Please consult these Frequently Asked Questions before contacting us directly.
All ISRF initiatives are announced via our mailing list.
Eligibility for ISRF funding opportunities will be unaffected by Brexit. We continue to encourage applications from scholars working within Europe (geographically defined – so, including those at UK institutions).
The ISRF runs Independent Scholar Fellowship competitions aimed specifically at those doing academic work outside of academia. These awards are capped at £28,750 (or Euro equivalent, where applicable), and recipients will be asked to nominate a European (including the UK) academic institution with which they might be affiliated for the duration of their award period.
Applicants are not expected to arrange the affiliation themselves – this would be negotiated by the ISRF post-award decision. Applicants may choose not to fill in the section of the application form relating to the potential host institution – this will not prejudice their application. The nomination of a potential host institution is non-binding, for either the applicant or the institution.
The ISRF does not intend for Independent Scholar Fellowships to be an alternative to permanent academic employment, and successful applicants will be able to show a track record of pursuing academic research outside of academia. Whilst some Independent Scholar Fellowship recipients may subsequently move back into an academic setting, the award is not intended for those between posts, or those within 12 months of PhD award (exceptions to the latter may be considered for late-career PhD’s).
Questions of eligibility should be directed to Dr Lars Cornelissen.
Independent Scholars are also eligible to apply for other ISRF Fellowship awards, such as the Early, Mid-Career, and Political Economy Fellowship competitions. If doing so, two options are available:
1) Applicants should nominate a host institution willing to host them as a Visiting Fellow, with whom no employment relationship will exist. If successful, award monies would be processed via the host institution. Such applications should not exceed £28,750. or
2) Applicants should nominate a host institution willing to employ them on a fixed-term contract for the duration of the award. Such applicants could then, effectively, apply to be ‘bought out’ from said employment. Such applications should not exceed the budgetary limits set out for the relevant competition.
There is no limitation on nationality. However, the ISRF can only consider applications from those affiliated to a European institution.
The ISRF will consider applications from those employed part-time, who may seek a buy-out for that portion of their time. If your part-time contract will not allow you to apply for a buy-out Fellowship (such as our Early or Mid-Career Fellowships), you may be eligible to apply as an Independent Scholar to carry out research in your non-contracted time.
The ISRF will consider applications from those employed on fixed-term contracts, so long as the current contract covers (or would be extended to cover) the intended award period.
Such applicants – who will normally not be considered as Independent Scholars – are advised to include an explanatory note in a cover letter, which may be uploaded as an additional attachment.
The intention of the ISRF Fellowships is to allow researchers dedicated time, without competing priorities, to complete a piece of research which they might otherwise be unable to pursue.
If the budget limit does not allow for a full-time, 12 month buy out, the ISRF would prefer to fund a full-time buy-out for a shorter period (i.e. 9 months at 1.0 FTE rather than 12 months at 0.75 FTE).
Joint applications may be considered, although this varies across competition categories.
Where allowed, there are two types of joint application that will be considered:
Co-applicants: whereby one application is submitted for a single project, with a total budget up to the limit set out for the relevant competition, wherein two applicants would work on the same project. In the event that the application is successful, both applicants would be awarded ISRF Fellowships. It is up to the applicants to decide how the budget will be split, and to detail this in the application – for example, a 50-50 split could see each applicant bought out for, say, six months. The total project duration should be no more than 12 months, but buy-out periods may overlap wholly or in part. The application should be submitted in the name of one of the PIs. CVs should be uploaded as one PDF file, and the project Title should begin ‘CoApp’.
Co-investigators: whereby separate applications are submitted, for discrete contributions to an overall project. The budget for each application may be up the limit set out for the relevant competition. The applications will be considered independently of each other, and neither, one or both may be awarded. Each individual project may last up to 12 months, and award periods may overlap wholly or in part. Each application should have the same Project Title, beginning ‘CoInv’.
Applicants may only submit one application for each competition.
The ISRF may, on occasion, run more than one competition at the same time. In such circumstances eligible applicants may submit an application for each competition, each containing a discrete project proposal. Such applications will be considered individually – however, multiple awards will not be made to the same applicant in one application period.
Unsuccessful applicants may re-apply for future competitions.
Successful applicants may not re-apply for the same category of award. They can apply for other ISRF competitions so long as they meet the relevant eligibility criteria.
Proposal-specific advice cannot be given to individual potential applicants.
The Academic Aims & Objectives of the ISRF, and details of previous awards, current and past fellows, and current and past projects, should offer sufficient guidance on the breadth of work the ISRF is interested in.
Broadly, the ISRF wishes to support independent-minded researchers to explore and present original research ideas which take new approaches, and suggest new solutions, to real world social problems.
The ISRF seeks to fund innovative research which breaks with existing explanatory frameworks so as to address afresh empirical problems with no currently adequate theory or investigative methodology. Innovation may also come from controversial theoretical approaches motivated by critical challenge of incumbent theories. Interdisciplinarity in the generation of new investigative initiatives may be achieved by combining, cross-fertilising, and so transforming empirical methods and theoretical insights from the social sciences. Projects ranging across the breadth of the social scientific disciplines and interdisciplinary research fields are welcome, and relevant applications from scholars working within the humanities are also encouraged.
All awards are conditional upon acceptance of our Standard Terms & Conditions – click here for a draft version.
The ISRF Standard Charitable Revenue and Equity-Sharing Terms (as referred to in the ISRF Standard Conditions of Award) are available here.
Applicants may only submit one application for each competition.
The ISRF may, on occasion, run more than one competition at the same time. In such circumstances eligible applicants may submit an application for each competition, each containing a discrete project proposal. Such applications will be considered individually – however, multiple awards will not be made to the same applicant in one application period.
