Digital Humanities Project in Classics

Elton Barker has recently joined the Faculty as a lecturer in Classics (from Oxford) and has brought with him the HESTIA (the Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Imaging Archive) project. He is Principle Investigator for HESTIA, working with Stefan Buzar (University of Birmingham), Chris Pelling (University of Oxford) and Leif Isaksen (University of Southampton).

HESTIA provides a new approach towards conceptions of space in the ancient world, supported by a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). Combining a variety of different methods, it examines the ways in which space is represented in Herodotus' History, in terms of places mentioned and geographic features described. It develops visual tools to capture the 'deep' topological structures of the text, extending beyond the usual two-dimensional Cartesian maps of the ancient world.

The project website is at: http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/hestia/index.html. Before the end of the year the project team are planning to post some initial results, including a spatial database (with a user-friendly set of queries that can be asked of it) and various maps that it can generate. They are also looking at developing a 'bookline', (a timeline linked to a map showing how certain places/regions come in and out of focus in the literature over time).

For more about the project, listen to a presentation by Elton Barker on 31 July, which can be downloaded from http://www.digitalclassicist.org/wip/wip2009.html along with the PowerPoint slides.

For more information about Digital Humantities projects in the Classics see The Digital Classicist website at http://www.digitalclassicist.org/. The Digital Classicist is a decentralised and international community of scholars and students interested in the application of innovative digital methods and technologies to research on the ancient world. The Digital Classicist is not core funded, and nor is it owned by any institution. The main purpose of this site is to offer a web-based hub for discussion, collaboration and communication.

British Academy Research Development Awards (BARDAs)

Deadline to notify REST of intention to bid: 23 October 2009
Faculty deadline to complete application form: 27 November 2009

The British Academy launched its new online electronic grant administration processing system, e-GAP2, on 20 August 2009. If you are thinking of applying to one of the research grant programmes it is worth learning about e-GAP2 (see: http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=1136) and you can register as a user as soon as the call opens so that you can see what is required for the application.

BARDAs are offered for established UK-based scholars to develop a significant collaborative or individual research project, providing a flexible package of support, including research leave, research expenses, workshops and visits by or to partner scholars. Awards are offered on an FEC basis, up to £150,000 (of which the BA meets 80%). Priority is given to applicants who have at least five years postdoctoral experience.

• Annual competition (two-stage process)
• Applications available from: 2 November 2009. It will not be possible to access application forms before these dates. Paper-based applications will not be accepted.
• Funder deadline for submission of applications: 15 December 2009
• Results of outline stage expected: end January 2010
• Research beginning on or after: 1 June 2010
• A smaller group of the most outstanding applicants will then be invited to submit second-stage applications for a deadline in March 2010, final decisions in May

For full guidance on British Academy Research Development Awards (BARDAs) see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide/barda.cfm

For details of all the recently announced British Academy deadlines see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/index.cfm

British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowships

Deadline to notify REST of intention to bid: 23 October 2009
Faculty deadline to complete application form: 18 November 2009

The British Academy launched its new online electronic grant administration processing system, e-GAP2, on 20 August 2009. If you are thinking of applying to one of the research grant programmes it is worth learning about e-GAP2 (see: http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=1136) and you can register as a user as soon as the call opens so that you can see what is required for the application.

Senior Research Fellowships are offered for established scholars working at UK universities providing a period of research leave during which they will be able to concentrate on bringing a major piece of research towards completion while their normal teaching and administrative duties are covered by a full-time replacement. Awards are tenable for 1 year from autumn 2010.

• Annual Competition
• Applications available from: 22 October 2009. It will not be possible to access application forms before these dates. Paper-based applications will not be accepted.
• Funder deadline for submission of applications: 7 December 2009
• Results expected: early March 2010
• Research beginning on or after: 1 September 2010

For full guidance on British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowships see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide/srf.cfm

For details of all the recently announced British Academy deadlines see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/index.cfm

British Academy Conference Support Grants

Deadline to notify REST of intention to bid: 12 October 2009
Faculty deadline to complete application form: 12 November 2009

The British Academy launched its new online electronic grant administration processing system, e-GAP2, on 20 August 2009. If you are thinking of applying to one of the research grant programmes it is worth learning about e-GAP2 (see: http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=1136) and you can register as a user as soon as the call opens so that you can see what is required for the application.

Conference Support Grants are offered of between £1,000 and £20,000 to promote the dissemination of advanced research. Conference convenors may apply for financial assistance, e.g. to bring key speakers to the UK, or for a wider range of expenses.

