British Academy: SHAPE Involve and Engage

Overview

About the scheme

This pilot programme offers the opportunity to think outside the box, test a new approach and be ambitious in your approach to engaging a public audience with your research.

As part of the programme, a ‘community of practice’ workshop will be hosted for successful applicants in early September. Alongside sessions on evaluation and working with your audiences, award holders will have the opportunity to share their plans with other workshop attendees. You will act as critical friends and sounding boards, sharing ideas, giving feedback and troubleshooting possible challenges, and forming a network of support through the duration of the project development and delivery.

Why should you apply?

The programme will:

Act as a catalyst to get a project or idea up and running.
Be an opportunity to try a new approach or work with a new audience to gain new perspectives on your research.
Offer the chance to build a new partnership with the cultural sector or try a new idea with an existing collaborator. The chance to work with a partner who truly adds value and makes a meaningful contribution to your project through their expertise, connections, skills or collections.
Allow you to make contacts and find networking opportunities with others in the research community who are interested in exploring new and innovative approaches to public engagement.

About you

They are searching for creative academics who want to experiment with their engagement work and find new ways to share their research with a public audience.
The call is open to any researcher based in the UK who meets the conditions of the call.
You do not have to have received funding from the British Academy previously.
Successful award recipients are expected to have some prior public engagement experience, but they welcome applicants from a diverse range of backgrounds, experiences, expertise and career stages.

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

Lead researcher must be at postdoctoral level or higher with a primary research focus in the humanities or social sciences. Postgraduate students are not eligible to apply as a lead researcher but may be included in a project team.
Applicants must be resident in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands (that is, classed as ‘ordinarily resident’ for tax purposes).
Applicants must have secured the support of their employing institution and their cultural partner. A contact at the home organisation who will support the delivery of the project must be included on the application form.
Applicants may be independent scholars* or retired/emeritus.
Applications may be led by an organisation from the galleries, libraries, archives and museums sector but should have a university partner (see below for information on partnership working).
Applicants should be available to attend the community of practice workshop held in early September (further details to follow).
Current British Academy award holders are eligible to apply, with two exceptions. If you will hold a Mid-Career Fellowship or Wolfson Fellowship which will be active between October 2023 and October 2024 you are not eligible to apply, because these awards include support for public engagement and your engagement activities should be delivered using the funding from your existing award

*Independent researchers without practical support from a home institution should indicate this on their application form. While in the first instance you should seek practical support from your partner organisation, the Academy may be able to offer assistance to a small number of projects run by independent researchers.

Partnership working

Your project should be delivered in partnership with an organisation from the galleries, libraries, archives and museum sector. You will be expected to find your own partner and your activity should be developed and delivered together with your partner organisation. While you may choose to host your activities at your partner’s venue, the partner should be a collaborator, and not simply a venue.

You should partner with one primary organisation, but we welcome applications which include other partners such as arts practitioners or creatives, civil society organisations or local community groups in addition to your main partnership.

You can use existing partnerships. However, while your project can build on existing work, your activities should be new; this opportunity is not intended to provide further funding for activities that are already taking place.

Applicants should note that the British Academy is not able to help applicants find or make partnerships. NESTA and the NCCPE have advice articles about how to make partnerships, including with GLAM organisations, and you could also reach out to public engagement and communications or events staff within your organisation for assistance.

What they expect from you, your institution and project partner

Provide the academic expertise that the event or activity is based on.
Act as the project lead – together with your partner and colleagues, you will be responsible for project design, day-to-day project management, development and delivery, including staffing your activity.
Event delivery, marketing and promotion – you should name a contact who will be responsible for supporting you with event or activity delivery and logistics, booking venues and AV, promoting your event or activity and securing an audience.*
Financial processing – the Academy will make a one-off payment to your organisation and all project expenses should then be claimed from your institution.

Level of award

Up to £8,000.

This is a pilot programme with generous funding from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and is funded for 2023-24 only, though they hope to continue the scheme into the future, subject to evaluation and funding availability.

Please note that the funding provided through this scheme cannot be used to cover the cost of replacement teaching, payment in lieu of salary or computer equipment or hardware. The scheme is not covered within the FEC regime – the £8,000 awards are available to the award holder only for direct expenses to deliver the public engagement project. For full details of eligible costs, please see the scheme guidance notes, Flexi-Grant application instructions and terms and conditions.

