The Roman Society: Grants and Bursaries

Overview

The Society offers a number of grants and bursaries, as listed below. Applicants for grants for the organisation of conferences should follow the CUCD protocol and diversity guidelines (https://cucd.blogs.sas.ac.uk/policydocuments/)

Grants for the Archaeology and Art History of the Roman Empire & Roman Britain

Roman Research Trust: the Audrey Barrie Brown Memorial Fund

This grant fund owes its existence to a legacy from Audrey Barrie Brown. The maximum grant is limited to £10,000. It must be a project that relates to Roman Britain – the Roman Research Trust cannot support projects outside Roman Britain. Although the Roman Research Trust is particularly keen to fund projects in the county of Wiltshire, your project will get full consideration even if it has a geographical focus elsewhere in the British Isles.

The Roman Society: Donald Atkinson Fund

The maximum grant is limited to £2,000. It offers financial assistance towards undertakings or activities which further the scholarly purposes of the Roman Society in the areas of archaeology and art history: this Fund is not restricted to the British Isles.

Deadline for the Donald Atkinson Fund and the Audrey Barrie Brown Memorial Fund - 31 January annually

Hugh Last Fund & General Fund

Applications are limited to a maximum of £1,000, or £500 for small research costs. Individuals may not make more than one application in any one year.

Applications are particularly welcome for:

Events or schemes promoting public involvement in and awareness of Roman studies.
Small research costs (not over £500) of PhD and junior researchers where institutional funding is unavailable or insufficient. This includes speaking at conferences (from general funds only).
Authors’ costs in preparing research results for hard-copy or electronic publication (but not publishers’ costs - see below).

Deadline - 31 January annually

Grants for Schools

The Society’s Roman Studies Committee makes grants to schools to help promote the teaching of Latin and Roman studies. Most of the grants are awarded for the purchase of textbooks and other books and resources for Roman studies, but the Committee also makes awards to schools and museums organising lectures or study days on Roman themes, especially if they benefit large numbers of children throughout the year, and may be repeated in successive years. The Committee does not offer grants to support one-off school trips, workshops or events. Applications from schools planning to start courses in Latin are particularly welcome. Grants usually range from £50 to £600.

The Society now also offers grants for Minimus: https://www.primarylatinproject.org/

Museum and Heritage Summer Placements

The Roman Society is pleased to invite applications for its 2025 Museum & Heritage Summer Placement Scheme. The placements may be held at the following museums / heritage organisations listed on website. Queries and letters of application should be addressed to the Secretary, Dr Fiona Haarer, and sent by email by 20 May, 2025 to: office@romansociety.org

Archaeology Committee Grants

Applications are welcomed from any individual or groups to support activities that demonstrate strong affiliation to the promotion of Roman Archaeology to wider public or activities that provide skills-based training in an aspect of Roman Archaeology. In addition to this scheme, the Committee can also award funds in response to emergency causes, when Roman Archaeology is under threat, e.g. urgent repairs, vandalism at site.

Awards are typically £500 or less, but there is potential for larger awards should a compelling case be made. The event/activity for which funding is sought is to take place a minimum of two and maximum of 12 months from the submission deadline.

The applications can be submitted three times a year with deadlines of 1 February, 1 May, and 1 October. Please contact Dr Tatiana Ivleva (tatiana.ivleva@newcastle.ac.uk) with any queries.

Bursaries for Teachers

Bursaries up to a maximum of £100 are available for teachers who wish to attend a Latin language course at a Summer School. Download an application form here. The deadline is 31 May in any year.

Prizes

BA Dissertation in Roman Archaeology

2026 Prize

The BA Roman Archaeology Dissertation Prize is awarded to the author of the best undergraduate dissertation in the field of Roman archaeology each year, and is presented every two years at the Society’s biennial Roman Archaeology Conference. Prize winners receive £100, a year’s membership of the Roman Society, free admittance to the conference where the award is made, and funded travel and accommodation to attend that conference.

Entries for the 2026 prize are now invited from students at British universities, and should be submitted through and with the support of the academic staff of the relevant university department. Only one entry per department can be considered, but mpre than one department in the same University may submit an entry. The award will be judged by the Society’s Archaeology Committee.

Dissertations and a letter of recommendation from the nominating department must reach the Roman Society’s Secretary by 15 November 2025. Only dissertations submitted for degrees awarded in the academic year 2024-25 may be submitted.

Britannia Award

The award was launched in 2023 for individual nominees, but from 2024, they will also make an award to voluntary archaeological groups. You can read about previous nominations here.

The successful individual nominee and a representative from the successful nominated group will be presented with the award at a Roman Society event in the year in which it is awarded (usually the Roman Britain day conference). The prize includes free attendance at that event and a year’s free membership of the Society. The names of the winners will be published in Epistula.

Apply by email, sending the nomination letters to the Britannia Award convenor, Dr Lacey Wallace (lwallace@lincoln.ac.uk) by the deadline of 1 February (beginning in 2023 and annually thereafter).

Master's Dissertation Prize

The Archaeology Committee of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies invites nominations for the annual Britannia Award, a recognition of outstanding voluntary contributions to Roman archaeology in Britain. The award was launched in 2023 for individual nominees, but from 2024, they will also make an award to voluntary archaeological groups. You can read about previous nominations here.