Independent scholars from within Europe† are eligible to apply, and they will not hold an appointment – full-time or part-time, temporary or permanent – at an institution of higher education and research.
For the purposes of this competition, an ‘Independent Scholar’ is understood as someone, whether or not currently in (non-academic) employment, who is engaged in intellectual work of a nature and standard comparable to that of a professional academic scholar. Applicants will usually hold a PhD but other equivalent academic or professional qualifications may be considered. Evidence of scholarly achievement at a sufficiently high level can include publications in academic journals, edited collections and monographs, as well as pieces for professional journals and the popular media.
Independent Scholars intending to pursue or complete a piece of independent research and desiring an affiliation to an institution of higher education and research within Europe are eligible to apply. They may be in professional (non-academic) employment, including in the arts, full- or part-time, or in an unpaid occupation.
The awards are intended as providing a stipend to allow applicants full or partial support for academic research and relief from non-academic work (including domestic care) for a period of up to one year.
Normally applicants will hold a PhD. Other academic or professional qualifications may be considered, along with publications usually in peer-reviewed academic journals. Monographs, professional journals and the popular media may also be considered.
The research proposed may include, but is not confined to: initiation of a project or of research level work intended to draw on or contribute to one of the professions, completion of a project, or preparation of an article or monograph for publication, based on existing work.
The amount of an award depends on the nature of the work proposed and individual circumstances – the ISRF expects applications for grants up to a maximum of £28,750 (from July 2020). Within that sum, reasonable support for research expenses will be considered. Reasonable childcare or other domestic costs may be considered.
In January 2021, the ISRF launched its eighth Independent Scholar Fellowship competition. Having received a number of strong proposals, the Selection Panel met in July 2021, and voted to make six awards.
Historical Rights and Humanitarian Dilemmas: Caring for Children in Offshore Detention
Building (in) a New World: Constantinos Doxiadis, Urban Development and the Pacification of the “Third World”
Beekeeping in the End Times
The Carceral Campus: Understanding the Nexus between Marketised Higher Education, Surveillance and the Hostile Environment
Darkness and Disorder: Refugees, Humanitarian Agencies, and the Struggle to Provide Sustainable Energy Access in Refugee Camps
Media, Communications and People with Learning Difficulties and Autism – Lessons from the Pandemic
In July 2020, the ISRF launched its seventh Independent Scholar Fellowship competition. Having received a number of strong proposals, the Selection Panel met in December 2020, and voted to make five awards.
The “more-than-human” history of a disappearing lake. Historicizing indigenous responses to socio-environmental change in and around Lake Poopó, Bolivia
Prison Break: Imagining Alternatives to Prison in the UK
Work without bosses, housing without landlords, and nothing about us without us: researching disabled people’s involvement in co-operatives in the UK
Reggae/dancehall: a dynamic continuity of resistance and survival for disenfranchised and marginalised young people
Behind the scenes at the nail salon: an ethnographic exploration into the everyday politics of undocumented Vietnamese migrants in the UK
In August 2019, the ISRF launched its sixth Independent Scholar Fellowship competition. Having received a number of strong proposals, the Selection Panel met in December 2019, and voted to make three awards.
Refugee Governance from Below: Kurdish Diaspora Associations and the Incorporation of Newly-Arrived Refugees in Europe
Negative Capabilities: Rethinking the Phenomenal and Relational Aspects of the Therapeutic Encounter
Postcolonial Republicanism: The Indian Founding and its Impact
In July 2018, the ISRF launched its fifth Independent Scholar Fellowship competition. Having received a number of strong proposals, the Selection Panel met in December 2018, and voted to make four awards.
Ethnicity, Conflict and Festivalisation of Politics in Ethiopia
Overlapping Waves of Migration in the Aegean: Contextualizing a Hundred Years of Disconcerted Displacement with an Interdisciplinary, Comparative, and Ethnographic Approach
The Poetry of Science: Restoring the Role of Imagination in Mathematical Modelling
Reflections, Lessons and Directions: Race Relations, Class and Politics in a Northern English Town
In July 2017, the ISRF launched its fourth Independent Scholar Fellowship competition. Having received a number of strong proposals, the Selection Panel met in December 2017, and voted to make three awards.
A Visual Archaeology of Genocide and Slow Violence in Myanmar
Graffiti and Street Art as a Phenomenon and Consequence of Urban Crisis: the Case of Athens
What and Whose Justice in the Bioeconomy?
In July 2015, the ISRF launched its third Independent Scholar Fellowship competition. Having received a number of strong proposals, the Selection Panel met in December 2015, and voted to make three awards.
Dead Cities: Urban Ruins and the Imagination of Disaster
Producing the Victim. The Paradoxes of Intimate Violence Narratives on Trial in Italy
Between Planetary Urbanization and Thinking Forests, or, Ikiam University and its Living Laboratory – a Study of Socio-Ecological Change in the Ecuadorian Amazon
In July 2014, the ISRF launched its second Independent Scholar Fellowship competition. Having received a number of strong proposals, the Selection Panel met in December 2014, and voted to make two awards.
Banking on Democratic Television: Co-Producing Culture to Promote Public Praxis
(In)visible Entrepreneurs: How Young People Use the Urban Music Economy to Create Work and Generate Wealth
In August 2013, the ISRF launched its first Independent Scholar Fellowship competition. Having received a number of strong proposals, the Selection Panel met in September 2013, and voted to make two awards.
Coming to Terms: Mental Hygiene in Contemporary Serbia
Genomics and Knowledge Management in Innovation Systems for LDC Agriculture
If you would like to contact any of our Fellows to discuss their ISRF-funded work, please contact Dr Lars Cornelissen (Academic Editor) in the first instance, at lars.cornelissen@isrf.org.