Innovation Fellowships Scheme – Route A: Researcher-led

The British Academy has been funded by the UK Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to continue its support of a new scheme, the Innovation Fellowships. Other partners are also expected to be confirmed by the British Academy in due course.

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, our 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. These Fellowships will forge innovative place-based partnerships to create new intellectual, cultural, community and economic opportunities that will address key societal challenges. 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.

In addition to the aims outlined above, the Academy encourages researchers to indicate interest in the British Academy’s public policy themes, where relevant. The British Academy’s public policy themes address major policy and societal challenges, and build on the Academy’s Covid Decade evidence report and policy report (published in March 2020) which focus on understanding and addressing the long-term social impacts of COVID-19. The British Academy’s public policy themes are the following:

• Sustainability for people and planet – mobilising SHAPE research to inform policy responses to sustainable development, challenging the myth that science and technology can solve these challenges alone.
• Social and cultural infrastructures – engaging with the vibrant debate over the 'levelling up' agenda and a growing body of evidence on the critical role of communities in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Digital societies – exploring the ways in which digital technologies, tools and practices shape and are shaped by our society, aiming to answer the question what makes for a ‘good digital society’.
• Governance, trust and voice – exploring how the UK can develop effective multi-level governance structures which encourage participation, engagement and cooperation to strengthen our capacity to identify and respond to local, regional and national needs and the major policy challenges ahead.

Please note that further information about the British Academy’s public policy themes, as above, is available via our website.

The Academy is flexible in its approach to the Innovation Fellowships Scheme, and is open to researchers proposing ideas that either address challenges related to broader themes of the scheme or, more specifically, to the British Academy’s public policy themes, as outlined above. There is no advantage in choosing one theme or challenge over the others, as all are considered equally likely to be of interest and fundable if the quality of the proposal is sufficiently high.

The Innovation Fellowships scheme has two routes:

• Route A: Researcher-led;
• Route B: Policy-led.

In this call, we are inviting applications for funding for researcher-led Innovation Fellowships (Route A), through which applicants must apply with a partner which they have identified. We also recently invited applications for a policy-led Innovation Fellowship (Route B) through which applicants will work with one of our named policy partners. The first Route B 2022-23 funding call was with our partner, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). The call closed on 6 July 2022. Additionally, it is expected that details of further policy partners for Route B will be released by the Academy in due course, along with specific funding calls for that route.

Please note that only one application for Route A (Researcher-led) may be submitted for the Innovation Fellowships Scheme 2022-23 Route A (Researcher-led) round. Applicants are permitted to apply through both Route A (Researcher-led) and Route B (Policy-led), but they cannot be successful via both routes, i.e. hold an Innovation Fellowship for both Route A and Route B at the same time.

Both routes require an established researcher to work with a UK-based partner organisation on a specified policy or societal challenge that contributes to the aims described above for a period of up to one year. All Innovation Fellows under the different routes, regardless of stream or partner, will have the opportunity to participate in cross-learning and other cohort-based activities.

The British Academy is inviting applications from early-career and mid-career researchers who are working on the themes of policy and/or society who could contribute fresh perspectives to a specified challenge. Applicants might have expertise from a wide range of disciplinary, conceptual and methodological perspectives, including analytical, policy and practical perspectives. You must be an early-career or mid-career researcher based at an institution in the UK (e.g. a Higher Education Institution [HEI] or Independent Research Organisation [IRO]), from disciplines within the Humanities and Social Sciences. You may already have prior-established links with a partner organisation from outside academia which you would like to develop, or wish to develop a new partnership (Route A: Researcher-led). Or you might choose to apply to work with an organisation linked to the British Academy which aligns with your research focus (Route B: Policy-led).

Through the dual-route nature of the Innovation Fellowships Scheme, you will have the opportunity to foster a partnership which will enable you to develop outcomes that transform our understanding of and response to societal challenges, and offer solutions to shape policy and practice. You will be able to draw on the expertise, insights and challenge of policymakers and practitioners, and benefit from their continued engagement in the project. This is an opportunity for all participants to form new or deeper collaborations and draw on the insights these bring to inform, influence and develop new and innovative research proposals that address challenges and will deliver concrete outcomes in knowledge exchange and wider societal impact; i.e. the change in society, practice, or policy we wish to see.

For Route A (Researcher-led) the researcher should apply with a named UK-based partner organisation outside their employing institution. The researcher’s employing institution must be a UK-based Higher Education Institution (HEI) or Independent Research Organisation (IRO). A UK-based partner organisation includes: business, charity and public sector organisations, community organisations, policy-relevant organisations, think tanks or voluntary organisations. In the application, the researcher must detail the challenge they seek to address and the existing nature of the relationship with the partner (if applicable). The application submitted must be collaborative between the researcher and a collaborator within the partner organisation. If successful, the relationship with the partner organisation will be managed by the researcher, i.e. the Lead Applicant, with responsibility for the success of the award residing with the Lead Applicant’s employing institution and be conducted in line with the Terms and Conditions of Award. The British Academy welcomes projects and partnerships that are focused in their region or location and encourages applications from researchers who consider themselves to be early-career or mid-career researchers.

We recently invited applications for a policy-led Innovation Fellowship (Route B). It is expected that details of further policy partners for Route B will be released by the Academy in due course, along with specific funding calls for that route.

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

[email protected]