Innovation Fellowships 2024-25 – Route B: Policy-led (Digital Society)

Scheme overview

The British Academy has been funded by the UK Government, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to continue its support of the Innovation Fellowships scheme. The Innovation Fellowships scheme is a dual-route scheme designed to enable researchers in the humanities and social sciences to partner with organisations and businesses in the creative and cultural, public, private, commercial, or policy sectors that have a base in the UK, to address challenges that require innovative approaches and solutions that are relevant to the UK. Both routes require an established researcher to work with a UK-based partner organisation on a specified policy or societal challenge that contributes to the aims of the scheme for a period of up to one year.

The Innovation Fellowships scheme has two routes:

Route B: Policy-led

The British Academy is inviting applications for funding for policy-led Innovation Fellowships (Route B), through which applicants must apply to work with one of our partners. Our partner for this funding call (Route B: Policy-led; Digital Society) is the Department for Education (DfE), specifically within the Unit for Future Skills, an analytical and research unit in the department. To learn more about the Route B: Policy-led Digital Society Call and apply, stay on this webpage. There are expected to be further calls in relation to Digital Society in 2024-25.

This scheme provides funding and support for established early-career and mid-career researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences (the SHAPE disciplines) to partner with organisations and businesses in the creative and cultural, public, private, commercial, or policy sectors that have a base in the UK, to address challenges that require innovative approaches and solutions that are relevant to the UK. Through the Innovation Fellowships, our researchers in the SHAPE community are supported to create new and deeper links beyond academia, enabling knowledge mobilisation and translation, as well as individual skills development.

This call will enable researchers to partner with a central government department, the Department for Education (DfE), for 12 months. Successful applicants will work within specific policy areas set out by the department. These policy areas broadly correlate to the British Academy’s own Digital Society policy programme, which covers similar themes.

Fellows will work with the Unit for Future Skills, an analytical and research unit within the Department for Education working to improve the quality of jobs and skills data, and which operates across government to make this available and more accessible to policymakers, stakeholders, and the general public. This Fellowship will be working with and alongside teams within the Skills Strategy and Engagement Division but will also be conducting independent research and analysis. The central topic that Fellows will be working on is on understanding AI Skills across the UK.

Fellows working with the DfE will conduct research on topics such as:

• the nature of the emerging AI skills in the UK, across sectors, regions, and career stages, and its future trajectories;
• the social, economic, and cultural impacts of the current distribution of AI skills in the UK, and the impacts of different strategies to improve this;
• the development and maintenance of effective AI skills partnerships;
• studies of alternative AI skills strategies, both from within the UK and abroad.

The list of topics above is not exhaustive, and in their applications researchers are welcome to make the case for other topics related to AI skills that they could work on. It is expected that projects will produce findings that can inform policy questions around the AI skills landscape. Please see further information in the scheme and application guidance and frequently asked questions.

Scheme opens date: 24 April 2024

Application deadline: 26 June 2024 17:00 UK time

Starting period of award: between 1-31 October 2024

Duration of award: awards are for 12 months in duration

Level of award

Route B (Policy-led) awards are on the basis of Full Economic Costing (FEC) at 80%. The British Academy will award up to £120,000. The Lead Applicant must commit between 0.4 and 0.8 FTE time to the Fellowship.

Eligibility

Applicants must be ordinarily resident in the UK with a current long-term appointment that will continue for at least as long as the period of the award at a UK-based institution (HEI or IRO); and be at early- or mid-career stage. Applicants must also meet the requirements set out in the Scheme Guidance Notes in the ‘Working at and with DfE section’; in particular, the requirements about security clearance.

Route A Researcher-led

The researcher-led Innovation Fellowships (Route A), through which applicants must apply with a partner which they have identified, are not currently running. To learn more about previous calls, please view the Innovation Fellowships Route A Researcher-led page.