This Autumn, Pride in STEM has, for the second year, funded five Small Grants projects that work to strengthen queer community across the UK. These five projects represent exciting new engagements between queer communities and STEM topics – from advocacy for queer patients to grassroots football activism. After the success of our Small Grants 2024, Pride in STEM is really excited to see what our latest cohort will produce. We’re especially pleased to be funding so many projects that support the most marginalised in the LGBTQ+ community at a time when lives, livelihoods, and safety in all areas for our trans* and non-binary siblings are under threat.
If you’d like to learn more about our five Small Grants projects, representatives of these projects will be at our Day of LGBTQ+ People in STEM evening at the ZSL Institute of Zoology (London) on the 18th November 2025. Register to attend now and meet and hear them talk about their projects themselves!
We’ll also be keeping you up to date with the projects as they progress on our socials and newsletters. If you’re hosting an event, working with a community, or looking to support queer STEM activities, consider reaching out to some of these amazing projects!
If you think that you’ve got an idea for Pride in STEM Small Grants, keep your eyes out for our next round in Summer 2026. If you’d like to partner with Pride in STEM to sponsor a small grant in a specific area of STEM, please be in touch with the trustees of Pride in STEM.
TransForming STEM: Empowering Trans and Non-Binary Voices in Healthcare Education
At Queen’s University Belfast’s Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences (MHLS), a partnership between two specialist charities – Transgender NI and the Rainbow Project – and staff and students from both universities in Northern Ireland (Queen’s and Ulster University) will will co-create workshops that address identified needs, build visibility, and foster a culture of inclusion. This community-led programme of awareness-raising and sustainable support for transgender and non-binary staff and students will tackle systematic issues that result in the feelings of exclusion and concerns for safety that MHLS members experience. “TransForming STEM” will deliver manageable, meaningful change at the local level, as well as long-term cultural transformation within MHLS while contributing models of practice to the wider LGBTQ+ in STEM community.
You can find out more about “Transforming STEM” by following @QUBEqualDiverse, @TransgenderNI and @qubpridesoc for updates on their project through the year!
Listening to LGBTQIA+ voices in cancer: A community-led approach to data research priorities and practice
An innovative collaboration between Health Data Research and OUTpatients will support better understanding and actionable insights around the inequalities of the outcomes for LGBTQIA+ communities affected by cancer. By engaging patient communities and professionals in co-design and co-delivery of two online focus groups and two surveys, “Listening to LGBTQIA+ voices in cancer” will explore experiences of trust and treatment of patients, and the priorities and perspectives on health data on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of complex diseases such as cancer. This project tackles the devastating, significant underrepresentation of LGBTQIA+ voices in data-driven cancer research, and ensures the priorities and work of medical communities from big data programmes to individual professionals reflects what matters most to those affected.
Want to keep in the loop? Follow @HDRUK and @OUTPaitientsUK to follow the findings and priorities.
Science, Senses, and Solidarity: Exploring Endocrine Disruption with Queer and Trans Communities.
“Science, Senses, and Solidarity” works with queer communities in Teesside to build collective knowledge and resilience strategies to address the impacts of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) released by the region’s petrochemical industry. Teesside’s long history of heavy industry has resulted in elevated concentrations of EDCs such as benzene and nonylphenol in the area, which can disrupt hormone function and affect development, reproduction, and other bodily processes. As one of the UK’s most socioeconomically deprived regions, queer communities face intersecting marginalisations, and are disproportionately exposed to pollution by living near industrial sites. Given the central role of hormones in many queer and trans lives, such gender affirming hormonal care, EDC exposure may pose challenges in maintaining hormonal balance critical for identity affirmation. “Science, Senses, and Solidarity” takes an environmental activist approach to empower participants with knowledge and strategies to navigate and resist toxic environmental exposures and build community resilience.
Lead by PhD candidate Jay Sinclair, you can follow them to find out more about how you could participate in these environmental-activist community building events in Teesside.
Goal Difference
Goal Difference is a pilot project using football data science and creative arts to tackle the invisibility of queer players in grassroots football – and prototype practical tools for representation and advocacy. In elite football, STEM is everywhere: GPS trackers, heart-rate analytics, injury prevention data, goal-line technology, VAR. But this infrastructure rarely reaches grassroots queer football – especially for trans, QTPOC, disabled, and working-class players – leaving no evidence base to support funding bids, improve training, or challenge exclusionary policies. In collaboration with two universities and two trans-inclusive grassroots football clubs in the south east of the UK this – on-pitch, hands-on data capture experiment, is co-designed with players to interpret and contextualise their data making the data advocacy accessible, playful, and action-driven.
For more on this exciting work transforming the football pitch through STEM for LGBTQ+ communities follow @allstarwilkinsn and @lifesapitchprojects
UK AIDS Memorial Display: Hearing Queer History and Performing Queer Solidarity
In June 2026 the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on display at King’s College Chapel, London. Taking inspiration from the radical occupational tactics of HIV and AIDS activist group ACT UP, and the AIDS Memorial Quilt display at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, this will be the first time the quilts are displayed at a UK Institution. Working to bridge STEM with creative and curational practices, this funding supports the exhibition, bringing together research specialists across and beyond King’s together with community leaders, volunteers, and other groups that are responsible for housing and maintaining the quilts. This will also include Positive East’s ‘U=U quilt’, and trans+ solidarity quilt co-produced by students and staff. To quote Cleve Jones: ‘these quilts are a weapon’, and this exhibition poses questions about what these quilts mean today, and how they can be used in on-going social justice projects.