New for 2025, The William Sutton Prize for Connected Communities will provide up to £25,000 in funding, along with expert support from Clarion and the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art, to support impact-led ideas that enhance social housing residents’ physical, emotional, and social wellbeing.
This category focuses on fostering community connections and promoting citizen inclusion, both in process and outcomes, to create healthier, more welcoming environments for all.
Transforming social housing and empowering communities
We are looking for new and novel proposals that help develop opportunities and spaces for communities to thrive. Alongside the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, we are seeking experts in impact-oriented ideas that have potential to improve the lived experience of social housing in terms of residents’ physical, emotional and social wellbeing, promoting a healthy and welcoming environment for all.
No idea is too big nor too small; what matters is that ideas demonstrate clear potential for impact and scalability across the sector.
In addition to welcoming any idea that helps the social housing sector improve residents’ emotional and physical wellbeing; we are particularly interested in receiving submissions that also work towards one or more of the following interrelated focus areas:
- Innovative Technology Solutions: people-driven technology interventions that break down barriers and enable communities to connect in intuitive and meaningful ways.
- Intergenerational Interventions: scalable new ideas that are desirable across age ranges, with potential to bridge generational divides and promote intergenerational interactions.
- Social Inclusion: concepts and projects that engage under-served communities to help them feel heard, build belonging, and community by adopting an intersectional lens.
- Community Spaces: proposals that present novel and creative ways to bring communities together within a space to increase social networks, be it physical, virtual or a blend of both.
Meet the judges
The esteemed panel of judges are a diverse group of experts and industry leaders dedicated to identifying and supporting groundbreaking ideas that drive meaningful change.
- Chair: David Orr, Chair of the Clarion Housing Association Board
- Andrew van Doorn OBE, Chief Executive of HACT
- Rama Gheerawo, Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art (RCA)
- Matt Harvey-Agyemang, Co-Founder of The POoR Collective
- Michelle Reynolds, Chief Customer Officer at Clarion Housing Group
- Phil Miles, Director of Clarion Futures (the charitable foundation of Clarion Housing Group)
- David Hunter, Director of Housing at Clarion Housing Group
Apply today
Applications are now open for innovators ready to turn great ideas into reality and close at midday on 8 April 2025.
Submissions are welcome from individuals, not-for-profit organisations, and commercial entities. Individuals must be over 18 years old and residing in the UK, while organisations must be registered to operate in England. Successful projects should take place within England.
For full details on eligibility and timelines, please refer to the application guidelines, which feature a digital toolkit designed to encourage collaboration and empower individuals and organisations to join us in sharing our mission of discovering innovative solutions. For answers to common questions, explore the full FAQs section. Together, we can work towards creating meaningful change and fostering a greater impact across the sector. For further questions or assistance, please contact us.
FAQs
You can find answers to frequently asked questions below. For more information, please contact us.