News: research and funding
On this page, we report on the latest news about research and funding in the world of socio-legal studies. This can include information from the major UK funders, launches of research projects or research centres, calls for collaboration, in fact, any aspect of academic research that is of interest to socio-legal scholars.
Items will usually be retained for a period of about three months, or until any significant dates have passed.
If you would like a news item included on this page. Please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Latest . . .
Funding call: British Academy Apex Awards
Funding bodies and other related organisations
International Research Collaboratives
Legal Education Research Network
National Centre for Research Methods
Science and Technology Select Committee
Sociolegal Model-Making Project
UK Administrative Justice Institute
Women and Leadership International
Academy of Social Sciences
The Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS) is the voice of social sciences in the UK.
The Academy is composed of over 800 individual academicians and 44 learned societies. Academicians are distinguished scholars and practitioners from academia and the public and private sectors. Most of the learned societies (including the SLSA) in the social sciences in the United Kingdom are represented within the Academy.
Please visit the AcSS website for full details.
AHRC
Research funding guide
The AHRC research funding guide version 1.2.
Researchers in residence
Researchers in Residence (RinR), funded by RCUK with support from the Wellcome Trust, brings together researchers, young people and teachers via exciting and innovative placements in secondary schools and colleges across the UK. The scheme is open to all PhD and post-doctoral researchers funded directly or indirectly by one of the seven UK Research Councils or the Wellcome Trust.
British Academy
The British Academy's funding page is constantly updated.
Funding call: British Academy Apex Awards
In partnership with the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society (‘the Academies’) and with generous support from the Leverhulme Trust, the APEX award (Academies Partnership in Supporting Excellence in Cross-disciplinary research award) scheme offers established independent researchers, with a strong track record in their respective area, an exciting opportunity to pursue genuine interdisciplinary and curiosity-driven research to benefit wider society. Awards of up to £100,000 are available. See webpage for details. Closing date: 26 November 2019.
British Academy funding opportunity: Education and Learning in Crisis
Applications are invited for the above funding programme. Please see website for details. Closing date: 4 December 2019.
BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants 2019–20: funding call
Applications are invited for up to £10,000 of funding under this scheme. Please see website for details. Closing date: 6 November 2019.
British Academy funding call: Knowledge Frontiers Symposia – International Interdisciplinary Research 2020
The programme supports projects which engage with questions concerning the relationship between expertise, public understanding and policy delivery, and highlight the importance of collaboration between communities of practice, disciplines, capacities and borders. Awards of up to £200,000 are available. See website for full details.Closing date: 23 October 2019.
British Academy funding call: Writing workshops 2020
The British Academy, as part of the UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), is inviting proposals for writing workshops in developing countries. These workshops should aim to support early career academics, promote the uptake of research emanating from developing countries in international journals, and further intellectual interaction globally. Please see website for details. Closing date: 6 November 2019.
British Academy: Brexit advice and resources
The British Academy has published a round-up of advice and resources on the current Brexit situation. See webpage for details.
British Academy: reciprocal schemes
Under the Newton Fund, the British Academy's international partners in Brazil, China, Mexico, South Africa, Turkey and Vietnam have opened further opportunities for research funding for collaborations with the UK. Many of these schemes are directly aimed at researchers based in the UK. Applications for these schemes are submitted directly to the country partner. Please see website for details.
British Library
Social welfare portal
Please visit the social welfare portal, test the service, and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. your feedback. You can also blog post about the portal.
British newspaper archive
A British Library partnership with Brightsolid has launched a new online newspaper archive with a list of around 170 titles mainly dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries drawn from British Library newspaper collections. Searching with preview snippets will be free. Content will be free to access in BL reading rooms, while pay-per-view and annual subscription models will be available for remote access on an individual basis.
The emphasis of title selection is predominantly sub-national regional press, and appears to have a family history audience in mind. It appears that the following titles are likely to be included: Cobbett's Weekly Political Register (1802—1835), a few Chartist titles (1837—1852) including Northern Star and Northern Liberator, Illustrated Police News (1867—1900), Perry’s Bankrupt Gazette (1828–1867), Freeman's Journal (1820 - 1900). Neither the County Courts Chronicle nor Weekly Police News appear on the list butThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. will pass on suggestions from British Library readers in the SLSA to the project team and Brightsolid (please include subject line' britishnewspaperarchive SLSA').
