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The British Academy announces five new recipients of Innovation Fellowships
23 Jan 2025

Five researchers have been awarded funding as part of the British Academy’s Innovation Fellowships for partnerships with the Cabinet Office; His Majesty’s Treasury and the Department for Business and Trade (joint hosts for this scheme); the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
The Innovation Fellowships scheme provides funding and support for established early career and mid-career researchers in the humanities and social sciences to partner with organisations and businesses in the creative and cultural, public, private, commercial, or policy sectors. The fellowships are based in the UK and seek to address challenges that require innovative approaches and solutions that are relevant to the UK.
Over £450,000 has been awarded to provide these five researchers with the opportunity to work closely with policymakers, right at the heart of the partner’s work. In collaboration with their partners, the researchers will work to develop outcomes that enhance our understanding of, and response to, societal challenges, and offer solutions to shape policy and practice.
The funded researchers are focusing on themes including:
- Evaluation of Local Growth Policies;
- Assessing the quality and value of services provided by the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Sector;
- Loneliness among marginalised groups
The 2023-24 Innovation Fellowship Scheme – Route B: Policy-Led (Central Government) awardees are:
Please note: Awards are arranged alphabetically by surname of the grant recipient. The institution is that given at the time of application.
Dr Amy Burnett
IFRBCG\240072
'Quantifying and valuing the multiple benefits, opportunities and challenges facing the VCSE sector'
Middlesex University
£61,570.40
The proposed fellowship aims to strengthen the underlying support network of the Voluntary, Charity and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector by taking a collaborative approach to assessing the social, environmental and economic metrics that account for place-based resilience in specific settings. In particular, the applicant will work with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to explore how social value can support local economic resilience. For instance, how specific meanings of growth, progress and resilience can be measured and accounted for and encourage comparison and peer-to-peer learning. The digitalisation of accessible data systems to support VCSEs is key here, particularly how to embed incentives that promote continual improvements in the resourcing of the VCSE sector and the role of the public and private sector in facilitating and evaluating VCSE-led innovation and outcomes. The work seeks to build on previous DCMS-commissioned and Middlesex University research in this area.
Dr Gloria Crabolu
IFRBCG\240015
'A Whole Systems Approach To Evaluating Net-zero Policies'
University of Exeter
£99,927.14
Achieving net-zero emissions is crucial for mitigating climate change and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. However, policy areas affecting net-zero goals have often previously been managed in isolation, overlooking the interconnections among the different parts of the system. This fellowship aims to develop a whole-systems evaluation approach of a specific area of net-zero policy, in collaboration with the systems team at the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero. This includes facilitating a participatory system mapping exercise, which will reveal the hidden impacts and mechanisms a specific programme has created. This analysis is intended to be used as a case study to inform the 2025 planned amendment of the Magenta Book – the UK national guidance on how to conduct evaluations. As part of the Magenta Book amendment, Gloria aims to run a consultation process on how systems approaches are used in evaluation across various UK Government departments. While focusing on these two main activities, the fellowship will also provide opportunities for Gloria to support the Evaluation Task Force’s day-to-day work, providing advice on evaluation approaches to programmes across government.
Dr Carolin Ioramashvili
IFRBCG\240021
'Evaluation of Local Growth Policies - Evaluation of Local Growth Policies'
University of Sussex
£67,462.40
The fellowship aims to identify barriers to evaluation of local growth policies and provide avenues for better evaluation. In the first phase of the fellowship, Carolin will be conducting interviews with stakeholders, including policymakers, academics and evaluators, and document reviews to identify and analyse these barriers. In the second phase, Carolin will explore solutions and develop proposals to implement them. Alongside this research there will also be opportunities for supporting the Evaluation Task Force’s day-to-day work, such as advising on evaluation plans related to local growth. Ultimately, the fellowship aims to improve local economic growth by helping identify impactful policies through better evaluation.
Dr Qianlan Wu
IFRBCG\240057
'Towards an Equitable, Progressive and Prosperous World Economy: The UK's leading role in bridging the normative gap and safeguarding the rule of law'
University of Nottingham
£111,538.42
The use of industrial policies and the national security measures pose challenges for the global trading framework. This project will look at the potential for innovative normative frameworks, which reflect plurality in government and market relationships and ensure fairness and prosperity. It will propose a distortion of market mechanism assessment framework based on the effects and proportionality tests, that supports the transparency in trade and investment control schemes. The success in the two fields will suggest ways that the UK can effectively achieve a balance between recognizing the new world economy and maintaining its prestige for open trade and investment.
Dr Keming Yang
IFRBCG\240027
'Experience and Stigma of Loneliness among Marginalized Groups in the UK'
Durham University
£119,618.42
There is an important gap of evidence about the stigma of loneliness, and few studies focus on marginalized groups’ loneliness experiences. This project analyses the stigma and experience of loneliness among marginalized groups in the UK, including ethnic minorities, forced migrants and refugees, people in poverty, physically and cognitively disabled people, and people of diverse identities of sexuality and gender. The project explores the evidence for different forms of stigma (self vs. public, perceived vs. actual, structural vs. interpersonal) by drawing on academic studies, mass and social media texts, and in-depth interviews. The results will reveal the extent, nature, and types of the stigma of loneliness experienced by different marginalized groups in the UK. Findings will help to identify further actions that the government, local authorities, charities, and health professionals can take to reduce stigma of loneliness and improve the mental wellbeing of the marginalized groups.
The awards listed are those for the Innovation Fellowships 2024-25 Route B: Policy-led (Central Government). Previous award announcements can be found on the Innovation Fellowships Scheme – Route B (Policy-led): past awards page.
Image credit: Nitat Termmee via GettyImages
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