The Innovation Fellowships scheme will provide funding and support for established early-career and mid-career researchers in the humanities and social sciences to partner with organisations and business in the creative, cultural, public, private and policy sectors, to address challenges that require innovative approaches and solutions. Through the Innovation Fellowships, their researchers in the SHAPE community will be supported to create new and deeper links beyond academia, so enabling knowledge mobilisation and translation, as well as individual skills development.

Aims

• The FCDO has specialised research requirements, operating in a context where timely access to high-quality evidence-based analysis can mean the difference between success and failure.
• Exerting influence, negotiating and leveraging others’ power at precisely the right moment is at a premium. This can make it difficult for researchers operating outside the FCDO to have a significant impact. These Fellowships will provide an opportunity to change that by enabling close interaction with FCDO policymakers directly in the heart of this government department’s work.
• The Academy and the FCDO invite applications for Fellowships in any of the following areas:
  • Western Balkans
  • Serious Organised Crime and Migration
  • Humanitarian Crises
  • UK National Security Strategy

Funding Information

• The Academy is able to offer awards of up to £120,000 for 12 months in duration (with Full Economic Costing at 80 per cent).
• Awards are expected to commence no earlier than 1 January 2026 and no later than 31 March 2026.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligible applicants must be ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom with a current long-term appointment that will continue for at least as long as the period of the award at a UK-based institution (e.g., a Higher Education Institution [HEI] or Independent Research Organisation [IRO]).
• They must also meet the requirements set out above in the ‘Working at and with the FCDO’ section.
• Applications are welcome from early-career researchers and mid-career researchers. Please note that applications from independent researchers cannot be accepted in this round of the scheme.
• Applicants may not hold more than one British Academy award of a comparable nature at any one time.
• Applicants for the Innovation Fellowships Scheme should be intending to pursue challenges that can benefit from the contribution of Humanities or Social Sciences expertise.
• Postgraduate students are not eligible to apply for grant support from the Academy,
• Applicants are asked to confirm in the personal details section(s) that they are not currently working towards a PhD, nor awaiting the outcome of a viva voce examination, nor awaiting the acceptance of any corrections required by the examiners.

For more information, visit The British Academy.

https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/innovation-fellowships-scheme-route-b-policy-led-2025-26/