Over the last few years, despite a big increase in interest in our small grants programme, we’ve noticed there haven’t been any recent applications from or focussing on Northern Ireland. In response to this, we’re making a special call for applications from Northern Ireland, and we’ve made an additional £500 available for the remainder of the 2025-6 year. We’d really like to encourage those based in NI to apply!
A bit more about these grants:
Wikimedia UK operates a small grant programme to support Wiki volunteers to complete activities which work toward our strategic aims. Grants are usually for amounts between £5-£250, and can include:
Support for Wikimedia-related events such as editathons or meetups
Research, marketing & administrative time for a Wikimedia-related project
Travel funds relating to Wiki activities
Books & access to other sources for improving the Wikimedia projects
Equipment to help support improving the Wikimedia projects.
You can find out more about the grants programme including how to apply here: https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Project_grants – please mention Northern Ireland in your application so that we can process it accordingly. Ideally we’d like to receive your application before mid-January 2026; but please do get in touch with me at sara.thomas@wikimedia.org.uk if you’d like to discuss your idea before applying, or if you have any ideas that might be for a later application.
UK Heritage 3D Data at Risk: Developing a Strategy for Long Term Access & Storage awarded grant to ensure future access to the UK’s 3D heritage data.
Today, Wikimedia UK is announcing a £56,198 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fundto safeguard access to the UK’s 3D heritage data and create a sustainable future.
3D digitisation has rapidly become more affordable and accessible to heritage organisations seeking new ways to investigate the historic collections and spaces in their charge, and engage audiences with the stories connected with them. At the same time, national UK infrastructure has not kept pace with vast amounts of 3D data being produced leading many organisations to rely on commercial and proprietary platforms for storage, hosting, and dissemination tools. As the priorities of commercial platforms and the needs of the heritage community substantially differ, sustainable access to the UK’s digital 3D heritage data is in a precarious position.
The UK’s digital 3D heritage data is a unique asset that is of immense value for both professional researchers and general audiences alike and without this funding from the Heritage Fund access to this valuable resource is at risk of being lost. The UK Heritage 3D Data at Risk project will provide both short term guidance for UK heritage organisations to safeguard their 3D data, as well as indicate a long term strategy for sustainable access informed by the needs of professionals and audiences. In short, the project aims to:
Save heritage by creating a strategic plan to preserve and provide long-term access to over 5,000 at-risk digital 3D models currently on the Sketchfab platform.
Protect the environment by researching and recommending sustainable 3D publication workflows that reduce duplicated effort and server usage.
Champion inclusion, access, and participation by engaging a diverse range of stakeholders through various methods, including providing financial support to remove barriers to involvement.
Boost organisational sustainability by giving UK heritage institutions a practical roadmap to future-proof their 3D collections.
If you are working with 3D data within the UK heritage sector, UK Heritage 3D Data at Risk would love to hear from you. You can contribute your organisation’s story via a short online interview, online survey, participating in an online workshop, or joining us for an in-person event towards the end of the project. Please visit this WikiCommons page or send a message to 3Ddata@wikimedia.org.uk for more information.
Quotes
Lucy Crompton-Reid, Wikimedia UK Chief Executive said: “We are extremely pleased to have received this support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players we will be working on a roadmap to preserve 3D heritage. 3D files are a fantastic way for the public to explore the past, getting up close to objects that may be hundreds of miles away or behind glass to preserve them. The scans and models of everything from finger rings to entire buildings are an invaluable resource that must remain accessible now, and for future generations.”
Independent digital heritage consultant Thomas Flynn said “With gratitude to The National Lottery Heritage Fund and National Lottery players, I am delighted that we can move forward with this project. This funding provides a critical lifeline for thousands of unique 3D digital heritage assets from heritage organisations across the UK that are currently at risk. Working in partnership with Wikimedia UK and engaging with heritage professionals from across the country, we can now build a collaborative roadmap to help ensure this invaluable data is preserved and remains accessible for researchers, educators, and the public for generations to come.”
Stuart McLeod, Director of London and South at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: “Thanks to National Lottery players, we’re proud to support this vital project that will look to create best practice to safeguard the UK’s digital heritage. It will offer guidance for both small and larger organisations for preserving 3D heritage, including thinking about the environmental impacts. It will help to ensure that heritage organisations across the UK can continue to innovate, engage and inspire through digital technologies and protect our heritage for future generations.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
About Wikimedia UK
Wikimedia UK is the national charity for the global Wikimedia movement. Our mission is to enable people to engage with open knowledge and access reliable information in order to develop their understanding of the world, and make informed decisions about issues that affect them. We work with educators, communities and cultural institutions to make knowledge more equitable, representative and accessible across Wikipedia and its sister projects.