• Two rounds annually
• Applications available from: 15 October 2009. It will not be possible to access application forms before these dates. Paper-based applications will not be accepted.
• Funder deadline for submission of applications: 1 December 2009
• Results expected: end January 2010
• Conferences happening on or after: 1 February 2010

For full guidance on Conference Support Grants see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide/confs.cfm

For details of all the recently announced British Academy deadlines see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/index.cfm

British Academy Small Research Grants

Deadline to notify REST of intention to bid: 12 October 2009
Faculty deadline to complete application form: 4 November 2009

The British Academy launched its new online electronic grant administration processing system, e-GAP2, on 20 August 2009. If you are thinking of applying to one of the research grant programmes it is worth learning about e-GAP2 (see: http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=1136) and you can register as a user as soon as the call opens so that you can see what is required for the application.

Grants are offered of up to £7,500 for collaborative or individual projects to facilitate initial project planning and development, to support the direct costs of research, and to enable the advancement of research through workshops or by visits by or to partner scholars.

• Two rounds annually
• Applications available from: 7 October 2009. It will not be possible to access application forms before these dates. Paper-based applications will not be accepted.
• Funder deadline for submission of applications: 23 November 2009
• Results expected: end January 2010
• Research taking place on or after: 1 February 2010

For full guidance on Small Research Grants see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide/srg.cfm

For details of all the recently announced British Academy deadlines see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/index.cfm

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships

Deadline to notify REST of intention to bid: 12 October 2009
Faculty deadline to complete application form: 9 November 2009

The British Academy launched its new online electronic grant administration processing system, e-GAP2, on 20 August 2009. If you are thinking of applying to one of the research grant programmes it is worth learning about e-GAP2 (see: http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=1136) and you can register as a user as soon as the call opens so that you can see what is required for the application.

Postdoctoral Fellowships provide a career development opportunity for outstanding early career researchers who have not yet been appointed to a permanent academic post, to strengthen their experience of research and teaching in a university environment, offering employment for three years.

• Research beginning on or after: 1 September 2010
• Annual competition (two-stage process)
• Applications available from: 28 September 2009. It will not be possible to access application forms before these dates. Paper-based applications will not be accepted.
• Funder deadline for submission of outline proposals: 26 November 2009
• Results of outline stage expected: January 2010
• A smaller group of the most outstanding applicants will then be invited to submit second-stage applications for a deadline in March 2010, final decisions in May.

For full guidance on Postdoctoral Fellowships see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide/pdfells.cfm

For details of all the recently announced British Academy deadlines see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/index.cfm

British Academy Overseas Conference Grants

Deadline to notify REST of intention to bid: 16 October 2009
Faculty deadline to complete application form: 30 October 2009

The British Academy launched its new online electronic grant administration processing system, e-GAP2, on 20 August 2009. If you are thinking of applying to one of the research grant programmes it is worth learning about e-GAP2 (see: http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=1136) and you can register as a user as soon as the call opens so that you can see what is required for the application.

Overseas Conference Grants are simple travel grants towards the travel expenses of scholars delivering a paper at a conference overseas.

• Two rounds annually
• Applications available from: 1 October 2009. It will not be possible to access application forms before these dates. Paper-based applications will not be accepted.
• Funder deadline for submission of applications: 16 November 2009
• Results expected: end December 2009
• Conferences taking place on or after: 1 January 2010

For full guidance on Overseas Conference Grants see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide/ocg.cfm

For details of all the recently announced British Academy deadlines see: http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/index.cfm

Briefing Events for Researchers Considering Applying for ERC Starting Grants

Following the launch of the latest Call for Starting Grants, on 30 July 2009, the UK Research Office (UKRO) is organising a series of information events for researchers who are based in the UK or moving to the UK and who are interested in applying for European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants.

Each session is geared to providing participants with an overview of the ERC in FP7, focusing on the Starting Grant Scheme and the most recent call, and also to giving attendees a deeper understanding of the proposals format and the key issues in planning, writing and costing a Starting Grant proposal.

The sessions will be held in the following locations:

• University of Sheffield, 3 Sept 2009;
• Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 7 Sept 2009;
• Royal Veterinary College, University of London, 14 Sept 2009;
• University of Cambridge, 21 Sept 2009;
• Brunel University, London, 22 Sept 2009.

