British Academy Conferences scheme 2024-25: guidance notes

Aim of the scheme

The British Academy Conferences scheme, with generous support from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Wellcome Trust, presents an exceptional opportunity for UK-based scholars to run a pivotal event of lasting significance in their field, as a central part of the Academy’s events programme. Successful conferences will bring together scholars from around the world to present and discuss new research in the humanities and social sciences. Held at the British Academy’s own premises in London, at other British venues or online, these landmark events will offer students, scholars and specialists an opportunity to learn about the latest developments in their subject areas and to expand their academic networks. Specific awards for a strand of British Academy/Wellcome Trust Conferences are available for events which foster discussion and debate on health and wellbeing related themes.

All successful applicants will be clearly informed of the source of the funding of their grant when an award has been offered and will be expected to include due acknowledgement of the funder and the Academy when promoting, delivering and disseminating the results of the conference funded under this scheme.

Number of awards

The Academy expects to fund up to a dozen conferences each year, with at least five awards available for British Academy/Wellcome Trust Conferences. British Academy/Wellcome Trust Conferences will explore health and wellbeing related themes. The Academy is looking to host four conferences at its own premises in London, in addition to offering awards for conferences to be held at other British venues, or online. In some instances where the proposer has indicated that the British Academy is their preferred venue, but where the Academy is unable to provide full organisational and hosting support, the Academy may instead offer funds to help enable a conference to be held elsewhere.

Suitable subjects for award

Suitable subjects for the scheme include any field of study within the humanities or social sciences. Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary proposals are particularly welcome. Conferences awarded under the British Academy/Wellcome Trust banner must explore health and wellbeing related themes. A broad definition of health, which encompasses human and/or animal and/or environment health and wellbeing research across the spectrum of the humanities and social sciences, will be applied.

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

Applicants who submit a proposal as the ‘principal proposer/convenor’ must be postdoctoral scholars, or individuals at an equivalent level without a doctorate, in the fields of the humanities and social sciences. (Additional convenors can be listed on the proposal form). Postgraduate students are not eligible to apply.
Applicants must be resident in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands (that is, classed as ‘ordinarily resident’ for tax purposes).
Applications require the approval of the applicant's employing institution, but are not limited to those of any particular status (e.g. Lecturer, Professor etc).
Applications may be made by independent scholars and retired scholars.
Conferences adopted into the next round of British Academy Conferences must take place between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025.
Proposals should be for conferences that will take place over one to two days at a venue in the UK, or up to three days if online-only. Convenors should indicate their preferred choice of venue in their proposal. Please note that we will not entertain proposals for in-person conferences longer than two days, unless the principal proposer can indicate that they have funds to cover the cost of these additional days.
Proposals should be for conferences which disseminate new research in the humanities and social sciences. Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary proposals are particularly welcome, as are proposals that show the connection between our disciplines and the natural sciences.
Proposals should be for open occasions; requests for closed, invitation-only conferences will not be considered.

Please note that the strand of British Academy/Wellcome Trust Conferences is not open to those who:

hold a research grant from the tobacco industry either currently or in the past.
are applying for funding from the tobacco industry.
are employed on a research grant from the tobacco industry.

Timetable of the 2024 - 25 competition

The Academy runs this scheme once per year, with the timeline for 2024-25 as follows:

Scheme opens: 9 November 2022
Deadline for submissions (including references): 25 January 2023, 17:00 GMT
Assessment of proposals: February – April 2023
Selection of conferences to be adopted into the 2024-25 programme of British Academy Conferences: May 2023
Principal proposers notified: June 2023

Eligible costs

Funds may be sought to cover the following conference costs:

Venue hire to host the conference.
Accommodation for up to 16 speakers, plus conference convenors and chairs for a two-day conference (or 8 speakers, plus conference convenors and chairs for a one-day conference)
Economy travel costs for up to 16 speakers, plus conference convenors and chairs for a two-day conference (or 8 speakers, plus conference convenors and chairs for a one-day conference). The Academy does not cover business or first-class travel, or the use of taxis, other than in exceptional cases (such as certified medical need) and with prior agreement.
AV services and technical assistance on the days of the conference, including filming and streaming of the conference
Catering on the days of the conference: coffee breaks and a lunch break per day for all delegates (including speakers). The Academy will also consider requests for either a conference reception for convenors, speakers, chairs and attendees OR a reception/conference dinner for convenors, speakers and chairs, provided this is included in the overall conference budget.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) adjustments: requests to reduce barriers and improve accessibility, such as:
- Provision of live subtitling
- British Sign Language interpretation
- Large-print programmes
- Translation*
- Childcare or other family care costs for convenors and speakers on the days of the conference

* Conferences should be presented in English but translation may be considered if it helps improve access to the conference for speakers/audiences.

The Academy will promote all British Academy Conferences - including a dedicated page on the Academy website, and e-marketing through newsletters and social media.

For conferences that are held at the Academy building in London or hosted by the Academy online, the Academy will also:

Handle the administration and delivery of the conference including venue hire, logistics, catering, ticketing and registration. This is so that event delivery remains consistent across all Academy events programmes
Handle the technical facilitation including set-up and delivery of the conference. For online and hybrid conferences, the Academy uses Zoom Webinar.
Handle the financial transactions of the conference, including speaker travel and accommodation.

N.B. convenors of online conferences can either request to handle the logistical and technical elements of their event themselves, or request for the Academy’s events team to run.

Please refer to Table 1 in the Appendix for ineligible costs (applicants registered with special needs may consult the Academy about possible exceptions).

Period of award

The British Academy issues an annual call for outstanding conference proposals. Awards in this round are for conferences to be held between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025.

Level of award

Up to £20,000 per conference is available for British Academy/BEIS conferences. For conferences on health and wellbeing under the British Academy/Wellcome Trust scheme, the upper limit of awards is £30,000.

Many awards will be made at a lower level, with sums in the region of £8,000-£15,000 likely. The awarding committee will aim to offer sums to make viable each conference that it selects for support, but in some instances, it may offer less than was sought.

Applications to other British Academy schemes

Current and former British Academy award holders are welcome to apply to this scheme.

Resubmissions

The Academy will accept applications from those who have applied before (regardless of whether they were successful or unsuccessful). A fresh proposal must be prepared each time.

Role of the principal convenor

If your proposal is successful, you will be the academic convenor of the conference. You will:

Provide the academic theme and develop the overall objectives of the conference. The British Academy Conferences scheme is particularly suitable for themes that encourage the participation of both academic and other specialist communities. Subjects that address topical issues or contribute to public policy debates are particularly welcome.
We are particularly interested to hear if your conference links to any of the British Academy policy themes. For more information on these, visit Policy Themes Overview.
Select and approach speakers and chairs and brief them on the required academic focus. The British Academy is committed to staging events which involve a diverse community of scholars across the humanities and social sciences. We view diversity in the broadest sense – including age, career stage, institutional affiliation, ethnicity, and gender. Convenors should bear this in mind when putting together their proposal.
Handle the administration of the conference, including booking the venue, AV services and catering, arranging travel and accommodation, ticketing and registration, completing risk assessments, handling the logistics on the days of the conference etc. (unless your conference is online or held at the Academy’s own premises).
Ensuring the conference is open and accessible to the widest possible audience – taking into account of any audience / speaker / convenor access requirements.
Write the marketing text for the conference.
Work with British Academy staff to identify the best channels to market the conference. After the conference, comply with the Academy’s instructions for securing feedback about the conference and evaluating its success.
Aim to put together a proposal for a themed collection of articles arising from the conference to be published in the Proceedings of the British Academy series (or in the Journal of the British Academy if this is more appropriate) and, where approved, act as editor to steer the collection towards publication.

Publication by the British Academy

While recognising that the criteria for a successful conference and for a good publication are not identical, the British Academy attaches considerable importance to formal dissemination to wider scholarly and other expert readerships. There is a presumption that the convenors of those events that are adopted into the programme of British Academy Conferences will aspire to publish an edited collection of papers arising from the conference, and it is expected that a proposal will be submitted for such a collection to be published by the British Academy. Publication would normally be as a volume in the Proceedings of the British Academy series, but in certain circumstances it may be possible as a special issue of the Journal of the British Academy, which is published immediately in Open Access: convenors will be able to discuss options with the Academy’s Publications Department.