About Thomas Flynn
Thomas Flynn is a UK based digital heritage specialist offering services and advice related to 3D digitisation, online publishing, open access, storytelling, and interoperability. He has worked with UNESCO, Europeana, Oxford University, Creative Commons, and many more organisations. Thomas is a Visiting Fellow to Bournemouth University’s Faculty of Archaeology & Anthropology, a co-chair of the IIIF 3D Community Group, and sits on the advisory board of the Rijksmuseum’s 2and3D Photography Conference. Thomas runs the Spatial Heritage Review newsletter and LinkedIn Group, is co-author of glam3d.org, and co-founder of museuminabox.org. Previously, Thomas was Cultural Heritage Lead at sketchfab.com and launched the British Museum’s first public online collection of open access 3D scans.
About The National Lottery Heritage Fund
Our vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future. That’s why as the largest funder for the UK’s heritage we are dedicated to supporting projects that connect people and communities to heritage, as set out in our strategic plan, Heritage 2033. Heritage can be anything from the past that people value and want to pass on to future generations. We believe in the power of heritage to ignite the imagination, offer joy and inspiration, and to build pride in place and connection to the past.
Over the next 10 years, we aim to invest £3.6billion raised for good causes by National Lottery players to make a decisive difference for people, places and communities.
Further information
For further information, images and interviews please contact Thomas Flynn and Richard Nevell on 3Ddata@wikimedia.org.uk.
Daria Cybulska (Poland/UK) is the Director of Programmes and Evaluation at Wikimedia UK, leading programmes and advocacy for knowledge equity and information literacy. She designs projects and partnerships for digital human rights on Wikipedia. She shapes how Wikimedia UK can support a democratic and empowered society in the UK. Daria is a trustee at Global Dialogue, a platform for human rights philanthropy, and in 2023/24 was awarded a Churchill Fellowship, investigating Central Asia’s online civil society and its resilience responses to a shrinking civic space. She was also a fellow at the AKO Storytelling Institute, based at the University Arts London. The Institute is investigating the theory and practice of storytelling-for-change across disciplines – art, campaigning, social impact, research, philanthropy. At AKO Daria created a narrative shift project on information literacy of conspiracy theorists.
Wikimedia UK demystifies and drives engagement in open knowledge, as the national charity for Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. We have been delivering education activities for over ten years, with an explicit focus on the use of Wikimedia as a tool to develop information and media literacy skills. Our programme takes place online and in schools, universities, museums, libraries and community settings.
Our research shows that learning to contribute to Wikimedia helps people better understand, assess, and navigate online information, with participants in our programme reporting increased confidence in their digital skills and media literacy. Learning to edit Wikipedia gives participants a chance to practice understanding content, verifying information, applying critical thinking skills, reflecting on one’s role within the online spaces, and using collaborative and group learning skills.
Equipped with the essential tools to navigate the digital landscape, individuals are also empowered to become active contributors to the online world and increase their civic participation; strengthening UK society.
While Wikimedia UK’s work demonstrably develops information literacy within its programme participants, this development happens with a strong focus on the intellectual, cognitive skills of the individual learner. In contrast, my research is inviting people to explore how emotion shows up in critical thinking, and how, if emotions are not considered in information literacy education, this can derail the learning process, while also fueling polarisation.
We explore this by looking at misinformation and conspiracy theories. Conspiracies can drive polarisation in society and divide how we think and support a situation where we don’t even share the same view on reality. However, by promoting simplistic arguments about being cleverer than others, information literacy educators can encourage self-righteousness and possibly even closed mindedness, making it hard to consider or connect with those with different values and ideas (and conversely, the conspiracist side talks about others in a dismissive way too).
If we resist taking a disdainful view towards those believing disinformation or conspiracy theories, and instead focus on recognising a common love of research or skillful use of emotions, we may be able to actually push against some of the polarising effects of misinformation.
There are things that information literacy educators and conspiracy theorists have in common. These similarities show up in phrasing used commonly by both sides:
1. Methods for assessing information – check sources, don’t immediately trust what you see, connect the dots, think about who funded the information, do your own research, etc.
