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

The British Academy today announces the successful applicants to its 2021 round of research funding under the Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research scheme.

Funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the seven new research projects supported under this programme bring together novel, interdisciplinary ideas from across the humanities and social sciences in collaboration with the natural, medical and engineering sciences to propose solutions to international challenges past and present.

From climate change and ecosystem disruption, to migration, population growth and the role of new technologies in societies, the funded researchers will seek to strengthen understanding of challenges and opportunities. They will also engage with questions concerning the relationship between expertise, public understanding and policy delivery internationally.

Professor Simon Goldhill, Foreign Secretary & Vice-President of the British Academy, said:

“We are delighted to be supporting these innovative, interdisciplinary research collaborations. Each of these projects brings together a broad range of expertise to inform novel responses to contemporary problems, addressing a diverse range of global issues and underscoring the importance of collective engagement between disciplines and between communities of research, practice and policy. I look forward to following the projects’ progress over the next 24 months.”

The 2021 award holders are:

• Dr Anna Davidson, University of Huddersfield – Mining for Meaning: the Geoethics of Extractive Industries 
• Dr Lucy Earle, IIED – The Urban Refugee Dividend – Rethinking Humanitarian Aid as Urban WASH Investment 
• Dr Kaysara Khatun, University of Greenwich –The Big Seaweed Search, Mexico: A Citizen Science Approach to Resolve Local Environmental and Societal Challenges in a Time of Global Climate Crisis
• Dr Mark Nesbitt, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew – Reconciling Medical Knowledge Communities: Learning from the History of Indian Plant Drugs
• Dr Rachel Opitz, University of Glasgow – Developing a Method for Studying the Critical Zone: Connecting Archaeological and Precision Agricultural Approaches to Agrarian Landscapes by Making their Advanced Sensing Data interoperable 
• Dr Mark Reed, SRUC – Tropical Peatland Climate Resilience: Transforming Governance of Climate Risks for Poverty Reduction in Indonesia, Peru and the Congo Basin 
• Dr Lutgarde Vandeput, British Institute at Ankara –Water in Istanbul: Rising to the Challenge?

For more information about this programme, visit the Knowledge Frontiers: International Interdisciplinary Research page on the British Academy’s website.