Global Innovation Fellowships: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (UK)

Through the Global Innovation Fellowships, researchers in the SHAPE community will be supported to create new and deeper links beyond academia, so enabling knowledge mobilisation and translation, as well as individual skills development.

This programme is supported under the UK Government’s International Science Partnerships Fund. The £119m International Science Partnerships Fund is designed to enable potential and foster prosperity. It puts research and innovation at the heart of the UK’s international relationships, supporting UK researchers and innovators to work with peers around the world on the major themes of the time. It’s managed by the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology. Delivered by a consortium of the UK’s leading research and innovation bodies.

This is a new programme for the British Academy and in this pilot phase they are delighted to be offering opportunities for Global Innovation Fellowship award holders to embed themselves and be based in the offices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In a complex, changing, and increasingly contested world, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace generates strategic ideas and independent analysis, supports diplomacy, and trains the next generation of international scholar-practitioners to help countries and institutions take on the most difficult global problems and safeguard peace. It is recognized as the leading global foreign policy think tank. Carnegie’s experts are thinkers and doers from diverse disciplines and perspectives working together across borders on issues such as democracy, technology, and climate change with deep expertise and understanding of regional contexts in Asia, Africa, Europe, India, the Middle East, and Russia and Eurasia.

The aim is to have a mutually beneficial partnership between the fellowship award holder and Carnegie with each able to take advantage of fresh perspectives and expand their networks and reach. It will enable the award holder to strengthen and create new links across policy and academia, enabling knowledge mobilisation and translation, and the opportunity to develop new approaches and solutions to policy challenges through providing a different perspective.

Scope of the Fellowships

• Applications are invited in any of the following five areas:
  • Sustainability, Climate and Geopolitics: A Fellowship in this area would focus on the interlocking and existential climate, sustainability and nature-based challenges of the time. Ensuring just transitions whilst tackling climate change and biodiversity loss is key to supporting inclusive economies and societies in the future.
  • Technology and International Affairs: A Fellowship in this area would explore the interaction of technological innovation and international affairs.
  • Democracy, Conflict & Governance: A Fellowship in this area could explore a range of global democracy, conflict and governance issues, and the interrelations among them.
  • Global Order and Institutions: A Fellowship in this area could explore a wide range of challenges and perspectives on global order and disorder, as well as international institutions. There is no single solution to the challenges of global (dis)order.
  • Nuclear Policy: Nuclear dangers are increasing, yet remain largely underappreciated. Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program works to strengthen international security by diagnosing acute nuclear risks, informing debates on solutions, and engaging international actors to effect change.

Benefits

• Level of award: The Academy is offering up to three one-year fellowships hosted in Carnegie’s offices in the USA (Washington DC or California). These are offered as awards for up to £150,000 for 12 months in duration (with Full Economic Costing at 80%).
• Starting period of award: Global Innovation Fellowships are expected to commence by September 2024. An earlier start date of March or April 2024 may be possible, in this case the applicant will need to explain how they will plan and manage their relocation on this faster timeline.

Reporting

• Award holders are required to complete three reports:
  • An interim report at the midpoint of the Fellowship reporting on progress and lessons learnt to date.
  • A final report from award holders within three months of the award’s end, detailing the progress of the activities in which they participated.
  • A post-award report three years after the award’s end showing the impact of the award on their subsequent career.

Eligibility Criteria

• The British Academy is inviting applications from early-career and mid-career researchers who are working on the themes outlined below who could contribute fresh perspectives to the specified challenges. Please note that applications from independent researchers cannot be accepted in this round of the scheme.
• Applicants might have expertise from a range of disciplinary, conceptual and methodological perspectives, including analytical, policy and practical perspectives.
• Eligible 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. You must be an early-career or mid-career researcher based at an institution in the UK (e.g., a Higher Education Institution [HEI] or Independent Research Organisation [IRO]), from disciplines within the Humanities and Social Sciences that is listed as an approving-organisation in the British Academy’s grant management system, Flexi-Grant. This institution will be issued the Terms and Conditions of the award, if successful.
• This is an opportunity for award holders to form new collaborations and draw on the insights this brings to inform, influence and develop their future development. They seek open-mindedness, a willingness to explore new perspectives and to experiment with innovative approaches. You will have an appetite for working across academia, policy and practice, and will demonstrate a commitment to being genuinely challenge driven and dedicated to integrating the perspectives, needs and priorities of the partner organisation.
• All applicants should strongly consider the potential for engagement between academic and non-academic environments and the value this would bring to their career and the value they can bring to the work and purpose of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
• Applicants must also meet the requirements set out below in the ‘Working at and with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’ section.
• Applicants may not hold more than one British Academy award of a comparable nature at any one time.
• Postgraduate students are not eligible to apply for grant support from the Academy, and Applicants are asked to confirm in the personal details section(s) that they are not currently working towards a PhD, nor awaiting the outcome of a viva voce examination, nor awaiting the acceptance of any corrections required by the examiners.

Selection Criteria

• All eligible proposals submitted in response to this call will be assessed by relevant peer reviewers and then considered by a final selection panel, which will conduct interviews with a shortlist of applicants.
• Applications will be assessed against the following criteria:
  • The research expertise of the applicant in their chosen area of interest from paragraphs 16-20;
  • The experience and interest of the applicant in engaging closely with policy counterparts;
  • The anticipated benefit and impact on the policymaking process in the chosen area of interest and the applicant’s future policy engagement ambitions;
  • The ability of the applicant to engage orally in their chosen research area of expertise, and particularly to be able to provide policy relevant, clear and succinct oral briefings (will be assessed at interview if applicants are invited to interview);
  • Value for money.
• All applicants will be notified of the outcome of the application in January 2024.
• The approving organisation will be asked to give its consent before the award is confirmed.

For more information, visit The British Academy.