2. Personality traits and features of those who ‘know better’ – love for research, desire to know the truth.
3. Active participation in learning.
What’s markedly different though is the use of emotion – in the conspiratorial realm, the research approach includes a strong element of excitement of investigation or discovery, but also of anxiety about the world. There is also the desire to belong (to a group that’s ‘in the know’), satisfaction of knowing something – and of correcting or enlightening others. Then there’s a deeper set of emotions such as shame of being proven wrong or needing to change opinion, discomfort and anxiety of not being certain. Conspiracy theories themselves also hold a captivating allure – they present a coherent and emotionally charged storyline, captivating and engaging audiences.
In contrast, emotions tend to be discredited in the domain of information literacy learning, as they are deemed not objective. But emotion guides our attention, and so it is not possible to completely separate them out from the activity of learning. While the general focus of literacy education has primarily been fixated on the pursuit and validation of facts, it is crucial to address the emotional dimensions entwined within these processes. We also need to consider how to confront and mitigate the emotional elements that propel individuals towards embracing disinformation.
One aspect emerges as absolutely crucial: complexity resilience – being more comfortable with an increasingly ambiguous, complex, and difficult world. Rather than simply offering definitive answers or actions (like conspiracies do), educators should seek to emphasise the proposition of diverse ideas, perspectives, and narratives – and be comfortable with that diversity and complexity.
Teachers hold an important key in guiding information literacy, but cannot do it alone. A multidisciplinary, collaborative approach is called for – including a psychologist to account for the emotional layer (both for learning, and teaching), librarian to guide how the knowledge ecosystem is built, and a journalist with reliability strategies.
This could be considered while we debate the overall shape of information literacy education in the UK. Wikimedia UK sees the current provision for the development of media and information literacy skills within English secondary schools as patchy at best. From our experience we hear that teachers themselves may never have received any formal training in relation to media and information literacy. But it is more vital than ever that young people have the knowledge, skills and confidence to question what they see online, whilst understanding what constitutes reliable, trustworthy information.
We welcome comments on how the approach to ‘complexity resilience’ and the role of emotion in education could be included in teaching of information literacy in schools, please feedback.
Join us for our online Community Celebration event, taking place on Saturday 15 November, from 11am to 1pm.
The gathering will celebrate the achievements of our incredible community over the past year, recognise outstanding contributions through the UK Wikimedian of the Year Awards, and showcase inspiring projects from across the UK through a series of lightning talks.
Over the past month, we’ve reached out to community members for talk proposals, and we’re thrilled with the lineup we now have! So much remarkable work happens behind the scenes in our movement, and this event is a chance to shine a light on those efforts and celebrate them together.
Following the lightning talks, we’ll present the annual UK Wikimedian of the Year Awards. You can find out about last year’s awards here.
This celebration is open to everyone, both Wikimedia UK members and anyone interested in learning more about Wikimedia’s work in the UK and getting involved.
Tickets are free, but you need to reserve your place by registering here.
Wikimedia UK’s flagship Train the Trainer (TtT) course returned in summer 2025, bringing together volunteers from across the UK and around the world to develop the skills needed to deliver Wikipedia editing events in their own communities. Designed to build confidence and strengthen diversity, this year’s programme welcomed 23 participants from eight countries, including many from underrepresented groups.
For the first time, the course included both in-person and online international training, expanding access and supporting Wikimedia’s global mission. Participants took part in a WikiLearn course, hands-on workshops, and interactive sessions led by Programme Manager Dr Sara Thomas and UK Wikimedian of the Year Fran Allfrey.
Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. 100% of respondents said they felt better equipped to make positive change in their communities. New mentoring opportunities and regular online edit-a-thons are now being introduced to help new trainers continue developing their skills and confidence.
One of our long-standing partners in Scotland is the IDEA Network at the the University of St Andrews. Based at the School of Computer Science, the Network looks broadly to make knowledge production inclusive, diverse, equitable and accessible. Part of their work has been the development of a range of Wiki-activities in and out of the classroom, including Summer programmes, undergraduate and postgraduate work, as well as outreach events with community partners. At the time of writing, on-wiki material which has been worked on as part of the Network’s activity has gained 3.38 million article views.
