The 2020/2021 Open Data Engagement Fund is now available for submissions.  The total amount of funding available is €30,000 and the maximum available for any one project is €5,000.   Applications can be made by any organisation or individual. This includes a public body, a business, research body, educational body, civil society group.  Details of the Engagement Fund for 2020/2021 are now available here.

Applications can be made for funding to support a variety of Open Data related activities.  These include the organisation of outreach and engagement activities (seminars, competitions and hackathons) and the building of applications and development of visualisations to demonstrate the use that can be made of open data.  This year, particular consideration will be given to projects that use Open Data to address the issue of Covid 19.

Funding will also be considered for the development of use cases, projects or studies to show the impact or potential impact of the use of open data.  Applications can be made online or by downloading and emailing a completed application form to opendata@per.gov.ie.  The closing date for completed application forms is 9th October 2020.

The Open Data Engagement Fund, has been developed in conjunction with the Open Data Governance Board (ODGB) which was established in 2015 to provide leadership in implementing Ireland’s Open Data Initiative.  This is a competitive fund designed to provide support towards promoting the use of open data on the national Open Data portal data,gov.ie.

A pilot Engagement Fund was launched in 2016 and following an evaluation of the success of the pilot, it was decided to continue to run the fund. The fund will be available for 5 years in line with the Open Data Strategy 2017–2022.

Successful applicants will report on their activity for example via a blog post and, where applicable, will be required to have their project developed into a use case for promotion of the open data initiative or other promotional activity as determined by the Open Data Governance Board.

See here for details of projects funded in 2016, 2017/2018, 2018/2019 and 2019/2020

Some completed projects are available here.