Deadline: 8-Dec-21
The British Academy has announced the applications for the Innovation Fellowships scheme, a dual-route scheme designed to enable researchers in the humanities and social sciences to partner with organizations and businesses in the creative and cultural, public, private, and policy sectors in order to address challenges that require innovative approaches and solutions.
The British Academy has been funded by the UK’s Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to support a pilot of a new scheme, the Innovation Fellowships. The Academy is also working on this scheme in partnership with other partners, the details of which will be released in due course by the British Academy.
Aims
The Innovation Fellowships scheme will provide funding and support for established early-career and mid-career researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences to partner with organisations and business in the creative and cultural, public, private and policy sectors, to address challenges that require innovative approaches and solutions. Through the Innovation Fellowships, their researchers in the SHAPE community will be supported to create new and deeper links beyond academia, so enabling knowledge mobilisation and translation, as well as individual skills development. This includes, but is not limited to:
- developing new approaches for supporting innovation across the economy, regions, and society;
- contributing to and leading on challenges targeted at increasing links with industry and business, broadly defined;
- improving direct connection of researchers with policymakers, leaders and innovators at local and regional levels.
Funding Information
- Route A (Researcher-led) awards will have a maximum award value of £120,000 on a Full Economic Costing (FEC) basis. All of the grants awarded are expected to be used 100% for the purposes specified in the application and agreed in the award-letter.
- The Lead Applicant must commit between 0.4 and 0.8 FTE time to the Fellowship, providing justification for the time percentage as part of the application, especially if the time commitment is below 0.5 FTE.
- The Academy recognises that the upper limit on the contribution that the Academy’s funding can make to this award – £120,000 – might not be sufficient to cover all of the costs up to 80% of the Full Economic Cost value required. In those cases, an employing institution may need to be willing to make additional contributions to the overhead costs involved. In all cases it is expected that at least £10,000 will be allocated to support directly incurred research expenses to support the project and/or enable the Lead Applicant to travel and work with the partner in their institution.
- Awards can be held for a minimum period of 6 months and up to a maximum period of 12 months.
- It is expected that up to 20 awards per year will be made across both routes.
Routes
The Innovation Fellowships scheme has two routes:
- Researcher-led
- Policy-led
Activities and outputs
Successful candidates will be selected on the basis of the quality and interest of the activity or range of activities and outputs proposed in the application. Award holders will be expected to play a role in promoting the approaches and methods that are the focus of their award, and consider the potential for engagement between academic and non-academic environments. Eligible activities and outputs can involve, but are not limited to:
- Evidence notes – reports, notes and responses to key challenges/approaches for developing connections with policy leaders or innovators;
- Case studies – exploring practical or policy-orientated solutions, engagement between academic and non-academic environments and the wider benefits to individuals/communities/regions;
- Blogs/podcasts/videos and other outputs to reach a variety of audiences and environments;
- Conferences/workshops/webinars/toolkits and other training opportunities which enable knowledge exchange.
Eligibility Criteria
- All applications require one Lead Applicant. Eligible Lead Applicants must be ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom with a current long-term appointment that will continue for at least as long as the period of the award at a UK-based institution (e.g. a Higher Education Institution [HEI] or Independent Research Organisation [IRO]).
- Applicants for the Innovation Fellowships Scheme should be intending to pursue challenges that can benefit from the contribution of Humanities or Social Sciences expertise.
- N.B. Postgraduate students are not eligible to apply for grant support from the Academy, and Lead Applicants (and Co-applicants) are asked to confirm in the personal details section(s) that they are not currently working towards a PhD, nor awaiting the outcome of a viva voce examination, nor awaiting the acceptance of any corrections required by the examiners.
- Co-applicant
- For Route A (Researcher-led) Fellowships, the Co-applicant is defined as the principal individual from the UK-based partner organisation receiving the Fellowship who will be directly involved in the project. A UK-based partner organisation for Route A (Researcher-led) includes: business, charity and public sector organisations, policy-relevant organisations, think tanks or voluntary organisations. The partner organisation must not be the same organisation at which the Lead Applicant is based.
For more information, visit https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/innovation-fellowships-scheme-route-a-researcher-led/