Sample proposal – from previously successful applicants – will be available with each new competition that launches.
For Flexible Grants for Small Groups proposals, see the project pages for:
For Independent Scholar proposals, see the project pages for:
Applicants may upload a list of references that support the proposal as an additional attachment. This will not count towards the word limit, but should be limited to two sides of A4.
As applications will be considered anonymously until the Selection Panel stage, it is advisable to avoid or minimize self-citation. If it is necessary to cite your own work, you should delete the names of authors and other identifying information and place substitute words in brackets, such as: [reference redacted to preserve anonymity].
A short CV will be sufficient – CVs should not exceed four pages.
The CV is the only required attachment (though a List of References is strongly advised). Applicants may choose to upload a Cover Letter, particularly if they do not directly meet the stated criteria.
Whilst book chapters and journal articles may be submitted, this is not encouraged – there is no guarantee that these will be considered as part of your application.
Where unavoidable – if they are the only person able to comment on your status (personal academic reference) and the research proposed – this will be acceptable. However, wherever possible the Letter of Support should come from someone with whom you are not in regular working or personal contact.
This will vary for each institution – it may be a Head of School or Head of Department, or an administrative contact in the Research Office. Whomever is named will only be contacted in the event of a successful application – they may, at that stage, forward any communication on to a more relevant person.
No, by entering the details of a contact at your home institution, and subsequently submitting your application, you are deemed to have sought support for your application.
In the event that your application is successful, the ISRF will contact the named Institutional Approver to confirm that:
Such confirmation is not required at this stage – however, you may upload such a document as an additional attachment.
Unless otherwise indicated in the further particulars specific to any given competition, applicants seeking an affiliation in the UK must apply in GBP (£). All other applicants must apply in EUR (€). Budget limits in both currencies will be stated and fixed at the time of competition launch, and will not be adjusted in the event of GBP/EUR currency fluctuations.
Your budget should be as detailed as possible. Where applicable, a breakdown of salary costs should be given, along with details of salary grade/spine point – your HR or Payroll department should be able to provide this information.
Research Expenses should be itemised. Where matched funding is required as a condition of the award (a standard ISRF requirement for Early, Mid-Career and Political Economy Fellowships), the budget should detail all research expenses, followed by a calculation showing that the ISRF would be funding half (50%) of these.
For Early, Mid-Career and Political Economy Fellowship applications: if a replacement is employed at a lower salary level, that is the amount that should be requested. If no replacement is being employed, or if a replacement is employed at a higher salary level, the budget should cover the applicant’s salary.
The ISRF does not expect Flexible Grants for Small Groups applications to include a request for salary replacement.
The ISRF prefers not to fund overheads or indirect costs, and in many awards to date has not done so. Where these costs are unavoidable, the ISRF will consider Early, Mid-Career and Political Economy Fellowship applications which include them so long as they do not exceed 10% of the total funding requested. The ISRF does not expect Flexible Grants for Small Groups applications to include a request for overheads.
Eligible research expenses will vary depending on the nature of the proposed project. They may include, but are not limited to:
The costs of Research Assistance (including, but not limited to, Research Assistants) may be included where absolutely necessary – justification must be given, either in the budget or in a separate, additional attachment.
The budget for Research Expenses – including Research Assistants – will be considered by the Selection Panel in the event that your application reaches that stage of the assessment procedure. In the event that your proposal is awarded, the Selection Panel may, at their discretion, suggest revision of the Research Expenses budget.
Applicants may detail their budget in the free-format text box, or may upload a separate document, or both (summary in the former, detail in the latter).
We have no standard format for budgets.
Please see our Assessment Procedure for more information on our selection process.
Applicants should contact Stuart Wilson if they wish to revise their proposal pre-deadline. Once the deadline has passed, updates to the Research Proposal (or attachments) will not be considered.
If your contact details change after you have submitted your proposal, please contact Stuart Wilson.
We aim to inform all applicants of the competition outcome within six months of the competition launch date. In the event that the process takes longer than expected, applicants will be notified by email.
All applicants – successful or otherwise – are notified of the outcome of their application once the Selection Panel has met and made formal recommendations for award.
Notifications are sent by email. Please check your spam folder if you think you might have missed our email – emails from our applications system arrive from noreply@isrf.tal.net. To reply to these emails, please use the relevant competition email address or admin@isrf.org.
In the event that the selection process takes longer than expected, applicants will be notified by email.
The ISRF will contact your institution, for confirmation that:
Once this has been confirmed, and a start date agreed, the ISRF will issue an Award Letter, incorporating our Standard Terms & Conditions of Award.
Once successful applicants have been contacted and a proposed start date has been confirmed with the host institution, the ISRF will issue an official Award Letter incorporating the Terms & Conditions of award. This process should not be lengthy – as such, it is feasible† for the award period to begin one month after award notification.
†Dependent upon timely correspondence between all three parties (grantee, host institution and the ISRF).
Ordinarily, the ISRF expects that successful applicants will begin their project no later than 31st December of the year following notification. Specific details of the latest start date will be included in the relevant competition Further Particulars, and will be stated clearly in the competition Terms & Conditions.
Detailed feedback may be available for those whose applications reached the longlist stage (see Assessment Procedure). External assessors are asked if they are happy for their reports to be shared, anonymously or otherwise, with applicants once awards have been made.
We ask for your understanding that, given the number of applications, it is not possible to provide detailed feedback on every application. We must also respect the wishes of those assessors who choose for their assessments to remain confidential.
Due to the number of applications received and the generally high standard, it is inevitable that good applications will not be awarded. The ISRF encourages unsuccessful applicants to consider, where available, feedback and to re-apply with updated proposals for future competitions.