The British Academy announces 28 Mid-Career Fellowships for outstanding academics across the UK

The British Academy has awarded nearly £3.5million in Mid-Career Fellowships to 28 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.

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.

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:

• Cities, productivity and levelling up – Professor Helen Simpson, University of Bristol
• Global remote working and wellbeing in multinational organisations: Sustainable solutions for the future of global work – Dr Kieran Michael Conroy, Queen's University Belfast
• The poetics of Protestantism: understanding the circulation and significance of Protestant Latin verse, c. 1550-1620 – Ms Victoria Moul, University College London
• Re-thinking African politics: ideology, political thought and the power of ideas – Professor Nic Cheeseman, University of Birmingham
• Corporation as a good citizen: foreign investor obligations towards local communities – Dr Mavluda Sattorova, University of Liverpool
• Politics in times of crises: economic downturns and the blurring of democracy – Dr Ruben Ruiz-Rufino, King's College London
• Exit from international organizations: the politics of membership suspensions and withdrawals – Dr Inken von Borzyskowski, University College London
• Polyglot century: the culture of informal language learning in Victorian Britain – Dr Alexander Bubb, University of Roehampton.

Welcoming the new Mid-Career Fellows, Professor Simon Swain FBA, Vice President for Research and Higher Education at the British Academy, said:

“We are delighted to announce our latest cohort of Mid-Career Fellows. By allowing outstanding academics the time and financial support to further explore their research interests, the British Academy’s Mid-Career Fellowships scheme consistently yields important and engaging work.  The awards are frequently a platform for further success – indeed, our Mid-Career Fellows often go on to secure promotions, prizes, book deals, TV work and further funding. We wish the Fellows the best of luck with their research projects and look forward to seeing the fruits of their work.”