Director Religion and Society Programme
Director, Religion and Society Programme
What is it?
A research programme is a strategic initiative intended to stimulate research in a priority area. Research councils like the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) channel government ‘science’ funding into such initiatives, whose themes are agreed each year by way of large-scale consultations within and beyond the academy.
When religion was identified as a priority area for research, the AHRC and ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) agreed to co-operate in funding the area. A key aim in so doing was to encourage cross-disciplinary research from the arts, humanities and social sciences.
What does it do?
A research programme is an umbrella for funding which calls for, co-ordinates and disseminates research in a priority area. It identifies key themes which need to be addressed, makes a public call to academics to submit bids for funded research projects, and commissions projects from amongst the bids it receives.
In other words, the Religion and Society Programme is not itself a research project, but a means of stimulating and funding a large number of research projects which are funded through it.
By the close of the Religion and Society Programme in 2012 it will have distributed its funds to a large number of separate projects. Thirty seven were commissioned in 2007, and many more will be commissioned in 2008 and 2009. Funding supports:
- Large and small research projects (typically involving at one or more fulltime academics, a research assistant, and sometimes a PhD student)
- Networks and workshops (designed to bring together scholars in an area of common interest to build links and to scope and initiate new research)
- Collaborative studentships (where a university and a non-academic institution collaborate to fund a PhD student researching an area of mutual interest).
What does the Director do?
The Director co-ordinates the Programme. She or he is the public face of the Programme, and the main link between the Research Councils and the academics and researchers whom it funds. It is the Director’s responsibility to make sure the Programme achieves its aims.
The Director is assisted by:
- Administrative staff in the AHRC and ESRC
- A Commissioning Panel of academics and stakeholders who make the final decisions about the applications which will be funded
- A Steering Committee of academics and stakeholders who oversee the Programme as it develops and advise the Director
- An administrator who directly assists the Director.
For more information about the Religion and Society Programme please go to religionandsociety.org.uk