The Gas Safety Trust has opened its 2011 funding allocation and is inviting potential partners and prospects with a gas safety agenda to apply for a grant to fund a project. Applications must match the Trust's key objectives and interests including a unique all-fuel focus on carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning and an increasing international outlook.
'The Trust has funded a variety of work since its foundation, which has ranged from small grants for the provision of equipment such as CO alarms, through to bigger grants to fund academic research and the collation of the official annual CO incident figures,' commented Nigel Dumbrell, head of charitable operations for the Gas Safety Trust. 'We have had some early bird applications for 2011, which have been approved and will be announced in due course, but we'd like to keep momentum going and encourage more.'
The Trust's key objectives of gas safety research, equipment donations and gas safety training and education regularly attract funding applications, however, The Trust's latest CO Hotspot Report and the CO Incident Report launched last year, also highlighted specific areas of priority and focus including:
· The risk of low-level CO exposure to UK households
· The level of undiagnosed CO exposure by UK medical practitioners
· Gas appliance user behaviour and attitudes in UK
· International comparative research
'Over the last five years we have awarded in excess of £800,000 to a variety of programmes and projects relating to gas safety and carbon monoxide,' commented Dumbrell. 'However, since the establishment of the consumer facing Gas Safe Charity, we no longer fund consumer awareness work, preferring to focus on the research that informs and shapes campaigns of organisations with a public awareness remit.'
All organisations and individuals wishing to discuss a funding application are invited to contact The Trust by phone on 01256 548 020 or e-mail at info@gstrust.org.uk
Guidelines and an application form can also be viewed and downloaded from the website www.gas-safety-trust.org.uk