The British Academy and the Royal Irish Academy Knowledge Frontiers Symposium: The Future

More about the programme

The symposium invites participants to think of ‘the Future’ across different times and contexts to explore and address the need for creative interventions in social and environmental crises, how communities of the past have managed (or otherwise) rapid social upheaval and technological change, and whether we can humanise the digital future.

The symposium aims to incentivise and establish international engagement and collaboration between early career researchers from Ireland and the United Kingdom from a broad range of disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, encouraging the exchange of ideas across both disciplinary and national boundaries and supporting the development of bilateral, international research collaborations.

Aims

The symposium will bring together up to thirty early career researchers (understood as up to seven years after obtaining a PhD) based in the UK and Ireland from across the humanities and social sciences to discuss key questions around the theme of ‘the Future’. The symposium is designed specifically to encourage collaboration and networking between early career researchers. In advance of the symposium, participants will be able to discuss their research and exchange ideas among themselves; begin to discuss the session themes; and make connections for possible future activities.

In order to incentivise long-term collaboration and networking, seed funding will be made available for which participants can apply. These collaborations must be international in their composition and can be either partnerships or groups. Time will be set aside on the final day of the symposium for a ‘sandpit’ style session in which participants write up their proposed collaboration and submit applications by the end of the session. The application form for seed funding will be circulated in advance of the symposium to ensure participants are fully aware of the opportunity and requirements.

In addition to funding several collaborative proposals, the symposium will aim to provide opportunities for a range of other outputs. Participants, for example, could contribute to a publication focused on the symposium theme, either through individual papers or in partnership with other symposium participants, record audio outputs or write posts that will be compiled into an online blog series dedicated to the symposium supported by the Royal Irish Academy and the British Academy.

Eligibility requirements

For the purpose of this symposium, early career is defined as being within a seven-year period of the award of the applicant’s doctorate.

Participants must be based at institutions in Ireland or the United Kingdom.

Participants must have fluency in spoken and written English.

Participants must be able to travel on dates and times, and on flights or other modes of transportation chosen by the British Academy and the Royal Irish Academy.

Attendance is mandatory for the entire symposium. If this is not met it will result in a participant not being eligible for the seed funding available.

UK-based attendees may only participate in two British Academy Knowledge Frontiers Symposia in any 24-month period.

Application Process

Applicants should provide:

• A completed application form
• A CV (in English) which should not exceed two pages

Applications must be submitted online using the British Academy's Grant Management System (GMS), Flexi-Grant®.

The deadline for submissions is Wednesday 7 December at 17:00 (UK time).

We will seek to notify successful applicants by early January.

Contact details

Further information is available from Saima Saleem at [email protected]