Duration of award

The duration of the award is flexible. Proposed activities could range from a one-off event, to an ongoing series of engagement activities taking place over a number of months. However, all activities should take place between October 2023 and October 2024.

‘Community of practice’ workshop

Successful applicants will be invited to attend a ‘community of practice’ workshop in September.

Alongside training on areas such as audiences and evaluation techniques, researchers will also have the opportunity to share their plans with other award holders. Researchers will act as critical friends and sounding boards for each other, offering the opportunity to share ideas, give each other feedback and troubleshoot possible challenges.

Researchers are encouraged to continue to stay in touch, offering support through the duration of the project development and delivery.

The workshop will be held in early September, further details to follow.

Assessment criteria:

Innovation and creativity - The panel will consider innovation in the broadest sense across project concept, proposed methodology, underpinning research, reach, impact and outputs.
Underpinning research – applicants should clearly show the high quality, inspiring research underpinning the proposal.
Feasibility - How well the proposal has been conceived and how practical it will be to deliver, how appropriate the proposed activity is for reaching the intended audience and achieving the intended impact.
Clearly defined audience – a carefully considered proposal which is targeted at a specific audience, ideally with a co-production element which involves the audience in the project.
Partnership working with a co-production element which demonstrates active involvement of the partner i.e. the partner is not simply a hosting venue

Examples

They are looking for proposals which embrace a participatory approach to public engagement. You should consider how you might involve your audience in the research or delivery process.

This might include:

Peer-to-peer conversations stemming from the research.
Collaborative or co-designed approaches which involve the audience throughout the project.
Opportunities to listen to a range of audience voices, for example considering what direction the public would like the research to go in.

Activities should ideally be delivered outside of a university setting wherever possible, i.e. not in a campus venue. Some possible activity ideas are detailed below but this list is not exhaustive, and we welcome proposals which experiment with new formats and methods of delivery.

Activities or outputs could include:

Pop-up shop, including opportunities to collect and share responses from the public in the ‘shop’
Theatre, storytelling or music performance developed with the public
Collaborative zine workshop
Memory bank or oral history pop-up
Place-based participatory activities
Artistic workshop – graphic, textile, mixed medium etc
Walk in local area with performances or activities along the way.
Activity based on the interests of a local group – for example a nature-based activity with a gardening club, an active game with a sports club. Other local groups could include youth clubs, reading groups, stay and play parent and child groups, social groups for older people etc.
A ‘night at the library or museum’ style event which could feature quizzes, immersive puzzles or mystery games.
Gallery, library, archive or museum pop-up such as town centre, park, cinema or other local venue.
Gaming or games event.

See guidance for further information (available on website).

Eligible costs

The following costs can be covered by the award:

Delivery and production costs including:
- Room or venue hire
- AV services and technical support
- Transport costs for equipment
- Production materials such as exhibit panels or activity packs o Hire of equipment, props, costumes o Design and print materials
- Marketing costs
- Catering that is essential to the delivery of the event for example as part of a tasting experience
Staffing costs for example:
- Support staff for on the day delivery, for example an event space or pop-up shop
- Creative/arts practitioner fees e.g. artists, musicians, performers, consultants
- Reasonable speaker fees/honoraria
Costs of producing outputs such as printed materials, photography, short film or audio recording
Travel for project team and speakers/creative practitioners (standard class public transport in accordance with the British Academy’s events travel policy – see Table 1 and note in the scheme terms and conditions).
Accommodation for project team and speakers/creative practitioners (in accordance with the British Academy’s events travel policy – see Table 1 and note in the scheme terms and conditions).
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) adjustments*: requests to reduce barriers and improve accessibility, such as:
- Provision of live subtitling o British Sign Language interpretation
- Translators
- Large-print programmes o Childcare or other family care costs for speakers on the days of the event/activity
- Travel to support inclusion of lower socio-economic groups or other audience members who may have difficulties attending without support.

* If there are specific costs you would like to request for EDI adjustments in addition to those listed above, please make this clear in your application. We will consider all reasonable adjustments to ensure the events or activities are accessible

Track grant Notes