I invited Dr Ross (who, along with Dr Ardati, also of the IDEA network, and Dr Bhatti, a co-author of the below blog, have all attended Wikimedia UK Train the Trainer courses) to tell us more about one of this year’s Summer programmes. / (Dr Sara Thomas, Programme Manager, Wikimedia UK)
Authors: Kirsty Ross (School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews), Saeeda Bhatti (Medical School, University of Glasgow), Pauline Souleau (School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews)
During COVID there was a lack of summer internship opportunities for undergraduates due to pandemic lockdowns and restrictions on travel. The Summer Team Enterprise Programme (STEP) at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, was designed to fill this gap and has run every summer since 2020. STEP is an opportunity for undergraduate students to invest 6 weeks in participating in a fully-online skills development programme, where they work on a real-life project designed and supported by University staff, gain virtual team-work experience in a group of diverse students, contribute to the University’s learning and teaching through working on impactful outputs, and get this experience listed on their academic transcript.
My name is Dr Kirsty Ross and I’ve been involved in STEP since its inception. As a project sponsor, my role is to propose a suitable project and provide direction to the student teams. I’m also the co-founder of the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility in Open Knowledge Network (IDEA Network for short) at the University of St Andrews which aims to address knowledge gaps in the Wiki projects by training others and building capacity. STEP has been a fantastic mechanism for introducing undergraduates to the wonders of Wiki and providing evidence of real-world impact, even resulting in a peer reviewed public engagement paper!1
Research has shown that Wikipedia is the most common source for obtaining medical information online. Amongst medical professionals, more than 90% of medical students and 50% of doctors have turned to Wikipedia at some point2. However, there is substantial variation in the length and quality of medical content in different languages. For example, pneumonia is a topic that is currently available in 134 language versions. However, the English Wikipedia article for pneumonia contains approximately 7,600 words and has 172 references, whereas the equivalent article in Urdu is just 125 words long with 1 reference. We drew inspiration from the excellent work of WikiProjectMed, which inspired the name of the project!
Over WhatsApp, Dr Saeeda Bhatti (Medical School, University of Glasgow) and I discussed how we might plug some of these medical knowledge gaps. Dr Bhatti’s background is in medical education and genetics, so we discussed targeting articles about rare genetic diseases. Using the Medics 4 Rare Diseases website, we narrowed down over 7000 rare diseases to a shortlist of 12 conditions. This shortlist formed the basis for the Healthcare Translation Task Force STEP project.
As part of the STEP application process, students choose which projects they would like to take part in over the summer. We ended up with two teams and 11 students in total. These students could speak, read, and write in 15 languages! We then explored Wikidata to find out whether or not those languages had articles about the chosen rare genetic diseases. Some languages (Arabic, French, German, Spanish) had almost complete article coverage (92-100%). Others (Simple English, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Russian) had approximately 50% article coverage. Cantonese, Croatian, Kiswahili, Kurdish, Serbian, and Somali had either no articles or just one or two (8-12%)! As the project was just 6 weeks in duration and was often balanced alongside paid work or internships, we weren’t going to be able to plug every single gap, so it was over to the students to decide how to proceed.
Dr Pauline Souleau (School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews) also provided training on how to adapt their translations to suit the cultural context; we wanted to avoid overly relying on the existing versions in English. When asked to reflect upon her experience of STEP, she said:
“The cross-disciplinarity of the STEP programme means that participating students are not necessarily trained linguists. Part of the Healthcare Translation Task Force STEP training was therefore to introduce students to the importance of localisation and cultural awareness when translating a wiki article.”
“When an article did exist in English, the aim was never to translate it word for word but to a) make it clear in the target language and b) adapt it to the target culture if needed. During the training session, we therefore discussed questions of language variants, as well as specialised terms, article titles, and disease names. Students took it on board and showed nuanced translation skills throughout the project.“
The students worked together to describe and name the conditions in their languages in Wikidata. They then picked a couple of articles to research, draft, and upload. Many roped in friends, family, and medical professionals to provide feedback on their drafts. The students also hunted down references in their own languages. Wikipedia depends on reliable, secondary sources3, and readers of a specific language should be able to verify the statements in the article4, without having to know English as well.
The students’ enthusiasm and commitment exceeded our expectations! 11 students, speaking 15 different languages, spent the summer creating 12 brand new articles, editing an additional 38 articles, adding 61,000 words and 555 references. Table 1 links to the articles in various languages; we’d love to see the wider Wiki community get stuck in and expand them even further!
Table 1. Newly created articles as well as articles that were edited as part of the Healthcare Translation Task Force STEP project. At least 200 words or more were added to the articles below. Articles are ordered by the numbe rof words added (most to least).
