Grants and Partnerships

Grant application

The Trust has suspended its scholarship programme through which it assisted students from the Arab world who otherwise could not afford to access one year taught masters degrees at British universities.

The Trust’s current focus is on a programme of grants and partnerships with other institutions to advance science, education, religious understanding, and research in Britain or any of the Arab or other Islamic states.

How to apply for a grant

Our recent progamme has included:

Funding

exhibitions, electronic media, publications and other activities to make aspects of Islamic culture and history better known to a wider audience in the United Kingdom and in the Middle East.

Supporting

charitable institutions providing educational assistance and health care to deprived communities in the Levant.

Contributing

to the cost of conservation of Islamic artefacts and manuscripts in the United Kingdom and to assisting such conservation elsewhere.

In recent years grant recipients have included:

  • Ashmolean Museum
  • Asia House
  • British Museum
  • Council for British Research in the Levant
  • Mosaik Education
  • Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House)
  • St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital
  • Stirling University

More information on past grants below.

Past grants

The Trust’s past grants include:

Support since 2020 for Mosaik Education to develop online programmes to help young refugees in Jordan and Lebanon reach university.
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Funding training for young Jordanian archaeologists during the 2019 – 22 seasons of the Islamic Baydha Project, Petra, Jordan directed by Micaela Sinibaldi (Cardiff University).
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Contribution to the 2022 Oxford Muslim-Christian Summer School bringing together Muslim and Christian scholars of different traditions, passing on their learning to those training in the UK for Muslim and Christian faith leadership.
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Funding for the ‘Epic Iran’ exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2021, the first UK exhibition in 90 years to present an overarching narrative spanning 5,000 years of Iranian art, design and culture.
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Funding for ‘Owning the Past’, an exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2020/21, exploring the impact of Iraq’s Mesopotamian past on its present.
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Contributions to the Asia House ‘Converging Paths’ podcast programme 2020 and 2021.
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Assistance over the last 20 years to the Library of the Kenyon Institute in Jerusalem towards costs of refurbishment and of the key Librarian post. The Institute is a unique research facility in East Jerusalem accessible to all and the home of British research and intellectual life in Israel/Palestine. The Trust is currently funding the digitisation by the Kenyon Institute and its parent body the Council for British Research in the Levant of the Trust’s 2000 publication ‘Ottoman Jerusalem’ (see publications page) and associated research material.
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Support over many years for the Post war Recovery and Development Unit (PRDU) at the University of York including the Al Tajir Lectureship and financial assistance to scholarships for individual students from Yemen and Afghanistan. PRDU has now been assimilated into the Department of Politics.

Donations to charities working for the health of Palestinians and of women and children in the poorer Middle East states. These include Medical Aid for Palestinians and the St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital.

Support between 2005 and 2011 for the work of the Prince’s Foundation’s School of Traditional Arts and Lancashire County Council in a community project based in Burnley to teach and promote traditional design in a faith context with the aim of fostering social cohesion in an area of high unemployment.
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Funding for ‘Sacred’, an exhibition at the British Library in spring 2007 featuring rare historic religious texts of the three Abrahamic faiths, many not previously on public display.

Sponsorship each year since 2008 to the present for participants from the Middle East in the British Museum’s International Summer School. This allows museum curators from around the world to become involved in the workings of the British Museum, assisting conservation and deepening the Museum’s links with key overseas partners. Curators supported by the Trust have included those from Azerbaijan, Iran, Kenya, Palestine and Sudan.
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Funding for ‘Bellini and the East’, an exhibition at the National Gallery, Spring 2006.

Funding for Kiarostami’s Ta’ziyeh, an installation of popular, traditional theatre at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2005.

Funding for ‘Illuminating Faith Art and Culture from the Middle East’, an exhibition at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 2005.

Apply for a grant

Trustees welcome applications from existing and other potential partner institutions in pursuit of the Trust’s aims. The Trust does not make grants to individuals.

Applications can be made at any time and will be acknowledged with an indication of the time frame for a decision. They will then be considered at the next trustees’ meeting (usually held in March, July and November); urgent applications can exceptionally be given early attention. Trustees consider applications against the Trust’s current aims and priorities and the availability of funds. Grants approved by trustees are normally made in pounds sterling by transfer to a UK bank account. The Trust requires feedback on the activity funded by the grant and public acknowledgement of the Trust’s support.

Application form

Grant application form

Completed forms and any supplementary information should be sent to the Trust as email attachments to the email address shown on the form.

The Trust is happy to answer queries about the process; emails should be sent to: enquiries@altajirtrust.uk