UKFin+ Sandpit

Co-designing Solutions for Inclusive Finance 

UKFin+ invites expressions of interest from academics to participate in a one day sandpit taking place on 13th July 2026 at the University of Birmingham.

This sandpit will bring together a small, interdisciplinary group of researchers to explore and respond to a set of real-world challenges within the community finance and credit union space, with a focus on improving financial inclusion and access to fair lending.

The challenges will centre on how data, technology, and behavioural insights can be used to enable better financial decision-making and support more inclusive outcomes. This may include, for example, rethinking how financial information is presented to improve lending decisions, exploring behavioural approaches to encourage positive financial actions, or developing models that strengthen saving and repayment mechanisms through structured systems such as payroll-linked schemes. The challenges have both technical and socio-economic dimensions, and the objective will be to develop solutions that are practical, scalable, and grounded in evidence from user needs and user trials.

We are looking for academics in areas such as:

Computer science, e.g., human-computer interaction, payment security, AI, participatory design

Mathematics, e.g., credit scoring, data science

Business and Social Sciences, e.g., financial inclusion, wellbeing, social enterprise

Law and Policy, e.g., equality act, consumer protection and many other potential angles.

The sandpit will be outcome-oriented, with participants working collaboratively to develop a small number of strong project concepts. These will form the basis of a follow-on funding opportunity, where one team will be funded to further develop and deliver a research project. The process is designed to encourage interdisciplinary thinking, combining expertise across areas such as data science, behavioural science, finance, policy, and human-centred design.

We welcome applications from academics whose research aligns with these themes and who are motivated to engage in collaborative, impact-driven work. We encourage applications from across various disciplines, including Finance, Computer Science, Mathematics, Social Sciences, etc.

Travel costs will be covered for successful applicants to attend the sandpit.

The deadline for expressions of interest is 15 June 2026.

Submit your expression of interest

FUNDING RULES

In order to keep things running smoothly, the funding will be allocated using our existing funding mechanism. This means we will follow the same funding rules as we have for other projects, applicants will use the same application form, and the contract we send the successful applicants will be the same one.

Not everyone who attends the sandpit will receive funding for their project. After the sandpit, the teams will submit a proposal and one or two will be funded.

These projects will be directly incurred costs only, 100% FeC.

The required start date will be 1st November 2026 and have a maximum length of 6 months.

IN NUMBERS:

Up to £40,000
Required to start November 1st 2026
Duration of up to 6 months
Expression of interest deadline: 15th June 2026

TIMELINE

Expression of Interest: deadline 15^th June
Event date: Monday 13^th July
Grant writing: completed application forms to be sent 13th August
Decisions communicated: 20^th August
Start date: 1^st November 2026
Finish: 30^th April 2027

WHO YOU’RE WORKING WITH –

INCUTO

incuto is a cloud-based technology platform helping credit unions and community finance providers modernise lending, payments and member services while improving financial inclusion and operational efficiency/

RESOURCES AND SUPPORT COMMITMENT

incuto would commit product and engineering resources to support successful projects, including:

Technical workshops and solution design support
API documentation, example integrations and sample payloads
Development of data exports and integration endpoints where required
Guidance around operational workflows and lending/payment processes
Access to appropriate sandbox or test environments for prototyping and validation

OPERATIONAL AND SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE

incuto would provide access to operational and sector expertise. This would include regular collaboration sessions with product, operational and technical stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle.

DATA AND PLATFORM SUPPORT

Where appropriate and subject to compliance and confidentiality requirements, incuto would support projects through:

Provision of anonymised or synthetic datasets
Access to workflow and process information
Access to platform capabilities and integration patterns
Example customer journeys and operational scenarios

PILOT AND COMMERCIALISATION SUPPORT

incuto would seek to support successful projects beyond the initial innovation phase by:

Exploring pilot opportunities with partner credit unions and community finance organisations
Supporting integration into the wider incuto platform ecosystem where appropriate
Assisting with sector engagement, dissemination and operational feedback
Helping demonstrate scalability and practical adoption across the UK community finance sector

Ready to apply?

SUBMIT YOUR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST

Please follow this link to read the full details of our funding rules

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