Two identical sessions will be held at each venue, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It is only necessary to attend one session. Both sessions will provide an overview of the ERC and will focus on the application process for the ERC Starting Grants. There will be opportunities to ask questions during each session.

There is no charge to attend and places can be booked on-line at http://www.ukro.bbsrc.ac.uk/erc/events_ukro/

Background Information
The Ideas programme is one of the specific programmes of FP7. Implemented by the European Research Council (ERC) independently of the rest of FP7, individual projects of scientific excellence proposed by truly creative scientists, engineers and scholars can be funded. Activities of “frontier research” can be across disciplines, including engineering, social science and the humanities.

Two funding streams support researchers, namely the ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant (referred to as the Starting Grant) and the ERC Advanced Investigator Grant (referred to as the Advanced Grant). Application follows calls for proposals.

The ERC Starting Grants aim to provide critical and adequate support to the independent careers of excellent researchers, whatever their nationality, located in or moving to the EU Member States and Associated Countries, who are at the stage of starting or consolidating their own independent research team or, depending on the field, their independent research programme.

The ERC Advanced Grants aim to encourage and support excellent, innovative investigator-initiated research projects by leading advanced investigators across the EU Member States and Associated Countries. This funding stream complements the Starting Grant scheme by targeting researchers who have already established themselves as being independent research leaders in their own right.

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913

A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court is available on-line at http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/.

This online digital resource is the output of a collaborative research project between the University of Hertfordshire, the Open University and the University of Sheffield, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (in 2000 and 2005), the Big Lottery Fund (2001) and the Economic and Social Research Council (2005).

The directors of this project, and authors of all the historical background pages, are Professor Clive Emsley (Open University), Professor Tim Hitchcock (University of Hertfordshire) and Professor Robert Shoemaker (University of Sheffield).

Professor publishes book on the Great British Bobby

The Great British Bobby, A history of British policing from 1829 to the present, has just been published by Professor Clive Emsley, co-director of the International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research at The Open University. He is also President of the International Association for the History of Crime and Criminal Justice.

Professor Emsley said: “Histories of the police have always tended to be institutional and have tended to focus on law makers and chief constables. I wanted to explore the lives of the men and women on the beat at the sharp end.

“My father was a policeman who, in 1943, changed his police blue for RAF blue. He was killed serving with Bomber Command a few months before I was born.

"I guess the book was written partly because of the father that I never knew, but also because I believe that it is important to understand the lives of ordinary people. The aim of the book is to weave the stories of ordinary police officers into the social history of Britain over the last 250 years.”

The Great British Bobby, A history of British policing from 1829 to the present, is published by Quercus books, ISBN 978 1 84916 197 8. Times Review.

OU professor talks at International Congress of the History of Science

Jim Moore, Professor of the History of Science, gave the opening plenary address `Darwin's Sacred Cause', to the 23rd International Congress of the History of Science (triennial of the world's leading professional body), meeting in Budapest - 26-31 July, 2009.

Darwin’s Sacred Cause, authored by Jim Moore and Adrian Desmond, gives a completely new explanation of why Darwin came to his shattering theories about human origins. More than a thousand people enjoyed Jim’s presentation, to the point where two historians of mathematics (one being the UK leader in the field) said despite initial misgivings, they were “quite convinced by the argument”, which they credited as revealing a potentially radically new Darwin.

As a result of the presentation, the Director-General of the Hungarian (national) Museum of Natural History gave Jim a private two-hour tour, where he was shown astonishing 18th-century natural mummies and Neanderthals. Jim said: “It was amazing to hold the mandible of a 25-35 year-old woman, dead 60,000 years."

Jim has now been invited by The Foreign Secretary of the Cuban Academy of Sciences to address the Academy and to lecture at the University of Havana in early October.

Related links:
Talking to Open2, Jim Moore explains how Charles Darwin changed our whole way of thinking - and makes a surprising revelation concerning one of the motivations for Darwin's work. http://www.open2.net/historyandthearts/arts/jimmooreinterview.html

Hatred of slavery drove Darwin towards evolutionary theory: http://www.open.ac.uk/platform/news/arts-and-culture/hatred-slavery-drove-darwin-towards-evolutionary-theory

AHRC Collaborative Research Training Scheme - Student Led Initiative

This route is part of the Collaborative Research Training scheme which provides pump-priming funds to support the provision of specialised subject - or discipline - specific research training which will enable institutions to offer such training to groups of students where it is not possible or cost-effective to provide the training in just one department or institution. The aim of the Student-Led Initiative route is to support the establishment of innovative collaborative research training programmes, originated by and run for postgraduate doctoral students that have a subject – or discipline – specific focus. Training is welcome which has as broad or as narrow a subject focus as is appropriate for the particular field.

