I am writing to you to remind you about the prestigious Fellowship scheme that Durham University offers each year at its Institute of Advanced Study (IAS), and to request that you draw this opportunity to the attention of your colleagues.
Launched in October 2006 to mark the 175th anniversary of the foundation of the University and now celebrating its decennial year, the IAS is the University’s flagship research institute. It seeks to catalyse new ideas by bringing together internationally recognised academics as well as writers, artists and practitioners. At its core lies an international Fellowship programme which allows the IAS to invite scholars from the full spectrum of the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities to address major annual research themes. Through dialogue and collaboration across disciplinary boundaries, its aim is to foster creative interdisciplinary research, leave a legacy of embedded research projects in Durham and to communicate the outcomes of this work to public audiences.
We are keen that the Institute’s Fellowship programme should attract distinguished scholars from around the world. Each Fellowship provides an honorarium (£3,000); a travel allowance; accommodation; and funds for teaching buy-out if this is necessary in order for individuals to be able to accept the Fellowship (up to £8,000). There are usually 18-20 fellowships available and each is for a three month period (either October-December 2017 or January-March 2018). Most will be awarded to individuals whose research coheres with the Institute’s annual theme. During their stay, in addition to pursuing their research, Fellows are expected to engage with each other and with staff at Durham, deliver a public lecture and an IAS seminar, and either work on a contribution (of approximately 3500 words) to the IAS journal Insights, or to establish a collaboration with a Durham academic (such as a joint publication or research project). Once their Fellowship has ended, we hope that, as a member of our international College of Fellows, they will continue to collaborate with Durham colleagues.
The Institute’s annual theme for 2017/18 will be Structure. This is a theme with significant interdisciplinary possibilities. A number of research strands are already emerging at Durham in response to discussions on the theme, with collaboration across all three Faculties. These consider, for example, structure in relation to temporality; the structuring of experience (for example through musical entrainment); structural issues in linguistic and cultural translation; structure and representation. It is already clear that this theme is of interest to a wide range of scholars.
Applications for the 2017/18 Fellowships are welcome from 20 April 2016; the closing date for applications is 10 June 2016. I enclose the full details of the 2017/18 Fellowship scheme and the Institute’s annual theme with this letter, and electronic copies of this documentation are available from enquiries.ias@durham.ac.uk. Full details about the application process are at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/ias/fellows/apply/.
I do hope you will encourage your colleagues to apply for our 2017/18 IAS Fellowships.
Yours faithfully,
Veronica Strang
Executive Director
https://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/ias/themes/finalIASFellowshipFurtherParticulars201718.pdf
https://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/ias/themes/201718IASThemeStructure.pdf