The British Academy announces nine Talent Development Awards to support innovative research in SHAPE disciplines

The British Academy has announced nine Talent Development Awards for researchers across the UK to support innovative research methods in the SHAPE disciplines. Funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the award scheme is now in its second year following a successful pilot in 2021. It is designed to promote the acquisition of new skills in areas such as data science, digital humanities and languages.

The awards are for up to £10,000, enabling a range of engagement activities to take place across a maximum period of 12 months. The successful researchers include those looking at the role of sign language interpreters in the workplace, misinformation in everyday life and the demystification of game engines.

The Talent Development awardees are:

• ‘Heteroskedastic Proxy Vector Autoregressions’ – Dr Martin Bruns, University of East Anglia
• ‘Analysing Nazi Language Using Digital Techniques’ – Dr Joseph Cronin, Queen Mary University of London
• ‘Developing Employability Skills Through Language Learning: a Pilot Project with Adult Learners in the Colchester Area’ – Dr Antonio Da Silva, University of Essex
• ‘Signs of Connection’ – Professor Joanna Drugan, Heriot-Watt University
• ‘Quantitative Analysis Skills to Bring Together Literary and Demographic Datasets’ – Dr Helen Kingstone, Royal Holloway, University of London
• ‘Game Engines – New Tools, New Practices, New Paradigms’ – Dr Tom Livingstone, University of the West of England, Bristol
• ‘Climate Keywords: Towards a Digital Analysis of Environmental Concepts in the UN Corpus’ – Dr John Regan, Royal Holloway, University of London
• ‘Misinformation in Everyday Life: Portable Principles for Blending Qualitative and Quantitative Social Media Research’ – Dr Robert Topinka, Birkbeck, University of London
• ‘Kafka in Korea: A Case Study for Diversifying Modern Languages’ – Dr Karolina Watroba, University of Oxford