Significant Funding Increase from the Leverhulme Trust

10 February 2025

Central School of Ballet is pleased to announce a significant increase in funding from its long-standing supporter the Leverhulme Trust. The multi-year funding is worth £600,000 and aims to support Central’s renowned Undergraduate Degree courses and Associate School programmes.

This fund represents the largest scholarship award in Central’s 40-year history, enabling the school to nurture the talent of gifted students who would struggle, or be unable, to realise their potential in dance without financial support.

The three-year grant award is aimed at school intake years 2025-2026, 2026-2027 and 2027-2028 and offers Art Scholarship Bursaries to six students per year working towards a BA (Hons) in Professional Dance and Performance. In the same intake years, the award offers Art Scholarship Bursaries for Central’s Associate Programme for ages 11-16 and its pre-vocational Junior Associate Programme for ages 8-11 which are aimed at young talented dancers aiming for a degree in professional dance training.

The Trust funding allows Central to offer bursaries for the first time to students participating in its newer Junior Associate programme (established 2023).  Being able to offer this financial support to students who come from low-income households, and other groups underrepresented in ballet, will help remove barriers to gifted young people realising their dance potential in a profession where early engagement is key to long-term career progression.

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.

Commenting on the award, Central’s Executive Director, Mark Osterfield, said: “This new level of funding from the Leverhulme Trust, a supporter of Central over many years, is a welcome endorsement of the quality of our vocational training and the calibre of the students attracted to Central.  The award is a driver of our widening access and participation programme that aims to make professionally delivered ballet training accessible to gifted dancers regardless of their background, or financial situation.