The British Academy: Funding call: Global Innovation Fellowships #SAIIA

Funding Call: Global Innovation Fellowships – South African Institute of International Affairs

The British Academy is now inviting applications to the Global Innovation Fellowships. The programme is supported under the UK government’s International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF). The £337 million fund is designed to enable potential and foster prosperity. It puts research and innovation at the heart of our international relationships, supporting UK researchers and innovators to work with peers around the world on the major themes of our time: planet, health, tech, and talent. The fund is managed by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and delivered by a consortium of the UK’s leading research and innovation bodies.

The objective of the Global Innovation Fellowships is to provide opportunities to UK-based early- and mid-career researchers from across the humanities and social sciences to develop their skills, networks and careers in the creative and cultural, public, private and policy sectors to address challenges that require innovative approaches and solutions. Through the Global Innovation Fellowships, researchers in the SHAPE community will be supported to create new and deeper links beyond academia, enabling knowledge mobilisation and translation, as well as individual skills development.  

Aims   

This is the first call for this ODA strand of the programme, offering opportunities for ODA Global Innovation Fellowship award holders to embed themselves with the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), in their South Africa office (Johannesburg or Cape Town). Applications that are not considered ODA-eligible will not be taken forward through the assessment process.

SAIIA is is an independent public policy think tank advancing a well-governed, peaceful, economically sustainable and globally engaged Africa. Established in 1934, it now covers key areas of African governance, foreign policy, economic development, climate and natural resources and global economic governance. It provides local and regional decision-makers with independent, evidence-based options for Africa’s future development.

Applications are invited in any of the following areas:

• Democracy and Governance in Africa. A Fellowship in this area could explore various issues related to democracy and governance in Africa. This could include: the integrity and credibility of elections in Africa; conflicts exacerbated by elections; opposition challenges to election results; the resurgence of coups in Africa, especially in the Sahel; the effectiveness of African censures for unconstitutional changes of government; the stagnation and decline of governance, despite instruments such as the African Peer Review Mechanism; the effects of geopolitical shifts on democracy and governance in Africa; and how democracy and governance intersect with, for example, corruption, accountability gaps and migration issues. Research on the effects of technology on governance and democracy in Africa would also be of interest.

Climate Finance. Significant financing is required to address climate change, particularly in developing countries, which are most vulnerable to climate impacts. To date, however, climate finance commitments have been inadequate and largely focused on mitigation, whereas developing countries have emphasised that adaptation and loss & damage are priorities. Increasingly, the call for enhanced climate finance is couched within broader demands for global financial architecture reform. A fellowship in this area could include: green taxonomies, green bonds and related financial and regulatory instruments; implementation of the global goal on adaptation; loss & damage financing; debt and tax reform as it relates to climate finance.

• Critical Minerals. In order to achieve global net-zero emissions by 2050, renewable energy deployment must expand immensely. This will require a significant increase in critical mineral inputs. The USA, EU and others are increasingly turning to trade and industrial policy interventions to promote green industries and ensure adequate and reliable supply of critical minerals, challenging China’s dominance of critical mineral value chains. Africa and other developing regions, in turn, have articulated their own ambitions to process their minerals domestically and move up green technology value chains. A Fellowship in this area could include: assessing EU, US, Chinese and other policy and engagement initiatives; exploring governance aspects of the surge in critical mineral demand; and assessment of local value addition initiatives and regulatory interventions being applied in developing regions.

 

• Re-imagining Democracy and Building Anticipatory Governance in Africa. This Fellowship will enable the successful applicant to apply strategic foresight and complex systems approaches in collaboration with SAIIA’s Futures team. The focus will be on exploring the anticipatory assumptions of policymakers about future African democracies and developing contextually appropriate alternatives suitable for accelerated cyber and digital developments. By building anticipatory capabilities with key stakeholders, the Fellowship aims to co-create experimental and transformative practices to re-imagine African democratic processes and societal engagement. Drawing on open-ended participatory engagement and diverse prototypes, the Fellowship endeavours to initiate anticipatory governance within key African Union (AU) bodies to navigate the metacrisis.

Eligibility requirements   

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 UK 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.

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. We 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 SAIIA. Applicants must also meet the requirements set out in the ‘Working at and with the SAIIA’ section in our scheme guidance notes.

Applicants may not hold more than one British Academy award of a comparable nature at any one time.

Value and duration  

Global Innovation Fellowships will have a maximum award value of £150,000 on an 80 per cent Full Economic Costing (FEC) basis. The award is intended to be made on a full-time basis.

The cost of relocation, visas and any associated costs for the applicant and their dependants are eligible under this programme.

Application process  

Expressions of Interest must be submitted online using the British Academy’s Grant Management System (GMS), Flexi-Grant®.

Expressions of Interest must be submitted by Wednesday 27 November 2024, 17:00 (GMT).

Contact details

Email: international@thebritishacademy.ac.uk