The SWDTP offers funding not just to students and early career researchers, but also to academics. Not only that, but we’d love to hear about and report on the successes of academic colleagues affiliated with the SWDTP.
We have two pots of funding available for academics across our pathways and institutions, for both training and collaborative activities (even if you don’t currently supervise anyone within the SWDTP!)
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Higher Training Fund
The purpose of the funding is to support staff to develop Higher Training activities and events within the SWDTP. Academic colleagues employed by SWDTP partner institutions are eligible to apply for up to £1k; in exceptional circumstances we will fund more extensive programmes of work (up to £2k). To encourage an integrated approach, applications should be collaborative i.e. staff should liaise with colleagues at partner institutions within the SWDTP.
Higher Training can include a wide variety of activities, for instance: master classes in advanced quantitative and/or qualitative research skills, special lectures, seminars and master classes involving keynote guest speakers from other institutions (UK and/or worldwide), annual events bringing together students and staff from across the region. It is additional to core training delivered within an individual SWDTP [doctoral training] pathway. Some higher training will be discipline or subject specific, whilst other training may have a wider application. What constitutes higher training will differ between discipline areas. A method or theory considered to be advanced in one area of social science, may be deemed to be core to another. Training must be at least one day in length. Training activities can be delivered face to face and/or through online routes.
For further details download the application form
Example projects
VR in social science research
A multidisciplinary team of academic colleagues from the Universities of Bath, Bristol and Exeter, led by Prof. Debbie Watson (Bristol), were awarded Higher Training fund to host a workshop on Exploring Immersive Technologies in Social Science Research. It showcased studies using different VR technologies, with demonstrations and presentations by creatives, academics and PGRs.
Institutional ethnography workshop
Dr Adriana Suarez-Delucchi was awarded Higher Training fund to run a highly successful hands on workshop on Institutional Ethnography. Two case studies were presented, followed by practical opportunities for attendees to think, discuss and apply IE to their own research.
Academic-led Collaboration Fund
The SWDTP takes a broad interpretation of collaboration ranging from large innovative programmes to smaller bespoke activities, events and networks and encourages innovation and news ways of working. Proposals are normally up to £5k but in exceptional circumstances we will fund longer/larger-scale programmes of work (up to £10k). Co- or joint funding for events or activities is welcomed where possible.
Academic-led collaboration funding is particularly designed to encourage joint activities to be developed within and across SWDTP pathways, across disciplines, across institutions and (potentially) with external partners and organisations. This may include:
- workshops/events devised, developed & led by PGR students or experts in the field, on themes relevant to both disciplinary and inter-disciplinary working and future careers.
- workshops/events that focus on themes relevant to the challenges and opportunities of working across disciplines and may include collaboration with the wider CDT and DTP community, to facilitate collaboration with disciplines beyond the social sciences and specific ESRC remits
- collaborations between social scientists and organisations in the private, business, public and civic society sectors with the aim of furthering knowledge exchange and increasing research impact on policy and practice and promoting social science research to ‘non-traditional’ users.
Activities can be delivered face to face and/or through online routes.
For further details download the application form
Example projects
Secrecy Power and Ignorance Research Network (SPIN) event series
The Secrecy Power and Ignorance research Network (SPIN) ran a mixed series of workshops and online/live speaker and panel event sessions over the course of 20 months. The program promoted SPIN’s interdisciplinary expertise, and further developed SPIN’s existing connections with academics across the SWDTP, URIs and external creative partners.
Precarity, prosperity and everything in between
A team of social sciences and humanities academics and PGRs from the universities of Bath and Exeter were awarded academic-led collaboration fund to run an event exploring PGR’s social identities and implications for their mental wellbeing. Titled Precarity, prosperity and everything in between, the event consisted of creative, prompt-based, and topic-based discussions, and helped generate the outline of a follow-up research project.