This Fund, open to all Sport Ireland funded bodies has been developed to deliver under the National Sports Policy  which aims to ‘encourage and stimulate innovative solutions to the challenges we seek to address around participation and the development of the sports sector.

The new €990,000 fund will support Sport Ireland funded bodies to test innovative solutions to critical problems in the development of sports participation at national, local, community and individual levels.

The Innovation for Sports Inclusion Fund will help drive forward proposals to tackle the barriers to physical inactivity and get more people physically active in Ireland. This fund aims to support innovative ideas and turn them into reality. 

Innovation can be defined as the “process of creating value by solving meaningful problems with novel solutions”

Collaboration with other public, private or voluntary bodies is strongly encouraged to bring ideas and insight from innovators working outside the sports sector. This might involve

• new or unusual partnerships and collaborations;
• breaking down traditional silos; or
• encouraging new ways of working through the sports sector

Applications must be submitted under one or more of the following themes which focus on actions set out within the National Sports Policy;

1. Outdoors

2. Community Sport

3. Youth

4. Technology

5. Inclusion

Private and Public sector organisations and institutions  who are seeking investment for innovative solutions which increase sports participation under the above thematic areas should make contact with the most relevant Sport Ireland funded body to submit a collaborative application for funding.

Applications submitted under the Innovation for Sports Inclusion Fund must target people who are economically or socially disadvantaged, educationally disadvantaged or who have a disability.

It is important that projects have a strong focus outcomes, and impact. There should also be a focus on scalability, transferability and learning within the applications.

Sport Ireland will invest through a competitive application process open to Sport Ireland funded bodies under the five thematic areas highlighted above and will be evaluated against set criteria.  The minimum level of funding available per individual application is €50,000. 

For further information email

Please note: An innovation workshop will follow in due course.