The Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Prevention Accelerator will build UK-wide capability to stop violence and abuse by funding and supporting promising grassroots initiatives.
Projects will partner with government, philanthropists, and social impact investors to scale high-potential approaches into communities with the aim of making public spaces safer and preventing harmful behaviours from developing.
Safer Streets Mission
It is funded by a £10 million UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) investment through the Research and Development Missions Accelerator Programme Safer Streets Mission.
In addition to the Prevention Accelerator, a further £1 million from UKRI and £3 million from the Cabinet Office has been awarded through the Evaluation Accelerator Fund.
Building evidence and backing measures
First Secretary of State Louise Haigh said:
Violence against women and girls is a stain on our society and this government is committed to halving it within a decade.
We are backing local projects to deliver real change, ensuring new ideas are properly funded and tested to tackle abuse at its root.
This is how we put safety back in the hands of local communities, ensuring every woman and girl can live free from fear in their homes, in public spaces and online.
Supporting government ambitions
The UKRI Safer Streets Mission supports the government’s ambitions to:
- halve knife crime and VAWG within a decade
- rebuild public confidence in policing and the criminal justice system
As part of this it will fund the trialling of new innovations to tackle VAWG, and the development of a national evidence resource available to support further adoption.
One of these innovations will be the approach taken by the Prevention Accelerator.
It will fund community-led projects to identify local priorities and work with partners such as national and local government, charities and philanthropists.
Further information on the Prevention Accelerator, including how to register interest, will be provided in due course on the UKRI website with a launch anticipated in spring 2027.
Placing communities at the heart
Safer Streets Mission Director Gill Attrill said:
By supporting new research, tools and approaches, UKRI’s Safer Streets Mission is playing an important role in the government’s drive to tackle violence against women and girls.
The Prevention Accelerator will place communities across the UK at the heart of this, supporting them to find and implement sustainable solutions to prevent violence against women and girls.
Building on impact
It builds on impact already delivered through the mission to-date.
How online algorithms work
This includes the Peer Resilience in Schools for Misogyny prevention programme.
In the programme, 16 to 17-year-olds from three schools in the north, and south-west were introduced to the truth behind how online algorithms work.
It also included why misogynistic content appears in their feeds.
Armed with this knowledge, they taught younger fellow school students, aged 13 to 14, how to be aware of, understand, and manage the content that they were exposed to.
The materials developed for the programme were deemed so helpful, that video content from the course is now played in all NHS children’s hospital waiting rooms in England, to spread the word further.
Safe travels
A further project, Safe Travels, in Belfast has led to women, girls, and local partners redesigning bus stops and the inside of glider buses.
This aims to increase a sense of safety and prevent violence against women and girls on public transport.
Government, police and transport providers are now exploring how they will implement the findings.