The Refugee-led Innovation Fund champions the creativity of all displaced and stateless people. It aims to reshape their participation in the delivery of humanitarian work by ensuring they take centre stage in the decisions affecting their lives, leading the identification of needs and the design of innovative solutions.
The Fund provides holistic support – combining financial resources, mentoring, and other expertise – directly to organizations led by forcibly displaced and stateless people, to enable them to design and deliver new interventions that have a lasting positive impact on their communities.
Requirements
- The Fund supports innovation by all organizations led by people with lived experience of forced displacement or statelessness – including refugees, asylum-seekers, the internally displaced, returnees, and stateless people – that are recognized within their communities due to their past significant contributions.
- Applicants are required to apply as a team, representing an existing organization made up of multiple community members. Organizations must demonstrate a collective structure to qualify. Individual applicants are not eligible.
- The Fund accepts applications from both registered and unregistered organizations that are well known in their communities due to their past significant contributions and initiatives.
- Additional attention will be given to ensuring organizations led by LGBTIQ+ persons, women, people with disabilities, internally displaced and stateless individuals, Indigenous populations, and other underrepresented groups receive support and encouragement to apply to the Fund.
Benefits
Selected organizations can expect the following:
- Financial support: Organizations can apply for up to 45,000 USD (equivalent in local currency) in funding to test and implement ideas with strong community-based approaches that generate value for community members, not specifically linked to any thematic area or technology.
- Programme and project management support: Supported organizations will receive assistance from UNHCR and experts to help build their capacity to design and implement programmes effectively.
- Technical support and expertise: Needs-based specialist advice will be offered, on topics ranging from technology to legal support and innovation methodologies.
- Peer-to-peer networking: Supported organizations will be encouraged to engage with each other, share experiences, learn from each other, and explore partnerships.
- An emphasis on learning: Support will be provided to enable supported organizations to measure outcomes, assess their progress, and gather information to support growth. They will be encouraged to document, share, and make use of relevant learnings. Discussion and reflection with their communities will enable them to incorporate and respond to feedback.
Other support, based on project needs, could include organizational support, help with project sustainability and scale, training on specific topics, business model advice, and media and communications support.
How to apply
Each year, we launch a new call for applications inviting organizations to submit a proposal through this online platform. In their proposal, organizations should outline the challenge they aim to address, their proposed solution, a budget, and the changes they expect to see in their communities as a result of their project. In 2025, applications are open until August 22.
These proposals go through a four-phase selection process:
1) Proposal longlisting: The Innovation Service reviews all submissions and identifies a longlist of promising applications.
2) Vetting and due diligence: Longlisted organizations undergo a thorough vetting and due diligence process to confirm their eligibility. Part of this process involves verifying that each organization’s leadership comprises at least 50% individuals with lived experience of forced displacement or statelessness. Supporting documentation must be provided to verify this. Failure to meet this requirement or to provide the necessary documentation will result in disqualification from the application process.
3) Pitch your idea: Organizations that pass the vetting and due diligence process will be invited to pitch their ideas to a selection committee composed of members of the UNHCR Innovation Service, as well as representatives from the relevant UNHCR Country Operations and Regional Bureaus. This is an opportunity for organizations to expand on their submitted proposal and engage in a conversation about their idea. Organizations that successfully defend their idea will be shortlisted and move to the final phase of the selection process.
4) Final selection: Shortlisted proposals are reviewed by the Fund’s Steering Committee, which is composed of forcibly displaced and stateless individuals, representatives of relevant UNHCR units at the global level, and, where feasible, donor representatives. The Steering Committee will select the most promising ideas to be endorsed by the Fund.
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