Distinctive themes in grant funding in 2005-2017

This visualisation answers the question "Who has funded what themes throughout the years?"

Visualisations often rely on pre-defined categories. Instead, this visualisation uses machine learning to find themes in the language funders use to describe their grants.

This visualisation displays distinctive phrases for every year. Distinctive phrases are the ones that are frequent in a particular year but not frequent across the entire dataset.

The most distinctive phrases are displayed with darker text. The larger a word is the more money was available for grants associated with the theme. The funders that are most prevalent in the data, the Wellcome Trust and Big Lottery Fund, are distinguished by colour.

Scroll downwards to find different years, and click on words for more information.

2005 was the 60th anniversary of the Second World War's ending, with activities focused on commemmoration and reunion. Practically all grants are from the Big Lottery Fund, indicaed with blue colour.

Pigeon racing and folk music were surprisingly popular in 2006. Some themes were mainly associated with the Wellcome Trust - these are in green.

Given the bicentennial anniversary of the abolition of slavery, related themes were distinctive for 2017. However, themes such as wetlands, received more funds - that is why the word is displayed larger.

Themes related to nature and wildlife featured frequently in 2008, and many groups were getting ready for the anniversary of Darwin's 200th birthday.

The flu pandemic was reflected in research priorities in 2008 and 2009. Wellcome Trust, a prominent science funder, is distinguished by green colour.

With another anniversary of the Second World War, related locations stand out. While blue represents themes related to the Big Lottery Fund and green the Wellcome Trust, black is reserved for themes related to all other funders.

Preparations for the London olympics begin already in 2011.

2012 was the year of the Diamond Jubilee. Data about grants from the Department for Transport begins from 2012, which makes related topics stand out.

In 2013, the Big Lottery Fund ran its Recession Response Fund.

An ebola crisis in West Africa, together with other natural science topics, characterised 2014.

Psychological themes such as mindfulness and happiness were most distinctive in 2015.

The refugee crisis in 2016 stands out through the keyword "syrian".

Loneliness and community assets were big themes in 2017. The data for 2017 also includes a wider variety of funders.

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

A visualisation by Aleksi Knuutila. For the source code and more information about the visualisation, please visit GitHub.

Many thanks for 360Giving and the data publishers for their hard work in making the information available.