World Alzheimer’s Day: Announcing the 2025 Dementia Trust Disruption Awards Winners
The Dementia Trust is delighted to announce the 2025 disruption awards winners.
Today, on World Alzheimer’s Day, we are proud to unveil the winners of the 2025 Dementia Trust Disruption Awards - bold, creative projects that will shake up how we understand, support and live well with dementia.
This year, we received 22 applications requesting over £400,000 of funding – more than 8x the funds we had available. This overwhelming demand tells a clear story: there is no shortage of brilliant ideas ready to transform dementia care and understanding, but there is a shortage of funding to make them happen.
The 2025 Disruption Awards winners represent the incredible work that can be done and achieved for the dementia community when given the support and space to create. This year’s awards are funding projects that span across the globe connecting experts, caregivers, and artists with both immediate support and programmes that will strive to last the test of time.
This year’s Disruption Awards Panel brought together a wealth of expertise and lived experience Professor Eddie Duncan, Dr Peter Murdoch and our Advisor Sonia Mangan. The Panel is a delegated group of the Trust’s Grant Making Committee, entrusted by the Board to develop, oversee, and award our grants programme – ensuring that every decision reflects our mission and delivers maximum impact for the dementia community.
““World Alzheimer’s Day is about more than awareness – it’s about action. The Disruption Awards we are funding this year are real, tangible national and international projects that will create lasting change for people living with dementia and their carers””
Why Call Them ‘Disruption Awards’?
We believe even a gentle nudge can reshape what’s possible and empower changemakers to create inspiring action for the dementia community.
We back projects that:
Offer a fresh take on everyday challenges of dementia
Are co‑created with people who live the experience
Reach communities that too often miss out
Share learning openly so good ideas travel fast
2025 Disruption Award Recipients
The Bessie Makatini Foundation: Raising Dementia Awareness in the Community
This grassroots initiative in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, is a powerful example of locally driven innovation. It combines carer training, community screenings, and education on rights and elder abuse. The culturally relevant model bridges service gaps and builds community capacity, with potential benefits for UK practice. The project will:
Delivering culturally relevant education/awareness campaigns in Zulu and English to reduce stigma and promote understanding.
Strengthening and expanding the existing referral network linking families to medical, social, and other support services.
Training community health workers in various stake holder organizations to identify early signs of dementia and provide basic support to the elderly that they work with in their day-to-day work.
Creating more safe spaces for people living with dementia and their caregivers to connect, share experiences, and access resources.
Chichester Festival Theatre: (B)old: A Participatory Arts Project
(B)old: A Participatory Arts Project will deliver creative workshops for people with dementia, focusing on older men and global majority participants. These workshops include artist training, mentorship by Arti Prashar OBE, and community showcases.
The artists will work with Arti and Louise to create and deliver unique workshops for those living with dementia and their carers in under-represented communities; specifically working with Older Men living with dementia in Chichester and people from the Global Majority living with dementia in Crawley.
(B)old is designed to be the first stage of a long-term programme of creative engagement for people living with dementia, that could influence arts and care organisations across the country. Building on Arti’s extensive artistic practice, these workshops will be designed for those living with dementia and their carers to connect and interact in joyful new ways. Participants will be supported to explore self-expression and identity through creativity.
This is not just about making art – it’s about using creativity to reframe identity and restore agency for people with dementia.
Queen's University Belfast & Dementia NI: Reimagining Dementia Education: A New Pathway Led by Lived Experience
This pioneering project is challenging the very foundations of dementia education. Together, QUB and Dementia NI are co-designing a postgraduate module and a global online course, both taught entirely by people living with dementia. The MSc module and global Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) challenges traditional teaching hierarchies, trains contributors as paid educators, and aims to create a scalable model for other institutions.
The project will:
Train contributors as paid educators, recognising the value of lived experience
Co-produce a twelve-week MSc module for healthcare professionals, including nurses, equipping them with insight grounded in real life
Develop a free, publicly available online course for carers, social care staff, families, and communities
Create a scalable model that can be adopted by other universities and institutions
This is a game-changing approach that elevates the voices of people with dementia to the centre of professional training and public education.
Why “Disruption Awards”?
Because the dementia community doesn’t just need incremental improvements – it needs breakthroughs. The Disruption Awards back projects that:
Offer a fresh take on everyday dementia challenges
Are co-created with people living the experience
Reach overlooked communities who too often miss out
Share learning openly so good ideas travel fast
“At The Dementia Trust, we believe that a spark of innovation can change the whole conversation around dementia. On World Alzheimer’s Day, I am proud that we are not just raising awareness – we are backing the ideas that will shape a better future.”
Dylan Harper, Chair, The Dementia Trust
Join the Movement
World Alzheimer’s Day is the perfect time to act.
🔗 Discover the winning projects: dementiatrust.org/disruption-awards
💌 Sign up for updates: Be the first to hear how these projects progress
💙 Donate or become a Friend of the Trust: Help us fund even more brilliant ideas next year
Together, we can accelerate change for the dementia community – not just today, but every day.