • Photo by David Maja

    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 sits in front of a wall with prints of leaves behind them
    Tim Boddy, Image: Tim Boddy

    Meet 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.

  • Two people sitting in a traditional portrait-style pose.
    Image credit: 'Self-Portrait with my Brother', taken from Ovoo' (Timelessness) - Margarita Galandina, 2022.

    Meet Mead Fellowship winner, Margarita Galandina

    Margarita’s practice is underpinned by dance, performance, film, fashion and photography, reflecting a multi-faceted approach influenced by her interests and lived experience.

Events and workshops

Email us

For further enquiries, please email mead@arts.ac.uk