New Mid-Career Fellowships awarded to 33 talented academics

The British Academy has awarded nearly £3.5million in Mid-Career Fellowships to 33 outstanding academics whose research will contribute towards public understanding of the humanities and social sciences.

Mid-Career Fellowships, worth a maximum of £160,000, are designed both to support talented individual researchers with excellent research proposals, and to promote public understanding of – and engagement with – subjects in the humanities and social sciences.

The scheme allows academics time to focus on a major piece of research, by obtaining time away from teaching and administration commitments. In previous years, the work undertaken by British Academy Mid-Career Fellows has led to critically-acclaimed books, big-budget European documentaries and BBC radio shows.

Welcoming the new Mid-Career Fellows, President of the Academy Sir David Cannadine said:

“It is a great pleasure to welcome to the Academy this new cohort of talented mid-career academics. By providing researchers with the time and financial support to explore their interests fully, the Mid-Career Fellowships scheme consistently yields fascinating and engaging work, the results of which can be transformational.  Many Mid-Career Fellows go on to secure promotions, TV work, prizes, book deals, further funding – even, as in the case of archaeologist Cyprian Broodbank in 2015, election to the British Academy Fellowship.

“We wish the Fellows every success and look forward to seeing the results of their work.”

To be eligible, Mid-Career Fellows are required to demonstrate a commitment to public engagement and to communicate their project to a broad audience.

Some of the research projects set to be funded include:

• The Effects of Touchscreens on Social Play in 1- to 3-year-olds – Dr Elena Hoicka, Senior Lecturer, University of Bristol, Graduate School of Education


• Scientific Metaphors in Action – Dr Ulrich Stegmann, Senior Lecturer, University of Aberdeen


• From the Human Rights Act to the British Bill of Rights: A Feminist Perspective – Dr Nicola Barker, Professor of Law, University of Liverpool, School of Law and Social Justice


• Educational Inequalities in Britain Revisited: A New approach to Investigating Primary and Secondary Effects of Social Origins – Dr Erzsebet Bukodi, Associate Professor in Quantitative Social Policy, University of Oxford, Department of Social Policy and Intervention


• An Islamicate Church: The World of Dionysius of Tel-mahre, 750-850 CE – Dr Philip Wood, Associate Professor, Aga Khan University, Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations


• Gender and the Populist Radical Right in Europe – Dr Francesca Scrinzi, Marie Curie-Sklodowska Research Fellow, Senior Lecturer, University of Glasgow.

The awards provide opportunities for scholars who have already established a significant track record as an excellent communicator and ‘champion’ in their field, and who are normally within no more than 15 years from the award of their doctorate.