CfI: Boosting fathers’ engagement to improve child outcomes

Overview

UK Research and Innovation will invest up to £2 million through this Contracts for Innovation competition, funded by the UKRI Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity Mission.

The competition is designed to support organisations developing, adapting or further validating innovative approaches that strengthen fathers’ engagement in their children’s development across all ages. Evidence shows that paternal involvement can play an important role in children’s cognitive, social and educational progress, yet support for fathers’ caring roles and involvement in children’s learning remains limited.

Projects should focus on how to encourage, enable and sustain greater paternal engagement within the home learning environment. This includes everyday interactions, relationships and experiences outside the classroom that can influence children’s development and educational outcomes.

This is phase 1 of a potential three-phase competition. Only successful applicants from phase 1 may be invited to apply for phase 2. Any further phases will depend on the outcomes of previous phases, separate assessment and availability of funding.

The competition is expected to fund up to 10 contracts.

Scope

The aim of this competition is to support organisations to develop, adapt, or further validate innovative approaches that strengthen fathers’ engagement in their children’s development across all ages.

This competition is focused specifically on the role of fathers in child development, and how to encourage, enable, and sustain greater paternal engagement within the home learning environment. Projects should strengthen paternal engagement as a pathway to improving measurable child development outcomes.

The competition recognises the diverse experiences of fathers, including non-resident fathers, stepfathers, same sex parents, kinship carers, foster fathers and fathers from underserved and minoritised communities.

Projects funded through this competition must have a clear and credible route to real world use. Applications should demonstrate how the proposed work will move beyond concept development and into delivery, adoption and impact.

At this stage, contracts will only be awarded for phase 1. In a potential phase 2, successful applicants from phase 1 may be invited to continue the development of their solutions.

Key themes and topics

The competition is seeking innovative, evidence-informed approaches that may include, but are not limited to, those focused on:

• removing structural, cultural, or practical barriers to fathers’ involvement in learning, developmental activities and caregiving
• building fathers’ confidence, skills or identity as caregivers and educators and their understanding of home learning environments
• enhancing the quantity and quality of father and child interactions
• supporting fathers at key transition points, for example, birth, early years, starting school, family separation
• supporting education, family and health services to work effectively with fathers as equal partners in child development and educational outcomes
• reaching fathers who are less visible to services, for example, young fathers or those from minoritised communities

Projects can include technology, design, behaviour change approaches and innovative delivery models.

Projects must have:

• a clearly identified target audience with evidenced rationale for why this group has a specific need for the proposed solution
• a clear theory of change, highlighting how the paternal engagement intervention will lead to improved children’s learning and development outcomes
• a well articulated and feasible delivery model
• a robust monitoring and evaluation plan to measure both paternal engagement and associated child-level outcomes
• strong safeguarding plans and protocols when working with children and families
• established partnerships for effective testing, delivery, spreading and scaling of the solution within the contracted period, where required

Applicants must:

• demonstrate a credible and practical route to market, including plans to commercialise or otherwise embed the solution within existing systems or services
• develop a tangible output, such as a product, tool, framework, service model or platform, rather than undertaking purely exploratory or conceptual work
• set out clear plans for delivery, spreading and scaling, including who the end users are and how they will access or adopt the solution
• show readiness to work with delivery partners, including public services, education or health organisations, where relevant
• commit to working collaboratively with UKRI and Department for Education colleagues to support potential adoption, integration and wider take-up of the solution following the project

Phase 1 is focused on prototype development and evaluation. This can include prototyping, demonstrating, piloting, testing and validation of new or improved products, processes or services in environments representative of real-life operating conditions. The primary objective is to make further technical improvements to products, processes or services that are not substantially set.

The competition will not fund projects that:

• are not original in scope and duplicate someone else’s work
• would directly duplicate other UK government or EU funded initiatives already funded for delivery
• are covered by existing commercial agreements to deliver the proposed solutions
• do not have UK families as direct or indirect beneficiaries
• lack a piloting, delivery or practical intervention component

Project duration

12 months

Must start on 1 August 2026

End by 31 July 2027

Award value

Projects must have total costs between £200,000 and £500,000, inclusive of VAT

Funding rates

100% funded

Eligibility criteria

• Projects must be led by an organisation of any size
• Contracts will be awarded to a single legal entity only
• Applicants can be based in the UK, EU, EEA or internationally
• The majority of the project work and key deliverables must be completed by the applicant and carried out in the UK
• Subcontractors can be used for specialist skills and can be businesses, research organisations, research and technology organisations or the third sector, including charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups
• You must select whether you are VAT registered before entering your eligible project costs
• If you are VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT and your total eligible project costs inclusive of VAT must not exceed £500,000
• If you are not VAT registered, you must enter your eligible project costs exclusive of VAT and your total project costs must not exceed £500,000

Your application must have at least 50% of the contract value attributed directly and exclusively to R&D services, including solution exploration and design. R&D can also include prototyping and field-testing the product or service.

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