Humanitarian Innovation Fund: Progress Review, 2026

Programme: Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF)
‍Review period: November 2022–October 2025

About the review

This independent progress review examines how the Humanitarian Innovation Fund has developed since its 2019–2022 evaluation. Conducted by Tinkr between August 2025 and February 2026, it assesses progress against previous recommendations while exploring how HIF’s funding, innovation support, commitments to localisation, and approach to learning have evolved.

Key findings

The review finds that HIF has made meaningful progress, strengthening its role as a catalyst, connector and evidence-builder within humanitarian innovation. Since 2011, HIF has supported 190 innovation projects with more than £25 million in funding, while its approach has evolved from open funding towards a more mixed portfolio, including thematic Innovation Challenges and a recent focus on AI.

The review highlights progress in providing follow-on funding and investment in scaling, supporting innovation adoption, strengthening monitoring and learning, and creating opportunities for innovators to connect and share learning. It also identifies early but positive movement towards more inclusive and locally led innovation, including measures designed to make funding more accessible.

Recommendations and next steps

The review identifies opportunities to build on this progress by applying successful approaches more consistently across the portfolio. Priorities include strengthening long-term tracking of innovations, addressing wider barriers to adoption, improving the accessibility and coherence of learning, continuing to adapt grant-making systems to support locally led organisations, and using HIF’s influence to advocate for innovators.