Nominated referee

Applicants are required to nominate one referee and to ensure that the supporting statement from their chosen referee is submitted on the British Academy Flexi-Grant® Grant Management System (GMS) by the application submission deadline. Please note this deadline is final.

The reference must be submitted before the application can be approved. Any application without a supporting reference will not be able to be submitted. Please also note that the reference must be received in time to allow you to submit the application for approval by your employing organisation for the same deadline.

Your referee has to be drawn from outside your own employing institution and from outside the employing institution of your co-proposer(s), if any. They must also not be directly involved with any aspect of the conference, for example as a speaker or a chair. References from scholars based outside the UK, however, are acceptable.

Before listing your referee on your application form, you should seek permission from them that they are happy to provide this by the deadline. It is essential that you enter the correct email address for your referee, otherwise your referee will not receive the automated messages delivered from the British Academy Flexi-Grant® GMS. We strongly advise that you complete your application as early as possible to allow your referee enough time to provide their reference in the system. An application cannot be considered for an award unless the proposal and reference have been submitted on time.

Please note that references must be provided through the GMS; they cannot be provided as an email attachment nor sent by post in hard copy. Any references received after the deadline, or outside of the system, or by another academic at the same institution as you or a co-applicant(s) will not be accepted, and your application will be withdrawn from this competition.

Code of Practice

The Academy has a Code of Practice for assessing funding applications, setting out the principles of equity, integrity and confidentiality governing the treatment of all applications for support. The Code of Practice also covers Data Protection, the Academy’s ethics policy and the appeals procedure. The Code of Practice may be viewed on the Academy’s website.

Feedback is not a feature of the British Academy Conferences scheme, and the Academy is regrettably unable to enter into correspondence regarding the decisions of the awarding Committee, which are governed by the Code of Practice. Please note that by applying, applicants undertake to accept the terms under which applications are assessed.

Application information

Applications can only be submitted online using the British Academy Flexi-Grant® Grant Management System (GMS). If you have not previously used the British Academy’s Flexi-Grant® GMS and were not previously registered in the e-GAP system, please follow the registration process from the Flexi-Grant® homepage. Applications cannot be submitted on paper or in any other medium.

Before completing the online form, all applicants should check that they comply with the eligibility requirements and ensure all necessary information is presented in the application. These requirements are strictly adhered to, and applications without all the necessary information, or evidence to show the assessment criteria are met, will be rejected.

Registered approving organisations will be available in the search bar. If your organisation is not listed, and is not affiliated with any organisations already in the system, then please contact us at [email protected] to request the addition of the organisation.

Applicants should be aware that this application form will be considered by appropriate assessors who will be subject specialists. Applications assessed as being worthy of funding will be submitted to the Publications and Conferences Committee who will make a final decision on the awards. The application will be treated as confidential at all times.

When completing your application, it is recommended that you take note of the following points:

Personal details: When registered in the British Academy Flexi-Grant® GMS, a user has the option to add or update personal information such as contact details, log-in details (including email address and password), interests, research and employment details, at any time. This does not form part of the specific application form for any individual scheme but represents a personal record of your account in the system. Please keep this information up to date.

Automatic log-out: You are strongly advised to save your work regularly to prevent accidental loss of text. The Flexi-Grant website will automatically log people out if no activity is detected. It is recommended that you should work offline in a separate Word document and copy and paste completed text online once complete.

Multiple sessions: Do not have multiple browser windows/tabs of your application open at the same time as this may cause information to be lost.

Word limits: If you exceed the word limit, you will not be able to save the page on which you are working.

Plain text: If entering plain text, please avoid using symbols as some may not be accepted by Flexi-Grant: This includes the following symbols: < >

PDF documents: When uploading PDF documents, please add your name and a heading at the top of every page to show what the document is. Please avoid uploading documents containing illustrations with fine details or colour as this can cause problems when creating a PDF of the application. Each PDF cannot exceed 3 Mb in size.

