Turing Scheme: apply for funding for international placements

The Turing Scheme provides grant funding to education providers to support their students to pursue study and work placements around the world.

Funding is open to UK and British overseas territories organisations from across the education and training sector, including schools and further and higher education providers.  

This funding allows education providers to give their students the chance to develop new skills, gain international experience and boost their employability. Providers can apply for funding for students going to multiple destinations, as part of a single application.

Students cannot apply directly to the Department for Education (DfE) for Turing Scheme funding. If you are a student who is interested in studying or working abroad, contact your education provider.

Applying for funding  

Providers can now apply for funding for the 2024 to 2025 academic year through the Turing Scheme’s digital service.

Apply now

Applications opened on Thursday 15 February 2024 and will close on Thursday 21 March 2024 at 4pm.

If you are applying for funding across 2 sectors, you will need to submit applications for the different routes separately.

Once you submit your application, it will undergo:

• an eligibility and financial capability check to verify that you are compliant with the Turing Scheme eligibility criteria
• an assessment to evaluate the extent to which the application meets the Turing Scheme assessment criteria, including supporting students from disadvantaged backgrounds and project deliverability

Independent assessors will review and score all applications. We will communicate results to applicants in June 2024.

Schools and further education providers can apply as part of a consortium partnership. All education providers in consortium projects should be named in the application.

DfE is under no obligation to accept any application or make an award of funding. You are not eligible for funding towards any costs you incur in developing or submitting your application.

You must ensure that your projects follow the safeguarding requirements that apply to you in your jurisdiction and that of the placement destination.

If you have any questions about applying, contact us.

Assessment criteria

The assessment criteria for the 2024 to 2025 academic year reflect the latest Turing Scheme purpose and aims.

In your application, you will need to demonstrate how your proposal meets the criteria set out in the assessment questions. Applications will be scored against these criteria. You will have up to 4,000 words to complete your application.

We will use your assessment score to prioritise funding. This means that applicants who score highly are more likely to be allocated the funding they have requested. This is subject to the overall quality of the applications received, and the level of demand for funding.  

This year, we’re asking for an overview of your project instead of each placement. A placement refers to the study or work activity that you are organising for a student or group of students at a single destination. A project refers to your overall application, including all placements that you wish to facilitate for the 2024 to 2025 academic year.

Assessment questions     

In your application, you will be asked questions that relate to the following assessment criteria.

You may download the assessment questions (MS Word Document, 88 KB) to help plan your application. Only applications submitted on the digital service will be accepted.

Our grant calculator (MS Excel Spreadsheet, 364 KB) can help you work out the funding that you could apply for. This tool has been designed as an application aid to calculate the amount you may be requesting. The amount calculated is representative. It does not provide any assurance that you will receive a particular amount of funding. Final amounts of funding allocated will be subject to budget, quality of applications, overall demand to the scheme and allocation principles.

Project vision (weighting: 10%)

Summarise your proposed Turing Scheme project, specifically setting out how it will meet the Turing Scheme aims.

Enhancing skills (weighting: 30%)

Explain who your Turing Scheme students are, what education or employment outcomes they will gain and how these link to the destination students will visit.

Tell us how you will measure the impact of your Turing Scheme student placements.

Advancing social justice (weighting: 30%)

Outline, using data where possible:

• your organisation’s overall demographics including students who are disadvantaged, from underrepresented groups and those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including those with additional learning needs (ALN) in Wales and people with additional support needs (ASN) in Scotland
• how you will recruit and support students from disadvantaged backgrounds
• how you will recruit and support students with SEND
• how you will recruit and support students from underrepresented groups

Delivery plan (weighting: 30%)

Set out a delivery plan that includes:

• timings – a summary of the main activities to deliver your placements and their timings
• risks and issues – project risks, mitigations and how you will manage any issues that arise
• roles, responsibilities and governance – who will work on the project, and your project governance arrangements, including any consortium arrangements
• assurance arrangements – your processes to ensure value for money and prevent fraud and error

You will also need to provide a breakdown of costs, including setting out how you will use organisational support funding. 

Supplementary questions

There are 2 optional questions worth 1% each, which will be added to your total score from other questions.

Environmental impact

Outline any placements with a focus on mitigating the effects of climate change, specifically in relation to rewilding, conservation and green skills.

Apprentices

Outline how you will support apprentices, where applicable, to participate in the Turing Scheme.

Assessment scoring and funding allocation

Applications will be scored against the criteria by independent assessors. Assessors can only score based on the information that is contained within the application, and will not consider any other information.

Financial capability and due diligence checks

When you apply, we will ask you to summarise your processes to ensure value for money and prevent fraud and error.

In compliance with the guidance on managing public money and the Government Functional Standard for grants, DfE will verify whether your organisation has the necessary financial and delivery capability to fulfil the conditions of the grant by conducting mandatory due diligence checks, proportionate to the size of the grant and risk.

For education providers, these include confirming: 

• eligibility, through checks with regulators and government-funding bodies
• financial viability, through checks for recent satisfactory or equivalent financial health assessment or inspection by regulator or government-funding bodies – we may request further documentation to verify financial stability

For other types of organisations acting as consortium leads, these checks include:

• eligibility checks to confirm status for non-profit, membership organisations which represent eligible education providers
• financial viability checks of accounts or bank statements, credit agencies, financial procedures, and controls to verify financial stability
• for non-profit membership organisations, evidence of proper membership structure

For all organisations, we may check:

• legal status via Companies House, Charity Commission or equivalent, as relevant
• grant to revenue ratio, considering extent of reliance on grant and other government funding, and whether the value is appropriate for the outcome delivered and size of the applicant organisation
• financial history to demonstrate your organisation is not operating in a pattern of unmanageable annual losses
• governance, including checks of ultimate beneficial owners, linked companies and directors or trustees, where relevant
• operational checks for adequate internal, fiscal, and administrative controls, and confirmation that your organisation has capacity to deliver, including previous performance managing public money
• whether you have any outstanding activities relating to previous rounds of Turing Scheme grant funds
• security checks for risks to national security for example, overseas ownership, financing or linked entities overseas

We may request further evidence and documentation, such as audited accounts or bank statements, from you to support these checks. We reserve the right to decline an applicant based on these checks.

If your application is successful

We will let you know whether you have been successful with your application by email in June 2024. A full list of successful applicants will be published after that.

If your application is approved, we will send you a grant funding agreement which you will need to sign before any grant funds can be released. The grant funding agreement is a legally binding document outlining the roles, responsibilities, terms and conditions that all parties signing the agreement need to abide by in order to receive funds.

You will receive further information on payment processes, reporting and assurance requirements and timelines before grant funding agreements are signed.

Appeals

If you are unhappy with the outcome of the application assessment, you have the right to appeal the decision. The appeals window will open after results have been communicated.