The London Mathematical Society has several grant schemes to support mathematics.

As a charity the Society is able, and wishes, to take advantage of different opportunities and to work within a different regulatory framework from other funding bodies, such as the EPSRC. Its grant schemes are focused accordingly. Regrettably the Society’s funds are under pressure, and it is not able to make awards as often or as fully as it would like.

The Society does not normally meet the full cost of an activity. Rather it aims to give added value to an event largely funded by other means, or to bridge the gap between cost and the resources that might reasonably be made available by a university department. It does not pay Full Economic Costs. It does not make grants to cover departmental overheads, secretarial costs, etc., which could be seen as part of normal departmental provision. The Society does not normally make grants to cover room hire, except that consideration will be given to requests for grants to cover room hire charges at De Morgan House where special circumstances can be shown. Applicants are expected to make economical travel arrangements where possible.

The Society expects that the organisers of conferences and activities who are seeking grants from the Society will: invite both male and female speakers, or explain why this is not appropriate or possible; and give consideration to the provision of mechanisms to enable participation by people with children or family responsibilities; the full statement of the Society’s policy on Women in Mathematics is available here.

The Society will not allow its limits for individual grant schemes to be exceeded by artificially sub-dividing an application into a number of separate requests under different headings.

The Society’s committees assessing applications for grants are made up of mathematicians with a wide spread of research interests, but it should not be assumed that they are familiar with the technical details of any particular area of mathematics. Under most schemes, proposals are judged by the committees themselves, although they may seek advice. It is therefore important that the case for a grant should be written for a general mathematician and not for a specialist. The committees judge each application on its merits. Since membership changes from year to year, it should not be assumed that the committee is familiar with the details of previous applications and correspondence from earlier rounds; nor should it be assumed that a grant, for example under Scheme 3 or for a regular collaboration under Scheme 4, will be renewed repeatedly.

The London Mathematical Society considers it to be the responsibility of the institution to whom the grant is paid to check receipts in accordance with its normal financial procedures. In exceptional circumstances, where the grant has not been paid through the applicant's institution, receipts should be submitted with the financial and academic reports.