New moving image service at the British Library
1 October 2012 sees the piloting of the British Library's moving image services. From 1 October two new, instant access services are available for anyone researching in one of the Reading Rooms (at St Pancras, Colindale or Boston Spa) plus special access to a huge television and radio database. In combination with the existing sound collections, the British Library can now provide instant access to nearly a million sound and moving image items onsite, supported by data for over 20 million sound and moving image recordings. Please visit website for full details.
ESRC
Open Research Area for the Social Sciences 2019: call for proposals
The sixth round of ORA is based on an agreement between the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR; France), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; Germany), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC; UK) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC; Canada). Please see website for details. Closing date: 11 September 2019.
Administrative Data Research Partnership launched by the ESRC
Combined data from across government and hundreds of UK public bodies will be used to improve healthcare, education, business growth and the fight against crime by making it available to world-leading research teams. The Administrative Data Research Partnership will maximise the potential of administrative data as a resource for high-quality innovative research in the UK. See website for further details.
ESRC New Investigator Grants: call
Applications are invited for this new scheme. Awards will be from £100,000 to £300,000. Please see website for details. This is an open call with no closing date.
Higher Education Academy
The Higher Education Academy (HEA) provides services to the higher education sector for individual learning and teaching professionals, senior managers in institutions and for subject and discipline groups. Please visit website for further information.
International Research Collaboratives
‘Law, Reason and Emotion’ – call for expressions of interest
The Law and Society Association (LSA) has awarded the status of International Research Collaborative (IRC) to the network entitled Law, Reason and Emotion. Please see attachment for full details of this IRC and of the call.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is an endowed charity that funds a large, UK-wide research and development programme. It seeks to understand the root causes of social problems, to identify ways of overcoming then and to show how social needs can be met in practice.
Please visit the website for more information.
Law and Society Association
The Law and Society Association was set up in the USA in 1964 to support its members in developing theoretical and empirical understandings of law. See the website for full details.
Legal Education Research Network
For information on the Legal Education Research Network (LERN) please see website.
Leverhulme Trust
Leverhulme Trust: Funding Bulletin
The latest Funding Bulletin is available including links to all currently open schemes.
Funding rounds currently open
Funding rounds currenlty open are:
- Visiting Professorships: closing date – 10 October 2019
- Research Project Grants: closing date – 7 November 2019
- International Academic Fellowships – closing date: 7 November 2019
- Study Abroad Studentships – closing date: 13 January 2020
- Emeritus Fellowships – closing date: 30 January 2020
- Research Project Grants – Outline Applications are welcome at any time
Ministry of Justice
Ministry of Justice: Areas of research interest
The Ministry of Justice has recently published its Areas of Research Interest. This document can be found here. It highlights the Ministry of Justice’s strategic evidence gaps with a focus on long-term and cross-cutting gaps in understanding. The aim is also to engage with the external community to expand and deepen the department’s underpinning evidence base. The Chief Social Researchers at the Ministry of Justice are keen to hear from researchers working on any of the strategic evidence gaps outlined in the Areas of Research Interest. Please do get in touch and describe in a few sentences what you are doing. The email address is: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Court statistics
View the latest court statistics: published quarterly.
National Centre for Research Methods
The National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) is a network of research groups, each conducting research and training in social science research methods. It is co-ordinated from a hub in the University of Southampton and nodes across UK universities. NCRM provides a focal point for research, training and capacity-building activities. These activities are aimed at promoting a step change in the quality and range of methodological skills and techniques used by the UK social science community, and providing support for, and dissemination of, methodological innovation and excellence within the UK.
The NCRM provides regular email bulletins. To register, please visit the subscriptions page. The centre also runs regular training events.
NCRM latest research methods training and events programme
The NCRM has published its training and events programme for March–July 2015. Please see attachment for details.
NCRM training bursaries open for applications
Applications are invtied for NCRM training bursaries. The bursaries are worth up to £1000 and are aimed at enabling staff in the UK social science community to update their research skills. There is no closing date but the scheme will close for the year when the budget has be exhausted. Please see website for details.
Nuffield Foundation
The Nuffield Foundation is a charitable trust established in 1943 by William Morris, Lord Nuffield, the founder of Morris Motors. Lord Nuffield wanted to contribute to improvements in society, including the expansion of education and the alleviation of disadvantage. He called this the ‘advancement of social well-being’, and emphasised the importance of education, training and research in achieving that goal. Today, the foundation works to improve social well-being by funding research and innovation in education and social policy. the foundation is also increasing the proliferation and quality of research and professional skills – both in science and social sciences – through its capacity-building programmes.
