BA Call: Knowledge Frontiers, International Interdisciplinary Research Projects (deadline: 3rd Oct 2018)

The British Academy (BA) is inviting proposals from UK-based researchers across all disciplines within the social sciences and humanities to develop international interdisciplinary research projects with development impact, in collaboration with colleagues from the natural, engineering and/or medical sciences.

Aims

The purpose of each project will be to develop new ideas and methods to bear on existing international challenges and to deliver policy-relevant outputs. Projects will need to demonstrate an innovative and interdisciplinary partnership internationally (between researchers in the social sciences or the humanities on the one hand and counterparts in the natural, engineering and/or 2 medical sciences on the other), yielding new conceptual understanding and policy-relevant evidence on questions of international significance.

The complexities of global change and the proliferation of diverse communities of knowledge, practice and intelligence highlight the necessity of collaborative engagement between communities of practice, disciplines, capacities and borders. The British Academy is keen to support and work with proposals that strengthen understanding of challenges in this context and engage with questions concerning the relationship between expertise, public understanding and policy delivery. We are interested in projects of interdisciplinary nature that examine encounters between academic, professional and lay knowledge, and how valid knowledge, knowledge associations and evidence are built and developed, communicated and disseminated, and the factors which can serve as barriers to this in different political or cultural settings.

Eligibility

  • The lead applicant must be based at a UK university or research institute, and be of postdoctoral or above status (or have equivalent research experience). International co-applicants, and in particular co-applicants from OECD DAC countries, are strongly encouraged.
  • The British Academy will require applicants to demonstrate that their proposals are ODA eligible. ODA eligibility is an essential criterion – projects will only be deemed eligible for funding if they can demonstrate that they satisfy ODA eligibility criteria.

Level of funding

Awards are of 18 months in duration and are available for up to £50,000. Funding can be used to support research and/or clerical assistance; research expenses and consumables; travel and subsistence; and networking, meeting and conference costs. Awards are not funded on a full economic costs basis, with contributions to overheads an ineligible cost. 

For further details on eligibility criteria and the application process please visit the British Academy website.