Leverhulme Trust Research programmes for 2010

The Leverhulme Trust have just published its annual call for Research programme bids, and this year’s two themes are

• Beauty

• The Impact of Diasporas.

Normally one grant is awarded for each theme. The grants provide funds to research teams for up to five years to enable them to explore significant issues in the social sciences, in the humanities and, to a lesser extent, in the sciences. The scale of the awards is set at a level where it is possible for a research team to study a significant theme in depth by conducting a group of interlinked research projects which taken together can lead to new understanding. The themes are selected not to exclude particular disciplines from the competition but rather to encourage research teams to look upon their established research interests from a set of refreshing viewpoints.

For each theme, a minimum of £500,000 and a maximum of £1.75 million is available for the support of work extending over periods of up to five years.

For further information see: http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/grants_awards/grants/research_programmes/

British Library’s Sound Archive

The British Library has an Archive Sound Recording website with 21,000 selected recordings of:

• music -including classical and world music
• spoken word - including oral history and accents and dialects
• human and natural environments. – including soundscapes and wildlife

You are able to: Search all recordings on the site; listen to the recordings and download them; add notes and tags and create a favourites list.

To find out more visit:http://sounds.bl.uk/

Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellowship Awarded to OU Professor of History

Professor Clive Emsley has been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellowship, which will allow him to continue his research on "Crime and the British Military in the 20th Century" for another 2 years after his retirement in September 2009. He is currently Professor of History and co-director of the International Centre for Comparative Criminological Research (ICCCR) at the Open University.

Prof Emsley says "Most crime is (and has been) committed by young men, and most military personnel are (and have always been) young men. The end of wars in Britain, since the eighteenth century, has witnessed fears that men, trained to kill and brutalised by the experience of battle, will find it difficult to return to civilian life and will continue to act violently, and hence criminally at home. Focussing primarily on the two world wars of the twentieth century, this research project will explore the scale of criminality by men in the armed forces and their behaviour at the wars’ ends."

"The aim of this project is to explore two distinct aspects of crime and the British Military during the twentieth century. First, there are the issues of the extent and variety of offending by soldiers: second, there is the problem of soldiers returning from conflict and the extent to which their experiences fostered subsequent criminal behaviour."

"It is generally recognised that most crime is committed by young men. The majority of soldiers are young men and it has often been commented upon how conventional crime declined in wartime and how juveniles and women appeared in greater percentages before the courts. Army provosts, and those relatively few military historians that have commented upon crime, have tended to use the positivist assumption that offenders in uniform were simply ‘professional criminals’ that had been recruited or conscripted. The initial aim of the project is to explore the kinds of crimes committed by soldiers in wartime on both the home and the battle fronts and the extent of this crime. The basic hypotheses to be tested are that:

• There was remarkably little difference between offences committed by civilians and offences committed by soldiers; however,
• In some instances, war provided new opportunities or new pressures to commit crime.

The fear of the brutalised veteran returning home to commit violent offences has a long history. The acknowledgement of the problem of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, commonly described in Britain as ‘shell-shock’, began during the First World War. Soldiers before civilian courts began to use the disorder as a defence before the end of the war. Nevertheless, while there has been research on the history of the concept and its gradual acceptance, there have been few attempts to explore its impact on criminal offending."

"The second aim of the project is to explore the concerns about brutalised veterans – as reflected in the comments of experts and in the popular media – together with the reality of such veterans appearing before the courts. The basic hypotheses to be tested here are that:

• In the euphoria of victory, there was also an underlying climate of fear about brutalised veterans; however,
• While there may have been some sympathy for men who responded violently (but not with lethal results) to wives that had been unfaithful, there was little serious appreciation of men that had been seriously psychologically damaged by their experiences and who, in consequence, drifted into drunkenness and violent offending."

The research will take place in London, Fareham and Brussels and the principal outcome of the project will be a book and at least one conference paper at the European Social Science History Conference in Ghent in 2010.

AHRC Beyond Text project asks "What is Black British Jazz?"

The ‘Black British Jazz’ project (BBJ) explores the emergence of a distinct tradition within British music. BBJ melds reggae, hiphop, African music and US jazz into a rich, and constantly developing set of sounds. In documenting this musical hybrid, the project touches on important issues for the study of music – the transmission of cultural values, the social context of musical forms, and frameworks of ownership that impact on musical communities.

The research takes an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together researchers with specialism’s in sociology, music psychology and (ethno) musicolology. It integrates a range of methods, from detailed analysis of performance through to ethnographic and historical investigation.

The project approaches BBJ via three research strands:

• Routes
• Ownership
• Performance

These strands act as guides for our work. But as the project develops we will also be looking for ways of integrating them and highlighting common themes.

In terms of audience the project reaches out, beyond academia, to a broad constituency through film, a radio series/podcast, an end-of- project concert and more. What Is Black British Jazz runs from January 2009 through to July 2011 and is supported through the AHRC’s Beyond Text programme.

