The Leverhulme Trust was established by the Will of William Hesketh Lever, the founder of Lever Brothers. Since 1925 they have provided grants and scholarships for research and education; today, they are one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing approximately £80m a year.

The Leverhulme Trust awards funding across academic disciplines, supporting talented individuals in the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences to realise their personal vision in research and professional training. As well as substantial grants for research, they offer fellowships for researchers at every stage of their career, grants for international collaboration and travel, and support for the fine and performing arts.

A distinctive feature of the approach is that the great majority of the awards they make are in the responsive mode – with the choice of topic and the design of the research left with applicants.

The primary aim is to fund original research that advances knowledge of the world and themselves. They do not set strategic priorities for grant-making; in making funding decisions the sole concern is for the quality, significance, and originality of the proposed research. As far as possible, they take a non-utilitarian and academy-focused approach to funding.