Email addresses: It is essential that you ensure your email address is up to date and actively monitored, or you may miss important notification emails.

Submission: You will not be able to submit your application until you have completed each section in full. You should submit your application for approval by your host organisation at least five working days before the closing date to allow for your host organisation’s administrative procedures. You should also check whether your institution has its own internal deadlines. We strongly advise that you contact your referee as early as possible to avoid any last-minute issues before the submission deadline.

Application deletion: You can delete your application at any time although it is often significantly easier just to edit your existing application. We will be able to recover a deleted application for a period of seven days after deletion. After this, it will be permanently removed from the system.

Application returned for editing: The organisation approver can return your application to you for further editing, but the original deadline remains in place.

Please note that it is essential that you create a PDF of your completed application (by clicking ‘Print Application’) and check it thoroughly before submitting it for approval by your host organisation. It may not be possible to rectify any mistakes after this in time for the deadline.

Word limits apply to plain text only. Page limits apply to PDFs only.

All fields marked with an asterisk * are mandatory.

Completing the application form

The application can be completed by using the navigation tabs on the application summary page, with each page categorised as follows:

Page 1: Eligibility

Page 2: Lead Applicant Details

Page 3: Lead Applicant Career Summary

Page 4: Conference Proposal

Page 5: Publication

Page 6: Promotion

Page 7: Financial Details

Page 8: Equal Opportunities

Page 9: Lead Applicant Referee Statement

A full list of question fields to be completed as part of the application can be found in the following table. Each box in the table represents a page of the application form: the left-hand column contains the questions within each of these pages as set out in the form; the right-hand column contains useful guidance on its completion. An asterisk (*) indicates which questions are mandatory and therefore must be completed before the application can be submitted.

Please read the guidance notes carefully before completing the form.

SUMMARY

Summary table

When your application form is complete, all sections on this summary table will be marked as ‘Complete’. The ‘Complete’ status will only appear when all the mandatory fields in that section have been completed. All mandatory fields are marked with an asterisk ‘*’. Only then will a ‘Submit’ button appear for you to be able to submit your application.

ELIGIBILITY

Primary and secondary subjects and multidisciplinary proposals

Your application must be relevant to the humanities and/or social sciences and you will need to select the relevant subject areas and fields from the drop-down list. Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary proposals are particularly welcome, as are proposals that show the connection between our disciplines and the natural sciences. You can add further information about the subject spread under ‘Multidisciplinary Proposal’.

Time period and regional interests

These fields provide the opportunity to give further indications of the relevance of your subject area. They are optional fields.

Employing organisation (Please be aware that it is your responsibility to ensure that you complete your application in time for your employing institution to process it and provide their approval by the closing date.)

Please select your current employing organisation or independent scholar if appropriate (retired scholars should also select the independent scholar option). The majority of appropriate establishments are registered in the system. If your employing organisation does not show, please contact [email protected] giving the contact details of your Research Awards Department.

All applications must be approved by your employing organisation authorities e.g. research grants office, finance department, etc. Once you have completed and submitted your application, the approving department will receive an email asking them to approve submit the application to the British Academy by the submission deadline.

The application cannot be submitted for approval before the referee has submitted their reference, so it is essential to obtain the reference well before the deadline.

It is strongly recommended that the applicant maintains an open dialogue with their approving department as the British Academy cannot be held responsible for emails being caught in spam filters or not being received.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you complete your application in time for your employing institution to process it and provide their approval by the closing date.

Please allow at least five working days for this process. Once your approving department has checked your application, they will contact you if any changes are required, please note if changes need to be made these will have to be done before the closing deadline, they cannot be done afterwards.

Co-applicants

All applications must have one lead applicant, and only they will have access to the application form. All correspondence is sent via the Flexi-Grant® GMS to the lead applicant.

If a co-applicant(s) wants to input into the proposal, the lead applicant should draft text in a word document and send this to the co-applicant(s) via email for input in advance of completing the application form.

There is no limit on the number of eligible co-applicants that can be named.

