RFPs: ODA Global Innovation Fellowships (UK)

This is the latest call for this ODA strand of the programme, offering opportunities for Global Innovation Fellowship award holders to work closely for a year with a partner organisation through a dedicated programme of activity and visits. The aim is to have a mutually beneficial partnership between the fellowship award holder and partner organisation in creative and cultural, public, private and/or policy sectors 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 outside academia, enabling knowledge mobilisation and translation, and the opportunity to develop new approaches and solutions to societal, cultural, commercial and/or policy challenges through providing a different perspective.

Focus Areas

• Applications are invited in any of the following areas:
  • Environment, sustainability and nature
    • Applications are welcome from researchers and partner organisations engaged in the broad areas of environment, sustainability and nature. This can include work related to climate change, environmental resilience, energy, biodiversity, just transitions, climate mitigation and adaptation, water, pollution, agriculture, conservation, food, and climate action for example.
  • Transformative technologies
    • Applications are welcome from researchers and partner organisations engaged in the design, accessibility, development, regulation and implementation of responsible technologies. This can include work related to various technologies such as AI, quantum, vaccines, robotics, and augmented reality, as well as how such technologies will shape the future of work, ways of living, governance and economic development for example.
  • Health and wellbeing
    • Applications are welcome from researchers and partner organisations engaged in the broad areas of health and wellbeing. This can include work related to the social determinants of health including social protection, education, employment, housing, food insecurity, early childhood development, social inclusion and health services; global health; pandemic preparedness, and antimicrobial resistance for example.
  • Cities and urbanization
    • Applications are welcome from researchers and partner organisations engaged in the broad areas of cities and urbanisation. This can include work related to urban space, city policymaking and planning, place-based policymaking, conflict, resilience and adaptation, governance, social inclusion, inequality and poverty, prosperity, climate action, lived experience and representation of the city for example.
  • Global order, geopolitics and international affairs
    • Applications are welcome from researchers and partner organisations engaged in the broad areas of global order, geopolitics and international affairs. This can include work related to foreign policy, international trade and finance, conflict, security, governance, civil society, civic activism, international development, and regional and international institutions for example.

Funding Information

• These are offered as awards for up to £120,000 for 12 months in duration (with Full Economic Costing at 80 per cent).
• Global Innovation Fellowships are required to commence by September 2025.
• Awards are for one year in duration.

Eligible Activities

• Evidence notes – reports, notes and responses to key challenges/approaches for developing connections with policy leaders or innovators
• Data analysis – identifying and analysing datasets that may be relevant to enhancing understanding and framing new solutions
• Case studies – exploring practical or policy-orientated solutions, engagement between academic and non-academic environments and the wider benefits to individuals/communities/regions
• Briefings/blogs/podcasts/videos and other outputs to reach a variety of audiences and environments, including policymakers (where relevant)
• Conferences/workshops/webinars/toolkits and other training opportunities which enable knowledge exchange

Eligible Costs

• Eligible costs will be funded under the following headings:
  • Directly incurred salary costs. The award can be used to support the employing institution’s salary costs of the Applicant for the duration of the award
  • Estates and indirect costs. The award can include the employing institution’s estate and indirect costs incurred as a result of direct staff costs.
  • Travel and research costs. The Academy will pay for travel and accommodation for the Lead Applicant to visit the partner organisation in country. In addition, applicants are welcome to set out costs for limited travel and research costs. This is expected to be for workshops only.

Ineligible Costs

• The following items are not eligible for funding (applicants registered with special needs may consult the Academy about possible exceptions prior to application):
  • Directly allocated salary costs. No directly allocated costs can be attributed to this award.
  • Purchasing of assets;
  • Equipment costs;
  • Computer hardware including laptops, electronic notebooks, digital cameras, etc;
  • Books and other permanent resources;
  • The preparation of camera-ready copy, copy-editing, proof-reading, indexing, nor any other editorial task;
  • Subventions for direct production costs (printing, binding, distribution, marketing etc);
  • Costs of publication in electronic media;
  • Carbon offsetting;
  • Open access fees.

Eligibility Criteria

• The British Academy is inviting applications from early-career and mid-career researchers who are working on the themes outlined below (paragraphs 28-32) 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 (eg, 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.
• In this call applicants must apply with a partner which they have identified, and who will be designated the ‘co-applicant’.
• 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 partner organisation.
• 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.
• ODA eligibility criteria:
  • This Programme is supported under the International Science Partnerships Fund and this call will fund only ODA-eligible projects.
  • Only research that has a primary objective which is directly and primarily relevant to the problems of developing countries may be counted as ODA. Applicants are required to demonstrate that the proposal is ODA eligible. ODA eligibility is an essential criterion – projects will only be deemed eligible for funding if they can demonstrate that they satisfy ODA eligibility criteria.

For more information, visit The British Academy.