Apply to win $60,000 grant at the UN Global Pulse Accelerator 2025
The UN Global Pulse accelerator 2025 programme now accepts applications from teams aiming to scale creative solutions to pressing global issues. Through the programme, successful pilot projects will be turned into scalable plans with the potential to positively impact communities worldwide.
Backed by UN Global Pulse, it was launched as a UN innovation project that addressed the moral use of AI and data. It has developed over time into a partnership-driven agency that supports and advocates for responsible innovation. It officially started the UN Global Pulse Accelerator in 2023 to enable high-impact pilot initiatives sponsored by the UN to scale up and serve more communities with adaptable, future-ready solutions.
Over two cohorts, 14 teams from eight different UN agencies have received support from the Accelerator Programme. It has provided teams from FAO, UNFPA, WFP, and WHO with specialised mentoring and five scale catalyst grants to help them implement their scale strategy.
For its third cohort, the UN Global Pulse Accelerator Programme will focus on three thematic areas:
- Digital inclusion: creative solutions to close the digital divide, guarantee fair access to digital technologies, protect against threats, and advance digital inclusion and literacy
- Job creation and livelihoods: innovations that create strong social protection networks and good-paying jobs to eliminate poverty and lessen inequality
- Climate and biodiversity crisis: innovations that tackle biodiversity loss and climate change to guarantee a safe and sustainable future for everybody
Benefits
Participants of the UN Global Pulse accelerator 2025 programme stand a chance to receive:
- Financial support: a $60,000 scale catalyst grant will be awarded to three teams with the best plans, together with specialised technical assistance and strategic coaching to help them implement their scaling plans
- Partnership support: access to important collaborators from various innovative communities
- Covered expenses for selected teams: for the workshop week in Finland, UN Global Pulse will pay for travel tickets, the Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA), and Terminal Expenses (TE) following the guidelines set forth by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS)
Who can apply
To be eligible for the UN Global Pulse accelerator 2025 programme, the project must:
- Be led or co-led by a UN agency
- Have team members working in any of the listed priority countries
- Address at least one of the main thematic areas
- Have at least one successful pilot project using the solution
- Collaborate with the government, civil society organisations, the commercial sector and other stakeholders in the UN system
- Include topics that cut across all areas, such as diversity, inclusion, gender equality, and human rights
- Use a human-centred and co-creation strategy, involving local stakeholders and end users
How to apply
Interested applicants should submit their application for the UN Global Pulse accelerator 2025 programme through the official application platform on or before Sunday, June 8, 2025.
Do you have an innovative business (small, mid-scale business or startup) that adds value, creates opportunities or solves bold problems? Then you`ve got a story worth telling? Shoot us an email with SUBJECT “Story Worth Telling (+Name of Business)” to [email protected]
