The British Academy announces funding for 15 researchers to help tackle the UK’s international challenges

The British Academy has announced the successful applicants to the latest round of its funding programme, The Humanities and Social Sciences Tackling the UK’s International Challenges.

Funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the 15 research projects supported under this programme aim to shed light on our understanding of the UK’s international challenges – past, present and future – and to further cross-learning between academic, policy, practitioner and public communities on issues that are topical, under-explored or necessitate reframing.

Welcoming this new cohort of award-holders, Professor Ash Amin FBA, Foreign Secretary and Vice-President of the British Academy, said:

“We are delighted to be able to support these researchers, whose projects will bring original interdisciplinary ideas from the humanities and social sciences to bear on our understanding of a range of international challenges and opportunities relevant to the UK.

“Understanding the world beyond the UK and developing international research collaborations between UK and international researchers is a critical endeavour. Supporting the humanities and social sciences in this way is fundamental to the British Academy's mission to sustain international engagement and cooperation. The Academy’s awards under Tackling the UK’s International Challenges Programme embody this spirit.”

The 2018 awardees are:

• Dr Sahla Aroussi, Coventry University – Gender and resistance to violent extremism: untold stories of everyday resistance to violent extremism in Kenya


• Dr Desiree Fields, University of Sheffield – Digital platforms for the rental market: disrupting or exacerbating power asymmetries?


• Dr Simon Gosling, University of Nottingham – Developing new Blue-Green futures: multifunctional infrastructure to address water challenges


• Dr Erin Jessee, University of Glasgow – Perpetrators’ reflections on Kwibuka25: accountability, justice and commemoration on the 25th anniversary of the ‘1994 genocide of the Tutsi’ in Rwanda


• Dr Adrian Lahoud, Royal College of Art – The scale of justice: energy transition, rights and indigenous title


• Dr Kieran Mitton, King’s College London – Life in between: youth street gangs and marginality in contemporary Sierra Leone


• Professor Deryn Rees-Jones, University of Liverpool – Yemen in conflict: popular literary heritage as expression of conflict and tool for conflict resolution


• Dr Kay Ritchie, University of Lincoln – Facial recognition in the criminal justice system


• Dr Lizzie Seal, University of Sussex – Reforming British law and policy on the global death penalty


• Dr Anna Sergi, University of Essex – Securiports: opportunities for organised crime in seaports between vulnerabilities and informality


• Dr Yasmine Shamma, University of Reading – Lost and found?: a digital archive of testimonies of migration, displacement and resettlement


• Dr Ian Shaw, University of Glasgow – The international green academy: school gardens and progressive urban ecologies


• Professor Hyun Bang Shin, London School of Economics and Political Science – The urban spectre of Global China: mechanisms, consequences and alternatives for urban futures


• Dr Edmond Smith, University of Manchester – Living on the edge: experiences and responses to Europe's changing borderlands


• Dr Afua Twum-Danso Imoh, University of Sheffield – Children’s rights and perceptions of justice, rights and equality: the challenge of children’s representation.

The 2019 round of The Humanities and Social Sciences Tackling the UK’s International Challenges programme is currently open for applications.