As part of its ongoing effort to invest in its membership, Socrel invites applications for seed corn funding to support the development of significant and innovative work in the sociology of religion.
This competition is open to Socrel members at any stage of their careers who are also members of the British Sociological Association (BSA) and based at a UK university.
We will make one award of up to £5000 to be used in 2021.
The deadline for applications is 15th January 2020. Applicants will be notified of the outcome by end of January/early February 2020.
This award may be spent, in line with the BSA’s terms and conditions, on travel, subsistence, a one-off work package delivered by a third party e.g. event recording, transcription, research expenses e.g. equipment, software, printing, but not salary or indirect costs/overheads/full economic costing (fEC). We are open-minded as to the type of activity the seed corn funding is used for, for example, a writing workshop, pilot fieldwork, but it must be clearly designed to develop further work.[1]
We welcome applications from groups of members. In this instance, there must be a designated lead applicant who is a Socrel and BSA member and all co-applicants must have at least Socrel membership.
Any seed corn activity must be undertaken in line with the (lead) applicant’s university’s codes of ethics and conduct and data protection policies. The BSA will pay the award to the successful (lead) applicant’s institution once an invoice has been received.
The application form (see appendix A), the lead applicant CV, and short CVs for any other co-applicant named (if applicable) must be emailed to the Socrel Convenor, Céline Benoit (c.benoit@aston.ac.ukmailto:c.benoit@aston.ac.uk).
A note of support for the proposal from the (lead) applicant’s line manager/head of department/postgraduate supervisor/institutional point of contact should also be emailed separately to Céline by the competition closing date.
Criteria:
Applications will be judged by the Socrel Chair, another Socrel committee member, and two independent volunteer Socrel members, using the following criteria, which are ranked in descending order, using the criteria used by the RCUK
1. Eligibility of applicant(s): affiliation to a UK university; Socrel AND BSA membership for the (lead) applicant and at least Socrel membership for any co-applicants;
2. Innovation;
3. Significance;
4. Clarity of pathway to output(s) and/or outcome(s) e.g. a research project proposal, publicly
available report, film, journal article, social impact[2];
5. Applicant background and experience and proposal match;
6. Benefit to Sociology of Religion in the UK;
7. Value for money.
Please email c.benoit@aston.ac.uk<mailto:c.benoit@aston.ac.uk> if you have any queries.
[1] Any event(s) organised should not clash with any Socrel-run ones or the BSA annual conference (please check the Socrel website or with Socrel Events Officer Rachael Shillitoe (rachael.shillitoe@york.ac.uk<mailto:rachael.shillitoe@york.ac.uk>) if unsure of scheduling).
[2] Here we follow the Economic and Social Research Council’s definition of social impact, please visit https://esrc.ukri.org/research/impact-toolkit/what-is-impact/ for details.