Current Postgraduate students are not eligible to apply for grant support from the Academy, and applicants are asked to confirm in the personal details section(s) that they, and their co-applicants, 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.

LEAD APPLICANT DETAILS

Lead applicant contact details

Please take care to review and complete your personal details. Errors in this section can cause difficulties in the processing of your application. You can update your personal details by checking ‘my account’ and selecting the link to ‘my contact details’ and ‘my organisation’ and ensuring the relevant details are up to date.

LEAD APPLICANT CAREER SUMMARY

Statement of qualifications and career

Please give details of up to 4 qualifications in reverse chronological order

Present appointment, employing institution and department

Please give details of your current appointment.

Applications are welcomed from independent or retired scholars, and such applicants should indicate ‘independent scholar’ here and select this as their ‘organisation’ in the eligibility section. ‘Approval’ of their application will be given by the BA as appropriate

PhD confirmation

Please therefore confirm that you have a PhD by answering yes. Applicants working towards a PhD or awaiting the outcome of their viva/submission of corrections are not eligible to apply. If you are an established scholar with relevant equivalent experience, but no doctorate, please select 'no' and indicate in the 'personal statement' field why you should be eligible for consideration.

Personal statement

This field is optional, but may be used, for example, in providing information regarding interruptions to an academic career. The limit on this field is 150 words.

Publications, unpublished research

Please list up to six relevant publications to date in reverse chronological order under publications; and any unpublished studies previously funded by any agency, including the British Academy (if applicable). Please give details of planned publication dates or explain why the research has not yet been published.

Previous support dates/previous support description

Please give details of any research applications submitted to the British Academy within the last five years. Current and former British Academy award holders are welcome to apply.

Where did you hear of this scheme?

This field is optional. It helps the British Academy to target appropriate resources towards the promotion of the scheme to know where an applicant hears about it.

CONFERENCE PROPOSAL

Title/summary

Please add a succinct title and a short summary about your proposed conference (150 words maximum). Clear and concise conferences are recommended for marketing/promotion purposes.

Details of conference

Please give more information about the aims and objectives of the conference. Please refer to the bullet points included in this question to steer your answer.

Preferred conference date

Please state the month in which you would prefer your conference to take place. If you can be flexible over dates, please indicate this here.

Length of conference

Please indicate whether your proposal is for an in-person, hybrid or online conference taking place over one, two or three days. Conferences longer than three days will not be considered.

Please note that conferences held at the British Academy must take place between 9:30 and 17:00 with a recommended start time of 10.00.

Venue

Please indicate where you would like your conference to take place and indicate if you have provisionally secured the use of this venue.

If you propose to host your conference at the British Academy you do not need to secure use of the venue. Please provide a reserve venue if you are applying to host the conference at the British Academy.

Proposers should be aware that the chances of securing funding for a conference to be held at another UK venue are much higher as the Academy can only host a limited number of conferences on site each year.

If you are unsuccessful in being selected for the conference being hosted at the Academy, we may offer funding for it to take place at your reserve venue.

List of potential speakers

Draw up a list of potential speakers (including their job titles) who would create a balanced programme, giving a brief outline of the topics to be covered. You should consider diversity in all its forms when making your selection, and where appropriate, convenors should also consider including speakers from other specialist communities.

Preference will be given to proposals with a list of speakers who have agreed to speak and to provide a written paper. Regardless of whether they have given you such final confirmation that they will speak, you must secure the permission of each individual speaker to be listed as a potential speaker in this proposal.

For in-person/hybrid conferences, please indicate which speakers may need to present virtually rather than in-person.

For online conferences, please bear in mind the location of your speakers - and their time zones - when drawing up your programme. You might, for instance, wish to run your conference in the afternoons over three-days rather than over two full days.

If any session is to take the form of a panel discussion, rather than a sequence of speakers, please indicate this in the other comments box.

Convenors are expected to have an active role in the conference – as either speakers or chairs.

Papers are expected to be given in English. If any speakers wish to present in another language, you must ensure that their talk is translated into English.

In what ways have you sought to meet the equality, diversity and inclusion criteria that the British Academy is interested in?

