Each year the Iolanthe Midwifery Trust invites applications for a number of financial awards to be granted to midwives and students. We welcome applications that aim to improve care and give benefit to mothers and birthing people, babies and families.
We would love to see applications from a wide and diverse group of midwives and students. To support this, we offer our Dora Opoku Awards specifically for Black and Brown midwives and students, as well as general awards for all midwives and students.
Below we describe some of the types of projects that we fund. We hope it inspires you to apply for funding or to support us as a charity.
But first, hear Zoi Vardavaki tell us about her 2025 Midwives Award winning work...
We fund:
Training and Development
Training and self-development
Many midwives and students like to take on additional training to gain qualifications or enhance their skills to develop their midwifery practice or to arrange training and education for their midwifery colleagues. Training and self-development includes attending study days and training; elective placements; academic courses; organising training and conferences; return to practice.
Attending study days and training
Lucy Nelson attended a 2 day Spinning Babies workshop, designed to enhance midwives' skills in optimising fetal positioning, reducing birth interventions, and promoting physiological birth.
[These techniques] allow women to feel they’ve done everything possible to support their birth experience, and equip midwives with the tools and understanding to guide them. This course reaffirmed my commitment to supporting physiological birth and reducing unnecessary intervention.
LUCY NELSON, Midwives Award, 2025
Elective Placements
Funding is also available to help students and midwives to travel to placements, and priority will be given to those taking place within the four nations of UK. The Iolanthe Midwifery Trust is encouraging students to seek elective placements in a part of the UK that presents a contrast to (or builds upon) their prior experience, for example in urban areas, rural areas or within specific communities.
We do not fund placements with commercial/for-profit travel organisations such as ‘Work the World’. Please carefully read the downloadable guidance for each award, which includes what Iolanthe would be looking for in applications involving travel abroad.
I saw the continuity model in action, as I noticed the professional bond between the midwife and families, as they grew to know each other throughout the pregnancy, which in turn enabled and facilitated more effective information sharing and promoted choice.
I know that this time spent shadowing such experienced midwives, who truly embody everything a midwife should be, will inform my practise for years to come.
EMMA FRASER, Student award 2023, elective placement in cornwall
Academic courses
Other midwives apply for funding to attend academic courses. Please note our preference to fund courses in new areas of study rather than to support the recipient to continue an existing course.
Since completing the course, I have been able to share my increased knowledge through teaching including to midwives, health visitors, neonate nurses, and mental health colleagues as well as delivering a training day to student midwives through the local university…
I was also delighted to have been invited to speak at the national Royal College of Midwives conference in Birmingham in May, something I don’t think I would have had the confidence to do without the learning from this course...thanks to the Iolanthe Midwives Trust.
Amy Lewis, Midwives Award 2024
Organising training and conferences
Some award winners arrange local training for their colleagues, such as Claire Parkin, who used her 2024 Midwives Award funding to hold Biomechanics for Birth training for her fellow midwives, or Student Award 2023 winner Magdalena Bremner, who arranged a Physiological Breech Birth Study Day, attended by midwives, student midwives, obstetricians, and lecturers.
We were challenged, inspired, and empowered, leaving us all feeling enthusiastic about the next steps. We are now exploring further advanced training and the development of guidelines. Your funding support has truly helped us to 'Repower.' Empowered midwives empower women, birthing people and their families.
Claire Parkin, Midwives Award 2024
Others organise conferences, such as Kaat De Backer, 2025 Nicolette Peel Award winner, who put on a multidisciplinary conference entitled "Women on the edge of care in the perinatal period", to disseminate evidence to a health and social care audience.
Feedback from conference delegates was overwhelmingly positive, praising the extended involvement from women with lived experience, the creative formats and the powerful messages shared during the day.
Applications to attend conferences will be considered, but UK based ones will be prioritised, as well as those where the attendee has already been accepted to present. Please carefully read the downloadable guidance for each award, which contains further advice.
Return to Practice
Applications are invited from midwives who need financial help returning to midwifery practice. You are eligible if you have been accepted on a Return to Practice course at a university and approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council and have a clinical practice placement.
I am now working in an incredibly supportive team, I have my own clinics and caseload and feel so proud that I have achieved this and that my children have seen me pursue a dream that seemed virtually impossible.
Sarah Oliver, Student Award 2022
Whatever skills, knowledge or experience you want to gain, there could be an award to suit you. Find out more on our Grants and Awards page
If you would like to support us financially so we can offer more awards, then take a look at our Support Us page.
Research and discovery
The Iolanthe Midwifery Trust welcomes applications to help with funding for fees, equipment and travel, salaries or a subsistence income while undertaking midwifery research. Rebecca Sobodu accessed support for her Masters, studying the experiences of midwives who care for those with 'No Recourse to Public Funds' (NRPF), while Maria Velo Higueras' research had freebirth as the central theme.
Personally, this support has empowered me to contribute meaningfully to the evidence base in an under-researched area of maternity care. Professionally, it has strengthened my resolve to champion equity and compassion in practice and policy.
Rebecca Sobodu, Dora OPoku Midwives Award 2025
As a feminist researcher, it was important to me that the views, knowledge and experience of UK midwives and women who freebirth were represented in my study. The Iolanthe Midwifery award has helped me to give visibility to my study, opening new networking opportunities to enrich my research and/or to influence policy with my findings.
Maria Velo Higueras, Midwives Award 2024
Some larger awards available, such as the Jean Davies Award for more expansive or collaborative research projects.
In some years a substantial sum - the Midwifery Research Fellowship - is offered to help a doctoral midwifery student write up their research. This was last offered in 2025 and the Trust aims to offer it biannually. MRF winner Charlotte Emily Roche wrote up her PhD research entitled, "The public health role of caseloading midwives in advancing health equity in women and babies living in socially deprived areas in England: The Mi-CARE Study"
Receiving the Iolanthe Midwifery Research Fellowship over the last few years has been transformative for me both personally and professionally, but the impact of the fellowship extends beyond my own development… as Devon’s first consultant midwife, my workstream...draws on the conclusions and recommendations I have made in my PhD.
Charlotte Emily Roche, MRF winner, 2022
Whatever your research funding needs, take a look at our Grants and Awards page to see what could be available for your work.
If you would like to help us support additional research projects with a donation or fundraising, then Support Us is the place for you to look.
Improving local services
Some Iolanthe winners use their funding to improve local maternity services for the direct benefit of the families that use them. For example, in 2024, student Sophie Rayner's award funded free antenatal classes for women and birthing people in Leicestershire, run by midwifery students and lecturers at the University of Leicester.
One client sent this lovely feedback: “I just wanted to share I found it very useful and informative. You both were full of really good advice and I left feeling informed and confident.”
sophie rayner, student award 2022
Kirsty Smith, a midwife and aquanatal teacher with Lorn and Islands Hospital, Oban, used her Midwives Award 2024 to fund swimming pool hire, enabling her to run free aquanatal classes for pregnant people in her rural community.
The classes offer a supportive, inclusive space where pregnant women can relax, bond with their unborn babies, make friends with others at a similar stage in pregnancy, and feel nurtured, all whilst improving their health, wellbeing and fitness. The removal of financial barriers means that everyone who wants to attend can do so, regardless of their circumstances.
Kirsty Smith, Midwives Award 2024
If you have a plan to improve local maternity services for women, or with benefits for midwives, take a look at our Grants and Awards page to see what funding you could apply for.
If you would like to help us to be able to give out more awards to improve maternity services and can fundraise for us, check out Support Us to find out what you can do.