New Nuffield Foundation funding scheme: £15m Strategic Fund: Improving social well-being through education, research and innovation
The Nuffield Foundation has announced a new scheme for ambitious interdisciplinary projects that will address some of the most important challenges facing UK society and the public policy agenda in the next decade. Applications will open from 1 October 2019 and remain open for two years with a series of fixed shortlisting deadlines. The first shortlisting deadlins is 9 December 2019. Please download the call for applicants and register for updates.
Research Cluster in Law, Justice and Society, Oxford
A new Research Cluster in Law, Justice and Society has been launched at Wolfson College, in collaboration with the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society (FLJS). The research cluster will join several other research clusters created under the guidance of college President, Professor Hermione Lee, which draw on the outstanding scholarly strengths and interests within the college to foster innovative approaches to interdisciplinary research.
Please see flyer for further details or visit the cluster website.
Research Councils UK
Each year the Research Councils invest around £3 billion in research covering the full spectrum of academic disciplines from the medical and biological sciences to astronomy, physics, chemistry and engineering, social sciences, economics, environmental sciences and the arts and humanities.
RCUK statement on international collaboration post-EU referendum
The outcome of the EU referendum raises questions for UK researchers and international partners about the Research Councils’ international activities and collaborations. RCUK's statment can be found on the website.
Research Excellence Framework
Latest publications from the REF: all submissions made by UK universities plus Equality and Diversity Advisory Panel report and HEI codes of practice
The 1911 submissions made by 154 UK universities to the 2014 REF have now been published on the REF website. The submissions included 52,061 academic staff, 191,150 research outputs and 6975 case studies on impact of resesarch. Please see website for details.
The panel overview reports and the final report by the Equality and Diversity Advisory Panel are also available here and the final lists of panel membership and special advisers have also been published. The codes of practice on staff selection from all submitting Higher Education Institutions are also available.
Full REF results now available
The REF2014 results were published at the end of 2014. For full details of the overall and sub-profiles for each submission see the website. In addition to the results, the updated website also contains summary data about each unit of assessment and an analysis of the 2014 REF results as a whole.
HEFCE to publish database of REF impact case studies
As part of the 2014 Research Excellence Framework exercise, UK higher education institutions submitted 6975 impact case studies demonstrating the impact of their research on wider society. HEFCE and its partners have commissioned Digital Science to produce a freely available database of these impact case studies. These case studies will provide a unique and invaluable source of information on the impact of UK research. Please see website for further details.
Research methods
Call for Case Studies in Social Science Research Ethics: SAGE Research Methods Cases
Have you completed a research project with interesting ethical dimensions? Are you interested in sharing your experience of the research process? We are looking for short (2500–5000 words) case studies which report the actual experience of researchers. If you have a tale to tell, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or see the SAGE webpage for further information.
Restorative Justice Council
Access to and experiences of restorative justice for BAME young people
The Restorative Justice Council is embarking on a research project to gain a better understanding of the access to and experiences of restorative justice for BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) young people who have offended. In addition to a lack of research in relation to BAME young people and criminal justice, there is also a perception among some practitioners that there are problems in effectively engaging and delivering restorative interventions with this group. The aim of the research is to develop practical solutions for the restorative field and recommendations for change to future policy development.
For more information please contact the RJC’s senior research officer This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Sociolegal Model-Making Project
The Sociolegal Model Making Project explores the risks and rewards of using design-based strategies, and model-making in particular, to enhance socio-legal research – that is, research that interprets law as a social phenomenon.
Please see website for details.
UK Research and Innovation
Operating across the whole of the UK with a combined budget of more than £6 billion, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) brings together the seven Research Councils, Innovate UK and Research England. Research England will work closely with its partner organisations in the devolved administrations.
University of Leeds
N8 Policing Research Partnerships, University of Leeds
A new programme of research and knowledge-sharing – N8 Policing Research Partnerships (N8 PRP) – is to play a key role in informing future policing policy, following funding for a major new collaboration in the north of England. Led by the University of Leeds and funded with £3m from the Higher Education Funding Council, the five-year programme of activities brings together researchers from a variety of disciplines to generate new insights with practical relevance. The programme's director is Professor Adam Crawford, University of Leeds. Please visit website for further details.
Women and Leadership International
Funding of up to £1000 for legal sector women available
Women and Leadership International is administering a national initiative to support the development of female leaders across the UK’s legal sector. The campaign is providing women with grants of up to £1000 to enable participation in a leadership development programme.
The scholarship funding is provided with the specific intent of providing a powerful and effective development opportunity for legal sector women; however the funding is strictly limited and has to be allocated prior to the end of May.
Expressions of Interest
Find out more and register your interest by completing the Expression of Interest form prior to Friday 3 May 2019.