Innovation Fellowships Scheme – Route B: Policy-led

This round of this funding scheme is currently closed for applications. Apply for the latest round of Innovation Fellowships Route B (Policy-led).

Scheme overview

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 Innovation Fellowships scheme is a dual-route scheme designed to enable researchers in the humanities and social sciences to partner with organisations and business in the creative and cultural, public, private and policy sectors in order 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.

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 of the scheme for a period of up to one year.

The Innovation Fellowships scheme has two routes:

Route A: Researcher-led

Route A closes for applications on 8 December 2021.

Route B: Policy-led

The British Academy is inviting applications for funding for a policy-led Innovation Fellowship (Route B), working with our partner, the FCDO.

The FCDO has specialised research requirements, operating in a context where timely access to high-quality evidence-based analysis can mean the difference between success and failure. Exerting influence, negotiating and leveraging others’ power at precisely the right moment is at a premium. This can make it difficult for researchers operating outside the FCDO to have a significant impact. These Fellowships will provide an opportunity to change that by enabling close interaction with FCDO policymakers directly in the heart of this government department’s work.

These Fellowships will take place in the context of the publication earlier this year of the UK Government’s "Integrated Review", known as Global Britain in a Competitive Age: the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. This describes the Government’s vision for the UK’s role in the world over the next decade and the action the UK will take to 2025 to achieve this.

The Academy and the FCDO invite applications for Fellowships in any of the following five areas:

• The global role of the USA
• The regional politics of Southeast Asia
• Law, values and ethics in the international digital and telecommunications environment
• Levelling up
• Diplomatic Influence and its Evidence Base

Please note this is a call for applications for Innovation Fellowships in partnership with the FCDO. More information on additional Route B partnerships will be made available in the coming months.

Scheme opens date: 7 December 2021

Application Deadline: 26 January 2022 – 17:00 GMT

Starting period of award: no earlier than 1 March 2022 and no later than 31 March 2022

Duration of award: awards are for a period of 12 months

Level of award: Route B (Policy-led) awards will have a maximum award value of £120,000 on an 80 per cent Full Economic Costing (FEC) basis. The Applicant must commit between 0.6 and 0.8 FTE time to the Fellowship

Scheme guidance notes

Innovation Fellowships Scheme 2021-22 – Route B: Policy-led

For full information on the Innovation Fellowships Scheme – Route B: Researcher-led, please view our scheme guidance notes.