The British Academy is committed to staging events which involve a diverse community of scholars across the humanities and social sciences. We view diversity in the broadest sense – including age, career stage, institutional affiliation, ethnicity, and gender.

Please briefly outline how you have sought to meet this EDI criteria.

Does your conference align with any of the British Academy's Policy themes?

To help with promotion and awareness, it is helpful to know if your conference aligns with any of the Academy’s Policy themes.

Information on the British Academy’s current policy themes can be found here: Policy Themes Overview.

Source of funding

Please provide details of other support given or applied for in connection with the current proposal.

Please indicate whether any other grant applications relating to this conference proposal have been submitted to any other funder. Applications submitted to the Academy by separate applicants will not be accepted if it is considered that both (or all, if more than two) applications relate to the same proposal.

The Academy has no objection to its grants being held in conjunction with awards from other bodies, if there is no duplication of expenditure. Applicants are requested to keep the Academy informed of the outcomes of any other applications by email to [email protected] Failure to do so may jeopardise the application’s prospects of success. In cases where simultaneous applications to the Academy and to another funding agency covering the same elements of a project are both successful, the applicant will be asked to choose which award to accept.

PUBLICATION

Publication by the British Academy

While recognising that the criteria for a successful conference and a good publication are not identical, the British Academy believes in the importance of dissemination to scholarly readerships.

Convenors of successful conference proposals will be encouraged to publish their conference proceedings after the event. Publication would normally be as a volume in the Proceedings of the British Academy series, but in certain circumstances it may be possible as a special issue of the Journal of the British Academy: Convenors will be able to discuss options with the Academy’s Publications Department.

Please give details of your publication plans here, including whether you aspire to publish an edited collection of papers arising from the conference and whether you intend in due course to submit a proposal for such a collection to the British Academy.

Please outline any initial thoughts you may have at this stage on how you intend to shape what comes out of the conference for publication.

We appreciate that a conference may result in more than one output. If you intend the conference should give rise to other formal academic publications in addition to the publication issued by the British Academy, please indicate what other publication options you intend to pursue.

PROMOTION

Promotion of the conference

This field provides the opportunity to give further indications of the audience(s) for your conference and the likely routes of promotion.

Please explain the principal target audience(s) at which the conference will be pitched. Please note that proposals should be for open occasions. Requests for closed, invitation-only conferences will not be considered.
Please provide your own rough estimate of the number of delegates (excluding speakers and chairs) who might be expected to attend.
What channels are available to promote the conference?
What scope is there for promoting the themes of the conference more widely in the media?

FINANCIAL DETAILS

Financial details/ justification (please see Table 1 in the Appendix for a list of eligible costs)

Please add the proposed cost of your conference to the financial details table.

All convenors should approach this as if the conference is being staged at a venue other than the British Academy.

If your preferred venue of choice is the British Academy, please cost up the conference as if it were taking place at your reserve venue.

The reason for this is because the Academy can only host a limited number of on-site conferences each year.

Online Conferences

If you want to run your own online conference, please detail the costs for this (e.g. streaming costs).

If you would like to request that the Academy’s events team manages your online conference, please enter: ‘£2,500 – British Academy online hosted’ as the cost. This is because we will handle the logistical and financial elements.

Funding
Up to £20,000 per conference is available for British Academy/BEIS conferences. For conferences on health and wellbeing under the British Academy/Wellcome Trust Scheme, the upper limit of awards is £30,000.

Please add a breakdown of your proposed conference costs in the justification box.

Applicants should prepare accurate costings for the proposed expenses and should be particularly careful not to overestimate the resources required.

Costs can include:

Venue hire:

Please add the hire cost for your host venue (for either one or two days). If you intend to hold a post-event reception for the convenors, speakers, chairs and attendees, please ensure that you include the evening venue hire cost for this occasion.

