The British Academy UK-Latin American/ Caribbean Programme

The British academy’s Latin America and the Caribbean Panel have launched the 2010 initiative. This programme awards up to £20,000 to support a programme of seminars that involve both UK and Latin American and Caribbean scholars.

The current awards will go to programmes that run a seminar programme that disseminates knowledge and furthers research on a topic of mutual interest. Each programme must include at least two seminars; one must be held in the UK the other in Latin America or the Caribbean. Scholars from a number of institutions from within all these regions need to be involved. This scheme is aimed at strengthening existing academic links between and within these regions as well as giving the chance to initiate the development of new links.

This scheme is looking to incorporate:

A knowledge and sharing element
Two to three seminar participants will give lectures, attend meetings and take part in workshops within a one or two week time scale around the seminars
This is aimed at providing opportunities for younger scholars on both sides of the Atlantic to benefit form the interaction with key international participants.

The scope of the award must cover :

Workshops and seminars and may involve both staff and postgraduate students – please note international funding will NOT be provided for postgraduate students
Main purpose of funding is to cover travel and maintenance costs.

To be eligible the programme must cover the following criteria:

Applicants must be postdoctoral or equivalent – academic staff with at least one or two years teaching/research experience
The principal applicant must be ‘ordinarily resident’ in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands- ‘ordinarily resident’ as defined by Inland Revenue.
Both partners need to have input into the application UK and Latin America/Caribbean
Higher priority will be given to those that give a clear indication that the collaboration is based on consultation, partnership and with a future view for sustainability.

The principal applicant’s institution will need to endorse the proposal and outline briefly the resources that will be made available for the running of the workshops and resources.

Further information about these awards.

British Academy Small Research Grants

The British Academy has grants available to support primary research in the humanities and social sciences. Applications will not be considered for less than £500. The maximum figure for a small research grant is £7,500 over two years. Applications are welcomed from collaborative and individual projects equally. Applications from international groups of scholars are welcomed as long as there is a UK based scholar as the lead applicant.

When applying for a small research grant all applicants should demonstrate the following:
Academy funds are sort for a clearly defined piece of research
This must have an identifiable outcome on completion of the Academy-funded component of the research
The level of the award is up to £7,500 with the minimum being £500.
Grants are awarded for a 24 month period
There are two rounds annually for applications
Deadline for submissions for current applications is 15 March 2010
Results of these applications can be expected from Mid May 2010
Research needs to be taking place on or after 1 June 2010
All applications must be submitted via the e-Gap2 process.

Further details on British Academy grants

Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowships now open

Early career fellowships are aimed at those who are at a relatively early stage of their academic careers but with a proven record of research. One would anticipate that a Fellowship would lead to a more permanent academic position. Applicants are welcome from any discipline – approximately 70 fellowships will be available in 2010

Applicants criteria
May not currently hold, or have already held, a full-time established (i.e. permanent) academic position in a UK University or comparable institution in the UK.
Should normally hold a degree from a UK higher education institution by the time of taking up the Fellowship. Those without a UK degree will be considered if, at the time of application, they hold an academic position in the UK. It is likely that applications from candidates having an association with the UK academic community of less than two years' duration will be strengthened by a move of employing institution.
Should normally be under age 35 and hold an awarded doctorate or have equivalent research experience at the time of taking up the award. Applications from those aged 35 and over will be considered if they began their academic studies at a later age than is usual or if they have had a career change or break.
May, when registered for a doctorate, apply only if they have submitted their doctoral thesis by the closing date, and confirmation of this will be required as part of the application procedure.

Value
The Trust will contribute 50% of each Fellow's total salary costs up to a maximum of £23,000 per annum and the balance is to be paid by the host institution. Given the prestige of the awards each Fellow may request annual research expenses of up to £6000 to further his or her research activities.


Duration
Fellowships are available for either two or three years on a full-time basis, but requests to hold the award part-time over a proportionately longer period will be considered if this is appropriate for the nature of the research proposed and the career development of the individual. Fellowships will commence between the beginning of the 2010/2011 academic year and 1 May 2011.


Application Procedure
Applications through online application form. Applications must be submitted online by the closing date and time of 4.00pm on 11 March 2010.

Result will be reported, by letter, by the end of May 2010.