The Open University project team are:

• Dr Jason Toynbee (Principal Investigator), Dept of Sociology,
• Dr Mark Doffman (Research Fellow), Dept of Sociology,
• Dr Catherine Tackley (Co-Investigator), Dept of Music,
• Dr Byron Dueck (Co-Investigator), Dept of Music,
• Mark Banks (Co-Investigator), Dept of Sociology,

The project aims are:

• To trace the historical and geographical routes along which black British jazz (BBJ) has developed.
• To examine the role of memory and cultural transmission in the emergence of new musical forms (also to contribute to their preservation through audio-visual recordings).
• To investigate ownership of BBJ in relation to entrepreneurship, creativity and cultural policy.
• To analyse aesthetics, embodied practice and participation in BBJ performance.
  Research questions

The main research question, 'What is Black British Jazz?', is broken down as follows:

• What is the cultural identity of the genre?
• How did it emerge?
• Who owns it, how is it owned and what is the impact of cultural policy on ownership?
• What are the defining themes in its performance? How do musicians use grooves, voices and improvised scripts in its delivery?
• In political and aesthetic terms, why and how does BBJ matter?

Outputs
Research outputs from the project include conventional academic forms such as books, journal articles and conference papers. But the project team also aim to make the results of their work available to a broader public. A film (in collaboration with Metal Dog Productions), a short series of radio programmes/podcasts and a concert will take the project to non-academic audiences. Project data drawn from performances, interviews and documents will also be available as a) archive material held by the British Library and the Center for Black Music Research in Chicago and b) a resource for jazz education.

For more information see: http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/blackbritishjazz/ and http://projects.beyondtext.ac.uk/blackbritishjazz/blog.html

AHRC Fellowships - early career researchers scheme launched

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) will accept applications for their early career researchers fellowship scheme from 1st September (open deadlines). The early career route aims to enable the AHRC to work in partnership with institutions to support the career development of researchers at the start of their careers and to provide them with focused research time.

The Fellowships scheme provides salary and associated costs for periods of three to nine months, to enable an individual researcher to work on a specified research project or programme. The Fellowship can be used to support a wide range of research activities provided that these lead to significant specified research and other outputs by the end of the Fellowship, including the preparation of publications and other outputs from research conducted prior to the start of the Fellowship. Proposals for full economic costs up to a maximum of £120,000 may be submitted.

The early career route aims to enable the AHRC to work in partnership with institutions to support the career development of researchers at the start of their careers and to provide them with focused research time and appropriate support and mentoring so that they can broaden their research experience and enhance their research outputs profile. In order to apply to this route, applicants must meet additional eligibility criteria as outlined in the AHRC Funding Guide.

The Fellowships scheme (Standard and Early Career routes) operates with open deadlines. This means that applicants can submit Fellowship applications at any time without having to worry about submitting for specific deadlines.

Applications to this scheme can be submitted at any time from 1 September 2009.

Please note that the assessment process for applications submitted to the Fellowships scheme (Standard and Early Career routes) takes approximately 30 weeks and the earliest start date for a project should be no earlier than 9 months after submission to the AHRC.

If any researchers associated with the Open University Faculty of Arts are intending to apply to this programme, they must contact the Research & Enterprise Support Team (REST) for confirmation of the full economic cost of their proposal and to receive the necessary internal approvals to allow the application to be submitted. Please notify the team of your intention to make an application at least 4 weeks before the date that you intend to submit your bid.

For more information see: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/Fellowshipserc.aspx

AHRC Science & Heritage Postdoctoral Fellowships

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Science and Heritage Postdoctoral Fellowships are designed to support outstanding early career researchers to carry out research and so establish an independent research career in heritage science.

The duration of the Fellowship is equivalent to 3 years full-time and they are open to researchers with no more than 5 years post-doctoral or equivalent experience.

The funding will cover Fellow’s salary and a small amount of travel and subsistence, equipment and consumables.

The deadline is 4pm Thursday 10th September 2009

AHRC is administering this call on behalf of AHRC and EPSRC. Please ensure that you have read the Details of the Call and the Specification document carefully before making your application. For more information see: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundingOpportunities/Pages/Fellowshipspdsciher.aspx

Open Call for proposals for ESF Research Conferences to be held in 2011

The European Science Foundation (ESF) invites scientists to submit proposals for high-level research conferences to take place in 2011 within the framework of its Research Conferences Scheme in the following scientific domains:

• Molecular Biology+
• Brain, Technology and Cognition
• Mathematics
• Physics/Biophysics and Environmental Sciences
• Social Sciences and Humanities

Submission deadline: 15 September 2009, midnight CET

In the area of Social Sciences and Humanities, the topics should be at the forefront of scientific research and may be interdisciplinary when appropriate. The ESF will fund up to 4 3-day-long Social Sciences and Humanities conferences to be held in 2011 in Linköping, Sweden.

The ESF Research Conferences Scheme provides the opportunity for leading scientists and younger researchers to meet for discussions on the most recent developments in their fields of research. It acts as a catalyst for creating new synergistic contacts throughout Europe and the rest of the world. ESF Research Conferences are open to scientists world-wide, whether from academia or industry.

Format:

• 90-150 participants (including up to 25 speakers and convenors)
• A duration of 4 full conference days (3 full conference days for conferences in social sciences and humanities)

Core activities:

• lectures by invited speakers
• short talks by young scientists
• poster sessions and extensive discussion periods
• Forward Look Plenary Discussion about future developments in the field
• no parallel sessions
• Joint meals and social activities to encourage further contact and networking

For more information see: http://www.esf.org/activities/esf-conferences/call-for-proposals/framework-call-for-proposals.html and http://www.esf.org/activities/esf-conferences.html