Accommodation and travel:

You can apply for support for a maximum of 8 speakers per day (16 speakers across a two-day conference), excluding chairs.
Chairs must be UK based and ideally will be a conference speaker.
Chairs will be unlikely to be regarded as a priority for support (unless they are a convenor), but if you can make a case for them being included please also add costings for their travel and accommodation.
Convenors are expected to have an active role in the conference – as either speakers or chairs.
Costings should be fair estimates, for example:

Accommodation (2-day conference)

1 night – UK-based speakers

2 nights – European-based speakers

3 nights – Speakers outside of Europe

£75-150 per night outside of London

£150-250 per night in London

Travel

Please estimate economy travel (flights/trains) based on your speaker’s locations.

The Academy will not cover business or first-class travel, or the use of taxis, other than in exceptional cases (such as certified medical need).

The Academy is committed to reducing the environmental impact of the travel we fund. We expect the people we fund to choose travel that has a lower carbon footprint, where this is practical.

AV/Filming:

Please cost up the AV services and technical assistance needed for your conference based on the venue / supplier.

Please also outline any filming/broadcast costs if you plan to deliver the conference as hybrid.

See above for Online conferences.

Use of Academy’s AV and digital platform (Zoom) is only available for conferences run by British Academy’s events team. They are not available for use conferences hosted elsewhere.

Catering (daytime):

Please include the daytime catering costs for your one- or two-day conference (to include refreshment breaks and lunch for the estimated number of attendees you expect).

Please cater for a range of dietary needs (including vegetarian and vegan options) and ask all attendees for any dietary requirements.

Catering (evening):

The Academy will consider requests for evening catering. If you would like to host a post-event reception for speakers and attendees OR a post-event reception or dinner for the speakers only. The Academy will only consider funding one of these options. Evening occasions can be held at your venue or at another suitable venue such as a restaurant. Costings should be modest; i.e. a reception should be based on two drinks per person.

EDI adjustments:

Requests to improve accessibility (see above for eligible costs).

Other:

Requests for other costs can be included here, but will likely not be met unless there is strong justification for them. Please refer to Table 1 in the Appendix for eligible costs.

Costs should be clearly itemised and justified. If the Academy is being asked to support only a proportion of the total costs, please explain this clearly in the justifications box.

Please note that grants are cash-limited, and there is no scope for supplementation of an award. Projects must be fully costed from the outset.

Please do not use ‘£’ signs in the amount boxes.

BRITISH ACADEMY / WELLCOME TRUST SPECIAL FUND

The British Academy has established partnerships with a number of other funders (both government and other organisations) to provide support for specific areas of research.

All applicants will be considered for funding. In addition to public funding, a special fund for British Academy/Wellcome Trust Conferences is also available. Conferences funded from this pot, must explore a theme related to health and wellbeing. A broad definition of health, which encompasses human and/or animal and/or environment health and wellbeing research across the spectrum of the humanities and social sciences, will be applied.

If your research and proposed conference is relevant to this area, please tick yes to the question: Does your conference explore human or animal or environment health and wellbeing related themes.

Please note that the strand of British Academy/Wellcome Trust Conferences is NOT open to those who:

have a research grant from the tobacco industry currently or in the past
are applying for funding from the tobacco industry
are employed on a research grant from the tobacco industry.

Please note that all applications are considered on their merits equally, and it is not guaranteed that awards will be made simply because of the suitability of the subject area.

The Academy reserves the right to consider applications who have not requested Wellcome Trust funding to be considered within this field, if we feel the application relates to human and/or animal and/or environment health and wellbeing themes.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

This section is optional; however, the Academy would greatly appreciate it if you can complete the details to assist us in our diversity monitoring.

The British Academy is committed to its policy of equal opportunity in the provision of its grants and awards. Please help us to monitor the effectiveness of this policy by providing information.

This information will be kept separately from the rest of your application and will not be seen by those involved in making decisions in the selection process, including referees etc.

LEAD APPLICANT REFEREE STATEMENT

Applicants are required to nominate one referee and ensure that the supporting statement from their chosen referee is submitted on the British Academy Flexi-Grant® GMS well in advance of the deadline for the submission of your application.

Please note that the reference must be submitted into the British Academy Flexi-Grant® GMS before you can submit the application for approval, and you are strongly advised to ensure that your referee submits the reference well in advance of the formal deadline for the submission of your application.

