Funding opportunity

International consortia for humanities-led research on crisis

• Opportunity status: Closed
• Funders: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
• Co-funders: Austrian Science Fund (Austria), Fund for Scientific Research (Belgium), Bulgarian National Science Fund (Bulgaria), Croatian Science Foundation (Croatia), Czech Academy of Sciences (Czechia), Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science (Denmark), Estonian Research Council (Estonia), Academy of Finland (Finland), French National Research Agency (France), Irish Research Council (Ireland), Latvian Council of Science (Latvia), Research Council of Lithuania (Lithuania), Research Council of Norway (Norway), National Science Centre (Poland), Foundation for Science and Technology (Portugal), Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation (Romania), Slovak Academy of Sciences (Slovakia), Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation (Slovenia), State Research Agency (Spain), Swedish Research Council (Sweden), Swiss National Science Foundation (Switzerland)
• Funding type: Grant
• Total fund: £3,000,000
• Maximum award: £500,000
• Publication date: 26 May 2023
• Opening date: 26 May 2023 12:00pm UK time
• Closing date: 21 September 2023 1:00pm UK time

Apply for funding to establish humanities-led transnational research consortia to explore crises past and present, responding to major social, cultural, and political challenges facing Europe and the world.

You must be based at a UK research organisation eligible for AHRC funding.

Each consortia must include at least four principal investigators eligible for Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) funding.

The UK component of projects can have a full economic cost of up to £500,000. AHRC will fund 80% of the full economic cost.

Projects will last 24 to 36 months, starting between December 2024 and March 2025.

Who can apply

This joint research programme (JRP) has been co-created by the HERA network.

The UK component of proposals must be submitted by research organisations eligible for funding from AHRC. This includes:

• higher education institutions that are directly funded or research by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, Department for Employment and Learning Northern Ireland, Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and Scottish Funding Council
• independent research organisations that have received recognition to apply to the research councils
• research council institutes

The list of eligible UK research organisations is available on the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) website.

Each consortia must include researchers from at least four of the countries participating in the funding opportunity:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Czechia
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Ireland
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• UK

Project teams must include at least four and no more than six principal investigators, each of whom must be eligible to receive funding from the participating HERA funder in their respective country.

When developing research consortia, you can use the partner search tool, which is designed for use by both projects looking for partners and partners looking for projects. AHRC encourages UK applicants to build geographically diverse consortia.

It is expected that any researcher based in countries participating in this JRP will apply for funding via their respective national funding organisation, and so their costs should not be included in the UK component of the application.

However, any researcher from an established international research organisation which is based in a country that is neither participating in the funding opportunity nor a member of HERA could be funded by AHRC as an international co-investigator. Their research organisation must be of comparable standing to a UKRI-eligible UK higher education and the individual must meet AHRC’s eligibility criteria.

Please consult the AHRC research funding guide for more information on individual, organisational, and cost eligibility for AHRC-funded international co-investigators. Please note that such researchers are known as cooperation partners within this funding opportunity. The inclusion of cooperation partners is not compulsory within proposals.

This funding opportunity is administered by the Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe (CHANSE). Please refer to the CHANSE website for full guidance, including the UK national eligibility annex which outlines full guidance on who can apply to this opportunity.

How to apply

This funding opportunity is administered by the Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe (CHANSE). You must apply using the portal on the CHANSE website.

Full guidance and resources necessary to completing your application are available via the CHANSE website, including the full funding opportunity topic description, UK national eligibility annex, and the UK justification of costs template.

We recommend you start your application early and leave plenty of time before the deadline to complete the submissions process.

You should ensure you are aware of and follow any internal institutional deadlines that may be in place.

No Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) system submission to AHRC is required at outline or full proposal stage.

Successful proposals will be required to submit their documentation to AHRC via the Funding Service once final outcomes are issued in October 2024.

Attachments

Your application must also include the following additional attachments for the UK team:

• justification of resources for UK costs  (using the template provided under ‘Supporting documents’ section)
• UK co-investigator CVs (max one side of A4)
• head of department letters for investigators who are honorary fellows, visiting fellows or on fixed term contracts (if relevant, see AHRC research funding guide for details)
• a head of department letter of support is needed for international co-investigators included within the UK team proposal (if relevant, see AHRC research funding guide for details)
• no generic letters of support are allowed

How we will assess your application

Applications to this opportunity will be evaluated according to a set of criteria in a two-stage procedure.

Proposal evaluation will be carried out by the independent HERA joint research programme (JRP) Crisis International Review Panel (IRP). The members of the IRP are leading humanities scholars, appointed by the HERA JRP Crisis funding opportunity board.

Outline proposal phase

In the outline proposal phase, the IRP will assess proposals according to the following weighted criteria:

• relevance to the theme “crisis” and evidence of humanities-led approach (30%)
• potential for research excellence (40%)
• potential impact of the proposed research (15%)
• quality of the implementation and management (15%)

Based on the input of the IRP, the HERA JRP Crisis funding opportunity board will choose the consortia which will be invited to submit a full proposal.

Full proposal phase

Following the evaluation of the outline proposals, selected applicants will be invited in January 2024 to submit a full proposal by 26 March 2024.

Full proposals will be assessed by at least three independent external expert experts selected from a pool of humanities scholars suggested by the participating funding organisations. Anonymised peer reviews (referred to as referee reports in the full funding opportunity guidance) will be made available to the applicants for their information and the optional opportunity to submit a coordinated response from all principal investigators.

The HERA JRP Crisis IRP will rank all full proposals based on the peer reviews and principal investigators responses. The IRP will create a ranking list consisting of the highest scoring full proposals and will subsequently make recommendations to the HERA JRP Crisis funding opportunity board for the funding of these proposals.

Full proposals will be evaluated according to the following selection criteria:

• research excellence (threshold 3/5)
• impact (threshold 3/5)
• quality and efficiency of the implementation (threshold 3/5)

Detailed requirements and instructions on how to complete the full proposal application forms will be shared with applicants at the point of invitation to submit.

Funding decisions

The HERA JRP Crisis funding opportunity board will ensure that the highest ranked proposals are funded, depending on the national budgets. The board will make a funding decision based on the ranked list of projects recommended for funding by the IIRP.

The HERA JRP Crisis funding opportunity partners strive to maximise the overall funding and fund as many excellent collaborative projects as possible.

For full information on how your application will be assessed and how the HERA JRP Crisis funding opportunity board will make funding decisions, please see the CHANSE website.

Contact details

Get help with developing your proposal

For help and advice on costings and writing your proposal please contact your research office in the first instance, allowing sufficient time for your organisation’s submission process.

Ask about this funding opportunity

General enquiries and help with submitting your proposal

Email: crisis@ncn.gov.pl

Include ‘UK applicant to HERA Crisis call’ in the subject line.

UK specific enquiries

Please send enquiries related to UK specific eligibility requirements to AHRC’s International Partnerships and Engagement Team.

Email: international@ahrc.ukri.org

Include ‘HERA Crisis call’ in the subject line.

We aim to respond within five working days.

Additional info

‘Crisis – Perspectives from the Humanities’ is the fifth joint research programme (JRP) created by the HERA network. Further information about the network and all projects funded through previous JRPs is available on the HERA website.

HERA is a partnership between 26 humanities research councils across 25 countries in Europe. HERA is committed to leading and developing funding opportunities for humanities researchers in Europe.

Please note that the participation of UK applicants in this HERA funding opportunity is not affected by the UK’s exit from the EU.

Supporting documents

UK costs finance template (DOCX, 34KB)