Mid-Career Fellowship Competition – Launch Announcement
The ISRF has launched its seventh Mid-Career Fellowship competition. Deadline for applications: 5pm GMT, 28th March 2024.
ISRF Mid-Career Fellowship Competition
Providing Research Support in Interdisciplinary Social Science
The Independent Social Research Foundation wishes to support independent-minded researchers to explore and present original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems. Such work would be unlikely to be funded by existing funding bodies.
The Foundation intends to award on a competitive basis, to candidates of sufficient merit, a number of grants providing buy-out funding (teaching & admin salary replacement) for a period of (up to) one year.
Scholars from within Europe are eligible to apply. Applicants will normally hold a full-time or part-time salaried position – which may be permanent or fixed-term – at an Institution of Higher Education and Research. Candidates should be 10 years or more from the year of their PhD award. However, a shorter time from PhD award may exceptionally be considered, if the candidate has other qualifications to be considered as mid-career (these might include: length of appointment to permanent post, seniority, teaching responsibilities).
Eligible Research
Innovative research which breaks with existing explanatory frameworks so as to address afresh empirical problems with no currently adequate theory or investigative methodology. Innovation may also come from controversial theoretical approaches motivated by critical challenge of incumbent theories. Interdisciplinarity in the generation of new investigative initiatives may be achieved by combining, cross-fertilising, and so transforming empirical methods and theoretical insights from the social sciences. Projects ranging across the breadth of the social scientific disciplines and interdisciplinary research fields are welcome, and relevant applications from scholars working within the humanities are also encouraged.
Award Value
The amount of an award depends on the nature of the work proposed and individual circumstances – the ISRF expects applications for grants up to a maximum of €100,000 (or GBP equivalent)† to buy-out the cost of all teaching and associated administration in the applicant’s home institution for up to 12 months. Within that sum, reasonable support for research expenses may be considered on a matched-funding basis with the host Institution.
Where home institutions are unable to comply with the matched-funding requirement for research expenses, applications will still be considered – an explanatory note from the relevant Head of School/Head of Department/Research Manager should be submitted as an attachment. Note also that applications without any research expenses component are also accepted.
† PLEASE NOTE: Applicants based in the UK must apply in GBP (£), up to the limit of £85,000. All other applicants must apply in EUR (€), up to the limit of €100,000. These limits will not be adjusted in the event of GBP/EUR currency fluctuations.
Applicants should consult the Criteria as set out in the Further Particulars and show that they meet them. Applicants are expected to submit their complete application electronically via the online application system, in English.