AHRC-ESRC-FCO Knowledge Exchange Fellowship Scheme

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) are pleased to invite applications to the AHRC-ESRC-FCO Knowledge Exchange (KE) Fellowships scheme. The scheme will provide the opportunity for each intake of fellows to be seconded into the FCO to work alongside, advise and influence policymakers. Fellows will bring fresh thinking, depth and breadth of expert knowledge and apply their learning to policy challenges. This is not a scheme to support research projects about the FCO. It will build new capacity in the FCO and across the UK research base.

The fellowship scheme will go beyond current ad hoc arrangements, create deeper engagement between academia and policy, impact on diplomacy, increase the professional reputation of participating scholars and build long term, two way relationships. The benefits will flow to the wider academic community through fellows’ engagement with their home research organisation and wider research communities as well as through a dedicated policy seminar series hosted by the FCO during the lifetime of the scheme.

The partners anticipate supporting three-four KE Fellows working between 0.6 to 0.8 FTE for 24 months. The maximum amount available for one Fellowship will depend on individual applications. The costs will be met by the participating Research Councils. Consistent with the Research Councils’ arrangements for fEC, the AHRC and ESRC will contribute 80% of the costs and the remaining balance must be guaranteed by the Fellows’ research organisations.

How to apply

This call will be managed by the ESRC on behalf of the two participating Research Councils. In the first instance, an application should be sent as an email attachment to the ESRC on fcofellow@esrc.ac.uk by 16:00 on 31 October 2017. Applications received after this time will not be considered.

Please contact your RKEO Funding Development Officer in the first instance as all applications will need to be costed and approved by BU.

Call documents

Contacts