For further information visit http://www.leverhulme.org.uk/

British Academy International Partnerships (Africa/the Middle East/South Asia)

The British Academy’s Area Panels have developed and released the International Partnerships (Africa/ the Middle East/ South Asia) awards scheme for 2010. These awards are for up to £10,000 a year for up to a total of three years and they are available to support the further development of ongoing links between research centres or institutions within both the humanities and social sciences arenas within the UK and Africa/ the Middle East/ South Asia. The links the panel are looking for to be developed further would need to be on specific research themed of a mutual interest to all parties concerned. This research could be further developed with the help of the award through visits in both directions, a series of workshops seminars and lecture programmes as well as collaborative research and joint publications. The Panel would be looking for the programme to provide a part of a training programme from either of the institutions involved and would ideally also involve participation from more than one overseas institution, this could also involve more than one department or university group or centre based in the UK.

Aim of the award
The aim of this scheme is to nurture and grow links between the UK and Africa/ the Middle East/ South Asia with the emphasis being in the particular area of helping scholars to further develop their research skills and so produce a joint research outcome. All applicants for this award need ot have identified an academic partner that is based in an institution in Africa/ the Middle East/ South Asia that will act as the co-applicant on the award.

Scope of Award
When applying for this award bear in mind that priority will be given to projects that include a training element such as the support and development of staff or postgraduate students ( both in UK and overseas). The scheme is intended to benefit early-career scholars from the UK and overseas, the projects that will regarded most highly will be those that incorporate junior academics from both sides UK and overseas. Please note workshops and seminars should form an integral part of the scheme and should involve both staff and postgraduate students. It will be expected that each programme will produce papers or some other joint research outcome designed for publication.

Note: For the purposes of this scheme South Asia includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.

Level of Award
These grants are offered up to a maximum of £10,000 per year for up to 3 years

Period of Award
Up to 3 years, funding for years 2 and 3 will be conditional upon receipt of satisfactory annual progress reports.

Closing Date
20 April 2010 decisions to be announced mid-July

Further information can be found at http://www.britac.ac.uk/index.cfm

AHRC secures additional £4m to support ICT developments

The AHRC has secured £4m of capital funding to enhance access to leading-edge digital technologies and facilities by arts and humanities researchers and enhance impact from digital research outputs, such as databases, established with current or past AHRC or AHRB support.

The call is designed to enhance the UK’s research strengths in the arts and humanities, including the outputs from AHRC’s ICT Programme, and to complement existing activities, such as those supported through the RCUK Digital Economy Programme.

The call has two strands, the first relating to access to leading-edge digital equipment, resources ands facilities, the second the development of AHRB/C digital research outputs to ensure long-term sustainability and accessibility of those resources.

Proposals can be submitted with a minimum full economic cost of £50,000 and a maximum full economic cost of £1,000,000. Projects will be expected to start on 1 March 2010 and run for periods of up to one year. The closing date for the receipt of applications is 4pm on Thursday 5 November 2009.

For further information, please go to the Digital Equipment and Database Enhancement for Impact funding opportunity page.

source: AHRC website

Music Department Research Seminar

Title:Acoustics applied to manufacturing processes and organology. The case of the piano
Date:16 September 2009 – 2:00 pm
Venue:Room MR11 – Second Floor, Wilson Building A, Open University
Speaker: Adrien Mamou-Mani (Newton Research Fellow, OU)

I will present two previous studies I carried out concerning the physics of the piano. The first one is a modelling of the “downbearing”, the downward load applied by the strings on the piano soundboard. Following the opinions of makers, its adjustment is crucial for the mechanical stability and the acoustical quality of the instrument. I will present some effects of this load on the vibration properties of the soundboards. An emphasis will be done on unusual values of downbearing, which induce very large amplitude vibration. The second study deals with the dynamical behaviour of a historical piano action. The organological question asked by the piano curator at the Musee de la musique in Paris was: Is the simple escapement action of Erard pianos different than the English grand piano action? I will propose an answer using both experiments with a high-speed camera and numerical models of one Erard action and one Broadwood action.

Open Briefing Session on the University's Research Strategy

PVC (Research & Enterprise) Professor Brigid Heywood will lead an open briefing session on the University's research strategy for the next five years.
Questions are welcome via e-mail either before or during the event and can be sent to strategy-rae@open.ac.uk. All OU staff are welcome to attend.

The event will be webcast via KMi Stadium (see: [stadium.open.ac.uk])