The British Academy announces new funding for nine international interdisciplinary research projects

The British Academy has announced the latest cohort of successful applicants to its Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research Projects funding programme.

Funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the nine research projects supported under this programme highlight the importance of collaborative engagement between disciplines and between communities of research, practice, capacities and borders. They seek to strengthen understanding of challenges and opportunities in this regard and engage with questions concerning the relationship between expertise, public understanding and policy delivery internationally.

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

“In light of the grand challenges facing societies today and necessitating interdisciplinary solutions, it is crucial to invest in partnerships between the humanities and the social sciences on the one hand and the natural, engineering and medical sciences on the other. Such collaborations are essential to informing policy thinking and decisions for the future.

“The awards which the British Academy makes under Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research Projects aim to generate new insights, inform policy and public debates, and further the co-production of knowledge between different communities of practice in the UK and internationally. They form an integral part of the Academy’s international work and underscore the importance we accord to engagement and collaboration across borders and disciplines.”

The 2018 awardees are:

• Dr Nicholas Branch, University of Reading – Adaptive capacity of farming communities to climate change in the Peruvian Andes


• Dr Sarah Hartley, University of Exeter – Co-developing risk assessment across disciplines and borders: gene drive mosquito field trials in Uganda


• Dr Keith Hyams, University of Warwick – Tackling climate-related health risks in urban slums: an interdisciplinary analysis of the challenge of integrating local and scientific knowledges


• Dr Charlotte Lemanski, University of Cambridge – Learning between stakeholders: energy innovation for low-cost housing in the Western Cape, South Africa


• Professor Luciana Martins, University of London – Digital repatriation of biocultural collections: connecting scientific and indigenous communities of knowledge in Amazonia


• Dr Helena Ann Mitchell, Open University – Co-producing a community-based mental health improvement programme in Guyana through inter-disciplinary participatory action research


• Professor Francisca Mutapi, University of Edinburgh – WASH Practices: situational and behavioural analyses to inform policy and practice


• Dr Tanya O’Garra, Middlesex University – Strengthening knowledge co-production in locally managed marine areas: a Fijian case study


• Professor Caroline Wilkinson, Liverpool John Moores University – Migrant disaster victim identification.

The 2019 round of Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research Projects is currently open for applications.