As of mid-August 2025, the newly created and edited articles have been viewed nearly 58,000 times (see Figure 1 below), a testament to the real-world impact of student contributions. We hope this project inspires further translation efforts and continues to grow through community contributions.
None of the above would have been possible without the dedication of the students and their PGR coaches. They were: Dasha Andreeva, Alistair Grant, Lila Darmon, Mingxiao Yang, Lucie Siu, Aro Aziz, Summer Kwon, Jacqueline Park, Anne Foote, Anna Mokhovik, Aleksandra Lucic, Zamzam Issack, Axel Van Den Ancker, Lareina Yang (STEP students) and Ziying Ye and Maya Fenyk (STEP PGR coaches).
References
1. Cornwell RM, Ross K, Gibeily C, et al. Unearthing new learning opportunities: adapting and innovating through the ‘Antibiotics under our feet’ citizen science project in Scotland during COVID-19. Access Microbiol. 2024;6(6). doi:10.1099/acmi.0.000710.v3
2. Heilman JM, West AG. Wikipedia and Medicine: Quantifying Readership, Editors, and the Significance of Natural Language. J Med Internet Res. 2015;17(3):e62. doi:10.2196/jmir.4069
On Monday 20 October, Wikimedia UK joins forces with the British Library and the Wikimedia Foundation to explore the impact of AI on open knowledge and the wider information landscape. Fundamental to this landscape are contributions from humans, including professionals from media, research and cultural heritage, as well as the volunteers who contribute to the Wikimedia projects and other open platforms.
This day-long summit brings together experts and practitioners in the British Library’s Knowledge Centre to discuss the threats and opportunities at the intersection of AI, open knowledge and human rights. As we look to the future of information, how do we ensure that machine learning supports human learning, and build sustainability and information integrity into new models of content creation?
At the heart of the event is the idea that the creation and curation of knowledge is fundamentally a human endeavour.
I’m delighted to be joining Wikimedia UKas the newEducation Lead. It’s an honour to work with a charity that champions free and open knowledge for all, equality in online representation, digital democracy, and critical thinking. I look forward to working with schools to develop a programme of information literacy that reflects these values.
My background is in Further Education, where I taught philosophy in Birmingham for more than 22 years. I recently completed a PhD exploring philosophy and mental health, building on my long-standing interest in how ideas shape the way we live and learn.
Alongside my teaching, I serve on the Executive Committee of the Children’s Media Foundation. I am especially interested in how media can be used to promote critical thinking in an age of increasing misinformation and fake news.
Having worked with young people for many years, I’ve seen first-hand how rapidly the ways they consume information are changing and how urgent it is to make information literacy an integral part of education.I would love to connect with others who share these interests. Please feel free to get in touch at sally.latham@wikimedia.org.uk .
We are excited to announce that nominations are open for the 2025 UK Wikimedian of the Year Awards.
You can nominate individuals and organisations that have been involved with Wikimedia UK’s efforts to advance open knowledge during 2024/25.
Categories
This year’s categories are:
UK Wikimedian of the year (Individual)
Partnership of the year (Organisation)
Up and coming Wikimedian (Individual)
Criteria
We are looking for people and partnerships within the Wikimedia UK community who have really impressed with their open knowledge work in 2024/25. We are particularly keen to hear about people and organisations who delivered projects addressing our strategic themes of Knowledge Equity, Information Literacy, and Climate and the Environment.
Nominations will be judged by members of the Community Development Committee and winners will be announced at the Community Celebration on Saturday 15th November 2025.
How to nominate
You can submit two nominations per category using this Google Form . The closing date for submissions is 22nd October 2025.
Wikimedia UK has today published its latest Strategic Report, showcasing progress and impact across its key themes of knowledge equity, information literacy, and climate and the environment. The report highlights how the charity’s work is helping individuals and communities to access, contribute to, and critically engage with free knowledge at a time of growing challenges to information integrity worldwide.
Over the past year, Wikimedia UK has strengthened its partnerships with educators, cultural institutions, and civil society organisations to expand inclusive knowledge and develop critical information literacy skills. The report also demonstrates how Wikimedia UK is supporting the creation and dissemination of accurate, open knowledge on climate change, an issue of urgent global importance. An independent evaluation found clear evidence of impact, from embedding information literacy in schools and universities to amplifying underrepresented voices on Wikipedia.
Explore how you can support Wikimedia UK’s mission, whether by donating, partnering, or volunteering, to help build a more open and informed future.
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