Talent Development Awards

Aim of award

The British Academy has been funded by the UK government, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT, formerly known as BEIS) to continue its support for the Talent Development Awards scheme.

The aim of the scheme is to promote the building of skills and capacities for current and future generations, including in core areas like quantitative skills, interdisciplinarity, data science, digital humanities and languages. This scheme promotes the acquisition and advancement of skills in relevant areas by UK-based researchers, supporting innovative research methods, be that through skills development, collaboration or dissemination. The overarching aims of the scheme are to invest in UK talent and skills, and as a result, to contribute to the development and delivery of high quality regional, national and international research by:

• raising the quality of advanced quantitative skills and/or data science skills used in research, including digital methods;
• creating new opportunities for knowledge and skills to exchange across disciplines and sectors; and
• promoting language learning and the transferable skills that language learning provides.

The scheme is intended for established researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences with a current long-term appointment at a UK-based Higher Education Institution (HEI) or Independent Research Organisation (IRO) who wish to experiment with new methods that speak to the aims of the scheme, as above. Equally, it is intended for researchers who wish to explore new opportunities for skills development and knowledge translation. The awards will, in particular, be valuable to researchers wishing to pilot new methods and approaches in order to apply for larger grants in the longer term or develop new partnerships, be it locally, nationally or internationally. Applicants are encouraged to be creative in their thinking about how these awards can best help advance their research ideas, including through collaborative, partnership working. This scheme is designed to benefit the career, skills and talent of award-holders, and by extension, groups within or beyond academia who will also benefit from the sharing of skills and methods.

For full information about the Talent Development Awards scheme, please view our Scheme Guidance Notes and Frequently Asked Questions.

Eligibility

Eligible Lead Applicants must be ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom 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). Applicants for the Talent Development Awards should be intending to pursue original, independent research in any field of study within the Humanities or Social Sciences. There are no quotas for individual subject areas and no thematic priorities.

Lead Applicants who do not have a doctorate may have equivalent experience, which they should define in the personal statement section. Co-applicants may be based in the UK or overseas. They may have a doctorate or equivalent experience, or other specialist knowledge as appropriate to the aims of the scheme.

Level of grant

The maximum grant is £10,000. Awards are to enable engagement activities to take place and are not intended as time buy-out for the award-holder. This scheme is not offered on a Full Economic Costing (FEC) basis, and all of the grants awarded are expected to be used 100% for the purposes specified in the application. The awards are for a minimum period of 6 months and up to a maximum period of 12 months, starting from no earlier than 1 March 2024 and no later than 31 March 2024.