The AHRC, working with RCUK partners as a part of the Global Uncertainties Programme, is pleased to announce the call for Global Uncertainties Leadership Fellows, offering the opportunity for outstanding researchers, from a range of disciplines including the full range of arts and humanities, to develop a suite of activities to maximise the value and impact of the Global Uncertainties Programme, alongside personal research.
The RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme brings together the activities of the seven UK Research Councils in response to global security challenges. The Programme helps governments, businesses and societies to better predict, detect, prevent and mitigate threats to security, focussing on six core areas:
- Ideologies and beliefs
- Terrorism
- Transnational organised crime
- Cyber security
- Threats to infrastructures
- Countering the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons and technologies
The Programme is now seeking to appoint a cohort of Leadership Fellows to help to provide further focus to the Programme and to maximise the impact from Research Council investments. The call builds on the success of the current AHRC/ESRC fellowships in Ideas and Beliefs but extends the scope to all the Programme themes. Fellowship funding will also enable Fellows to conduct a personal research programme, which should reflect the remits of participating Research Councils.
As the AHRC is one of the main Research Council funders of this call, we are particularly keen to attract a strong field of applications for the fellowship from leading researchers in the arts and humanities. Below are some illustrative examples of research areas under the Programme themes to which arts and humanities researchers might contribute:
- Interactions between issues of rights, liberties, humanitarianism, freedoms, and legal systems (including international law) and major security challenges, strategies and interventions, including approaches to tackling the tensions that can emerge and the roles of different actors (e.g. the state, international organisations, faith leaders etc).
- Learning from history and comparative research, for example in terms of: earlier forms of religious and ideologically-driven violent and dissenting movements and their evolution and containment; conflict resolution and reconciliation; approaches to trust building; development of failing states; and overseas interventions by states or international organisations
- Approaches to integrating consideration of ethics, justice and fairness in addressing security challenges
- Languages, representation (including metaphors, narratives and symbolism) of beliefs and conflict in policy discourses, in art and performance, in different media and in popular culture, and their use by various actors in conflict and security contexts (including by ‘extremist’ or ‘terrorist’ groups),
- Understanding the evolution of multi-culturalism, faith, belief systems, identities, global youth cultures, diversity, cohesion and their implications for addressing current and future potential security challenges; including for example, better understanding of how and when particular beliefs and ideologies lead to behaviours / action e.g. in terms of understanding the influence(r)s, ‘triggers’, ‘tipping points’ etc.
The above are intended as illustrative examples only and applications addressing other issues relevant to the Global Uncertainties themes will be very welcome. In addition potential applicants may wish to look at the current GU fellowships in Ideas and Beliefs for further examples of the range of research areas that might be covered by fellowships.
The RCUK Global Uncertainties Programme has up to £4.5 million of funding available, with contributions from Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). We anticipate funding eight to ten Fellows. Grants will be for a maximum of three years in length, for up to 60 per cent of the Fellows’ time (FTE basis). There will be an overall limit of £500,000 (full Economic Costing) per grant, with a cost to the Research Councils of £400k at 80 per cent.
Deadline for Expressions of Interest: 16.00 on Wednesday 28 September 2011 by email to global.uncertainties@esrc.ac.uk
The assessment of proposals will be a two-stage process. Applicants are initially required to submit by email a short Expression of Interest, using the application form and addressing the criteria given in the Programme specification. Expressions of Interest will be assessed and shortlisted by a panel of key programme stakeholders including eminent academics, high profile experts in the field and potential research users. Shortlisted applicants will subsequently be invited to submit a full proposal.
Deadline for Expressions of Interest: 16.00 on Wednesday 28 September 2011 by email to global.uncertainties@esrc.ac.uk.
Expression of Interest decisions will be announced in November 2011. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal by early January 2012, with successful applicants commencing August/September 2012.
All e-mail enquiries, and completed Expressions of Interest, should to be sent to global.uncertainties@esrc.ac.uk
Further information is available from:
Andrea Turner - 01793 413121
Zaneta Ulozeviciute - 01793 442876
John Wand - 01793 442824