Please be aware that the deadline as it appears to the referee is the same deadline as the submission of your application, and you also need to allow time for approval to be given by your employing organisation. Please note this deadline is final.

Your referee should be familiar with your proposal and able to comment on your abilities, in addition to the academic quality and scholarly importance of the conference, the focus of the conference programme and theme(s), the likely impact on scholarship, the wider significance and interest, the scholarly standing of and contribution to be made by the named key speakers, and the intended outputs. The reference may be supplied by a scholar based outside the UK if you wish. Your referee must be drawn from outside your own employing institution and from outside the employing institution of your co-applicant(s), if any.

There is no word limit for references. Most referees provide a 300–400-word statement, however shorter and longer entries are acceptable.

We strongly advise that you alert your referee as early as possible to allow them enough time to provide their reference in the system. Note that the deadline shown to the referee is the deadline for the whole application to be submitted. The application needs to be approved before the same deadline, and it cannot be submitted for approval before the reference is submitted.

An application cannot be considered unless the proposal and reference have been submitted on time.

Please note that references must be provided through the British Academy Flexi-Grant® GMS, they cannot be provided as an email attachment nor sent by post in hard copy.

Any references received after the deadline, or outside of the system, or by another academic at the same institution as you or a co-applicant(s) will not be accepted, and your application will be withdrawn from this competition.

Submission of Application

Once you have submitted your application for approval by your host organisation, automatic emails will be sent to your host organisation approver asking them to log on to the system. You will not be able to edit your application after it has been submitted to your host organisation for approval.

The host organisation approver will either:

(1) approve and submit your application, or

(2) ‘send back’ your application and contact you to request modifications or

(3) decline your application and contact you.

Please be aware that it is your responsibility to ensure that you complete your application in time for your host organisation to process it (including requesting changes) and provide their approval by the closing date. It is recommended that you allow at least five working days for this process, but please check with your proposed host institution as their internal timetables may require earlier submission.

If your host organisation approver requests modifications through the British Academy Flexi-Grant® GMS email facility, they can unlock your application, allowing you to edit it. They can do this by selecting ‘Return to Applicant’. An automatic email will be sent to you alerting you of this fact. Once you have completed and saved the requested changes, please re-submit your application for approval by your host organisation.

Once your host organisation has approved your application and submitted it to the British Academy it will not be possible to make any changes.

Please note that once the closing date has passed, host organisation approvers cannot approve applications and submit them to the British Academy; unapproved applications are removed from consideration. No late applications will be accepted.

It is recommended that you check that your application is submitted in time. To see the details of the host organisation approver and to check the status of your application, you should log into the British Academy Flexi-Grant® GMS and click on the link to the Application Portal where a summary of your application will be displayed.

Submitted applications will be processed by British Academy staff and passed to relevant conference application assessors for review in February – March 2023. Conference application assessors are Fellows of the British Academy with subject specialist knowledge who will review all conference proposals relevant to their subject area (proposals of a multi-/interdisciplinary nature will be sent to more than one Fellow, with scores combined).

Assessors will consider how well the conference is conceived, its scholarly importance, the calibre and range of the proposed participants, and the likely impact of the conference and scholarship. Graded applications will then be passed before the Academy’s Publications and Conferences Committee, who will meet in May 2023. They will decide how best to allocate the available funds to the highest ranked applications, with the outcome conveyed to proposers in June 2023.

N.B. The administration of the scheme is undertaken solely by the British Academy and all aspects of the application process, assessment process and award management is undertaken by the Academy.

Outcome of Application

Once your application has been submitted, complete with the reference, and it has been approved by your institution, you will not be contacted again by the British Academy until the decisions have been made – likely in June 2023. You can track the progress of your application by logging in again to the Flexi-Grant system at any time. Results are issued by email.

Applicants in any doubt about their eligibility or any other aspect of their application are advised to contact the Events Team at the Academy, where staff will be pleased to assist.

The British Academy Tel: 020 7969 5264

Events Team Email: [email protected]

10-11 Carlton House Terrace

London SW1Y 5AH

British Academy Conferences scheme 2024-25: guidance notes