The Student-Led Initiative provides awards of up to £2000 towards the costs of setting up a training project, activity or event.

Eligible activities could include:

• Networks or Research Forums
• Journals or on-line web resources: these could include students both submitting, reviewing and editing papers as well as students organising and administering the journal, or provide on-line video resources
• Conferences (as long as these are student-led and student organised)
• Career Development Initiatives
• Roundtable events with academics and practitioners in the relevant field to discuss career pathways and career development issues
• Public Engagement activities: these could be showcase/demonstration events, where students can present their research to community organisations, media, primary and secondary educational pupils, the general public etc.
• Activities involving the exchanges of knowledge involving interaction between students and non-academic organisations. These could be professional interactions such as events engaging with professional bodies, policy makers, government bodies or relevant businesses such as local or national employers

The AHRC are keen to see proposals outlining innovative practices that will benefit a wide range of postgraduate researchers, either by their involvement in the organisation of the programme, or by participating in the scheme.

Events are welcome which address a clearly identified gap in provision within or across subjects, for example additional language skills, fieldwork techniques, practical skills required for specific careers, engagement with professionals or practitioners.

The scheme operates on a rolling deadline with applications accepted throughout the year.

To download the application form and guidance please see: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/CRTS-Student-LedInitiative.aspx

The OU faculty of Arts has had previous funding from this source for the January 2009 conference for postgraduate doctoral students in Classics titled ‘Sex and the (Ancient) City: Love and Friendship in Greece and Rome’.

Leverhulme Trust Funding Success for OU and Warwick University collaboration

Professor Dennis Walder of the Arts Faculty has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Project Grant of £140, 826 for a three-year joint project with Dr Yvette Hutchison of the University of Warwick, entitled ‘Performing Memory: theatricalising identity in contemporary South Africa’ . The grant is to fund two full-time PhD students, as well as travel and archival work.

Professor Walder is Director of the Ferguson Centre for African & Asian Studies, where one of the students will be based, and a South African theatre archive established; the other will be supervised by Dr Hutchison, an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick.

Both Walder and Hutchison have wide experience of research and publication in the South African theatre context – Walder’s work on playwright Athol Fugard is well known - and they recently co-edited a special Africa Issue of Contemporary Theatre Review. The Ferguson Centre is engaged in a number of projects related to memory, identity and nation, and is building up an archive of research materials.

The aim of the new project is to explore how formal processes of remembering and recording the contested histories of South Africa – such as the Truth and Reconciliation hearings – are related to popular performative representations including plays, installations, memorials, film and TV. The outcomes of the project will include a book and several articles.

Radical Nature Study Day at the Barbican

Saturday 12 September 2009 10:30am - 4:30 pm
Location: Redgrave Suite, Level 4, the Barbican Centre, London EC2Y 8DS

An event exploring the relationship between contemporary art and climate change.

How are artists responding to the urgency of the issue? How does climate change affect culture? This study day maps the possible collaboration between creative thinking and problem solving.

Join artists Cornelia Parker, Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey; Franceco Manacorda, Curator of Radical Nature; Michaela Cimmin, Head of Arts, RSA; and Dr Joe Smith, Senior Lecturer, Geography, OU to engage with this hot topic. The event is chaired by Bob Spicer, Professor of Earth Sciences, OU and Gill Perry, Professor of Art History, OU.

This Study Day will be of special interest to students studying Arts and Humanities, Art History, Earth Sciences and Geography. It is organised by the Barbican in association with the OU.

Tickets £20/ £15 concessions (includes ticket for the Radical Nature exhibition currently showing at the Barbican) available from the Barbican Box Office 0845 120 7500 or online.

Internal approval process for bids

If you are thinking of applying for ANY external funding - whether for research, enterprise, teaching or any other activity - you need to let the University know and receive the relevant approvals. Depending on the circumstances, this may take a few weeks. There is a new page on the intranet which outlines the processes with an explanation of which form to use for each type of funding. This can be found at: http://intranet.open.ac.uk/developmentoffice/project-funding/

If you are a member of the Arts Faculty, please notify the Research and Enterprise Team at Arts-REST of any planned funding bids or negotiations.